Normally, the prevailing winds in the Keys will be from the East. Which means, going from Key West to Marathon is Dead. Into. The. Wind.
However, thanks to TS Beryl kicking up her heels north of us, she was taking all the air with her and we wound up having good southerly winds, calm seas in the channel and pretty much a kick ass ride up to Marathon.
So in the process of such a smooth sail, we did....(husband suddenly hits delete key)... I mean Compy Comp starts working on our stainless in the cockpit. And a fine job he did at it also.
We did see a couple of dolphin along the way (the Flipper kind, not the yummy fish sandwich kind) but they weren't up to chasing our bow wake.
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Sunset from Lazy Days II at the Marathon Marina and Boatyard
Home of the most awesome Happy Hour specials on the planet |
After getting up to Marathon and docking without...too much problem in a temporary slip that was probably meant for the Titanic, we found out that they got their pool done. And it was freaking awesome. Beautiful landscape, overlooks the water, just a complete oasis. The new management company has completely pulled out all the stops to rejuvenate this place. After a 35 mile sail up the coast, a quick rinse down and splash in the pool and stretch out on the patio furniture was heavenly.
So, before going back to the pictorial. We cut to next morning. It's already 100 degree heat index by 10am, so everything my spouse said bad about me when I woke him up at 7am this morning was revoked...cause that's when we pulled the jib. And I can tell you, there would have been bloodshed and mayhem if we tried that even an hour later.
After finally getting pumped out, helping the neighbor dock the boat (because new guy on the dock wasn't passing muster evidently from the question: "You're new at this aren't you"), cleaning out our screens and doing everything to prep before pull, we plan on me walking down to the travel lift and Tim motoring down.
In a perfect world, he should have beat me. In OUR world, the simplest things cause consternation and amusement.
So, I will take blame because evidently I was in one of those uh-huh, whatever you say honey modes due to overheating and blood loss to the 40 million mosquitos and noseeums that would nail me every time I went near trees or shade. So any question asked of me received that response.
Captain gets blamed because he is the gear head of the boat and should have known better...which he admits.
So, here's what happened. In our grand scheme of getting as much done on the boat as we could while it was in the water and not on the hard..Tim closed the seacocks. ALL of the seacocks. That would be sump pump, head, air-conditioning, galley.....and engine intake. Oh, yes he did.
So, he gets backed up, into the middle of the marina channel and suddenly the engine is pissed off...meaning not happy, irritated, I'll probably quit working soon.
I'm walking to the lift so I don't know what is going on, if I had looked over, I would have seen my boat in the marina and nobody up top and I probably would have crapped my drawers. But Tim quickly realized what was going on and ran (fell) down the companionway to open the water intake for the engine.
We'll find out this fall if we have impeller damage, but we have spares, the engine itself sounded fine after water came flowing through.
After that, it was a simple matter of the lovely gents at the travel lift catching our boat in the slings, and waiting patiently while Tim dilly dallied around--until I said, if you want him off the boat you are going to have to tell him, because I think he's prepared to ride this bitch to the stands.
Needless to say, the boys loved me.
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| What? Nothing bad happened. May-beee. |
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| In she goes. (And I decided I wanted to be a travel lift operator when I grow up) |
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| Time to check the bottom out! |
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| Baby put to bed and waiting for her tie downs. |
