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Voyage 2005-2006: Chapter 4

Cruise to Bahamas (almost)

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05 Feb 2006, Fort Pierce, Week Four, 27 28.020 N/ 080 19.660 W

Life is good here in Ft. Pierce but we are all anxious to head for the Bahamas. The day to day happenings at the marina is certainly interesting. A couple of days ago, the pile driver boat came to move one of our pilings. They were polite, quick, and clean. They spent most of the morning moving or replacing pilings. Very kewl to watch!
SV Moony's engine was installed this Friday and Saturday. Everything looked good for a sea trial on next Monday and then we would be 'outta here' Moony was towed to Cracker Boy Boat Yard where the crane lowered the rebuilt Perkins engine into her engine compartment. Finally, Moony's luck has changed (or has it?).
We don't believe it, but we are here on Super Bowl Sunday. Denise and Wolfgang are learning American football for the first time. We are all rooting for Pittsburgh. Our happy hour waitress (Beth) reserved us a space close to the TV. By half time, we were feeling no pain. By game's end, we were struggling to find the boat (not really). Pittsburgh won, Moony had a motor, and we were on our way!

12 Feb 2006, Fort Pierce, Week Five, 27 28.030 N/ 080 19.660 W

Monday was the day for Moony's sea trial. Wolfgang started the engine and it ran beautifully for an hour and twenty minutes. Then the motor stopped by itself with lots of noise. A call to the Diesel Shop brought two mechanics the next day. Basically, the engine blew up. We would find out later that the camshaft broke and the cylinder head was damaged. The problem centered around a defective head gasket. Time to take Moony back to Cracker Boy's and have the engine taken out again. Time is running out!
Wolfgang and Bob continued their daily trek to to the Diesel Shop. We are getting pretty skilled riding the courtesy bikes from the marina to the shop. They checked the engine out thoroughly and found out that only the head, valves, and cam shaft were destroyed. The rest of the engine looked OK. Fortunately, the owner of the Diesel Shop found the replacement parts and volunteered to cover all the costs! An island of good news in a sea of bad.
Monday was also Nancy's (SV Dances with Dragons) birthday and she and Wayne invited us to the marina restaurant for dinner. By now we were aware that Wayne was in a lot of pain. He apparently pinched a nerve while working on an oil rig in the North Sea. He is not a happy camper as he can't do much in week 5.
Friday, we went back to Enterprise to rent our weekly PT Cruiser. We know all of the Enterprise on a first name basis as this was the 5th week in a row that we rented a car. We headed for the Lake Worth to talk to the immigration folks. Wolfgang and Denise needed to confirm the checkout procedure and to find out what their options were if the boat repair is delayed further. The INS guy was very helpful and now we know where they could check out.
Couple of weeks ago, we were washing the deck and some water found its way to our navigation computer. Yep, you guessed it. We lost a second computer on this trip. Bob said "enough is enough! I am going to buy a 'toy'". So off he went and bought a little Garmin chartplotter, and the XM Wx weather module. As he brought all of his toys back from West Marine, Ann turned the computer on and it worked! Now we had a 'toy' and a working computer. Not bad!

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