Day 98, Year 11: Be Careful What You Wish For
Date: Thursday, January 28, 2016
Weather: Still Overcast and Still Rainy
Location: Anchored in the West Palm Beach City Anchorage, FL
Be careful what you wish for. In last night’s log I said that we had really hoped to just sit here for at least a week and it looks like that is going to happen. In fact, we’ll probably be here for as long as we are allowed to stay. A few things happened today that changed our plans for heading to the Bahamas. That trip is now on hold. There was a break in the rain overnight and in the early morning, so the dinghy motor repair guy called and wanted to pick the motor up today. We got it to shore and by noon we found out that it is not going to be a cheap fix, if it can be repaired at all. So we have to deal with that as you certainly can’t head to the Bahamas without transportation to shore. So that was one set-back. Then Mark got an email inviting him to do another consulting job between now and the first of March. Since we were suddenly looking at an expensive repair bill for our dinghy motor, that certainly sounded invited. But Mark has to have ready access to cell service to do this, and we wouldn’t have that in the Bahamas. Add to that the pressure the weather was putting on Mark when he still has a cold and still has some stomach issues, and leaving for the Bahamas on Tuesday starting sounding like a really bad idea. So we have changed our plans. To what, I’m not sure, but we will stay in Florida through the month of February and figure out if going to the Bahamas in March might be a possibility. But for now, we’re just going to stay put and deal with the issues at hand.
Now for the dinghy motor story . . . t repair man first called to tell us that we needed a new crankshaft to the tune of $1,000. Mark then suggested a few other things for the guy to try. When we talked to him late this afternoon, he still was not successful in getting the motor to start. He thinks that the main bearings in the crankshaft are frozen, but he can’t know that for sure without taking it apart which will cost $150 on top of the $100 we owe him from today. If replacing the bearings will do it, then we will ‘only’ owe him $700. We told him to go ahead and find out if replacing the bearings will do it, but we’re not sure it is worth having this done. This guy says it is a shame to just trash this engine, and we agree, so we’ll hope that replacing the bearings will do the trick. If not, we have to buy a new motor or find a used one. Mark talked to his brother today and he has a couple of old Johnson 15 hp motors just sitting around. Since we are going to Steve’s on Saturday, we’ll definitely take a look at those.
We are going ahead with our plans to visit with family. We were in the ‘hurry up’ mode to see them since we thought we were leaving early next week, so we made those plans. Tomorrow Brad and Sue (my sister-in-law) will come pick us up and take us to their house in Boynton Beach for the day. Then on Saturday morning Mark’s brother will pick us up and take us over to the Gulf Coast. We’ll then return here either on Monday or Tuesday and start sitting still and relaxing!
