SARASOTA, FL USA
To think, a year ago I was in Ft. Lauderdale, FL prepping a 34' sailboat to sail the seas. I spent my Halloween in the yard at Lauderdale Marine Center...joy. This year I got creative, real creative, and put my captains uniform on for a costume. The owner asked that I join him at a Halloween party that his friend was throwing. I ended up having an alright time considering I didn't know anyone and they were all 20-30 years older than me. Yesterday the owner and I took a long dingy ride to a restaurant called Phillippi Creek. It was a cool "island place", with tons of random, but authentic, crap on the walls. Island music playing, open air, palm trees, all old wood for the bar, the floor, etc... I think you can picture it. The problem was that it was very shallow at the docks and right as we were coming in we sucked something up in to the impeller. We thought that we cleared it and went inside not thinking twice. We sat there for hours ordering oysters, sitting for awhile, then ordering stone crab, sitting some more, before splitting a burger and calling it a day. Upon returning to the dingy we found that whatever we sucked up was still there. We limped over to a nearby marina, tied it up for the night and started walking to get a cab. This nice couple, Carlos and Amanda, picked us up in their awesome car. It was an old Scout Truck, and boy was it cool. They took us back to the marina and came over for a drink. Well they ended up staying for a few more than one drink and it was really cool to meet such nice people. That's what boating is all about.
I woke up this morning, hopped in a cab back to the marina where we left the dingy, had them haul it out, pulled out an old plastic bottle, put the boat back in the water and drove it back to the big boat. I kept my focus on the dingy and being that it has never been serviced I changed the plugs and the oil. As soon as it comes out of the water I am going to rig up a salt water flush system, change the coolant, and apply an anti-corrosive lubricant to the drive shaft to protect it. The owner wants to take me to Captain Kurt's tonight were there is this amazing Beatles cover band playing, but I am so tired I may pass him up on the offer.
Sound Waves Out
No comments:
Post a Comment