A New Day

This is day eleven in Daytona Beach, idle, waiting for a mechanic to grace us with a presence, or even return a call.  We had to do something.  We couldn't just stay in Daytona forever!  Jeff had spent the whole day yesterday fighting with the oil cooler, but without the proper tools he just couldn't get that ridged hose back over the new fitting, which was slightly different than the old one on the oil cooler.

Something had to give. We got on the honker and started phoning every diesel mechanic we could find within a hundred miles or so.  We'd have to pay extra to bring someone in but the problem was already diagnosed and all the parts were here.  It was really just a small job that required a few tools (and maybe a bit of experience) that we didn't happen to have onboard.

Bingo!  One guy said, "Hey, I have my shop right there at that marina.  I can have one of my guys there in half an hour."

Wha?!  Why had no one told us about this guy.  It must have been the jolt Jeff needed because he was so peeved that no one had told us about the competition right there under our noses that he got back down in that hole in the floor and with brute force jammed that wire reinforced hose where it belonged.  The hard part was done.

As refreshing change in our luck, the new mechanic did show up, as promised.  As we still needed a grinder and a few other tools that we didn't have, and with Jeff wincing in pain from his sciatica, we let the new guy take over.  With the use of his tools and the nearby shop, two hours later it was done.  The new mechanic, Wes, who it turns out we have common friends with, was shaking his head.  He couldn't believe that we were kept waiting for so long for such a simple job.  

What was really ironic was that while Wes was working on our boat Chris Brown, the guy who had kept us hanging for ten days, showed up!  For the first time!  It was a little awkward for Wes as they know each other but we got to tell Chris sorry, we've gone to plan B.  B-bye Chris Brown.  Priceless.  I will say that through this whole mess, the marina, Daytona Boat Works, was wonderful and treated us very fairly.  Our issue was with the mechanic they referred us to.

So just like that we were on our way, albeit with a close eye on the gages, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  We couldn't really be out of the woods and back to the mainly trouble-free cruising we've enjoyed for the past six years, could we?  Slowly our anxiety started to wain.  Oh yeah, we thought.  This is why we boat!  We love this!

 We really wanted to make up time so we put in a long day and anchored in a beautiful, wide spot just off the ICW with grass fields all around and a nice shoal breaking up any lingering wakes from the channel.

The night was silent.  The boat was still.  The sky was full of stars.  Even with the five foot tide we didn't hear any of the usual slappy-slap current hitting the hull.  Ideal!  A deep, restorative sleep was finally enjoyed.

We woke just before sunrise to the absolutely most glorious morning ever!  The water was like glass with an ever so slight mist rising.  The dolphins and the birds were all busy around us getting breakfast.  Everyone - us, the birds, the fishermen - were casting a perfect reflection across the mirror-like surface.   In a dreamy, ethereal mood, with steaming coffees in hand, we putt-putt-putted slowly out of our perfect anchorage.  It just doesn't get any better than this.

We saw lots of these poles in the mud.
Not sure what they were.
But a lot of people we looking in the mud for something.
Maybe clam farms?

We motored on for most of the day.  Finally, that nagging weight that had been on our shoulders started to lift.  We were making great time, mostly catching the tides just right to get a boost to our speed.  Ahhh....  we melted into the day.

Then, late in the afternoon just as we were starting to plan our stop for the night, a sudden JOLT, a loud THUD and the boat started to vibrate erratically in a most concerning way.

We locked eyes.  Our spirits sank.

NOOOOO!!!!  NOW WHAT?!

It was going so well!  How could this have happened?!  We had been back in action from our last break down for about thirty hours.

We put her in neutral and Jeff went to investigate.  We certainly didn't see anything we might have hit but we seemed to have acquired an exhaust leak as the salon suddenly filled with more exhaust than was healthy, not to mention safe. We were stumped.  Not good.  Not good at all.  

We set up fans in the salon and with heavy hearts called Tow Boat U.S., yet again.  We were surprised that they didn't great  us like old, familiar buddies.  Third time in a month.  We were able to putt along at idle speed without toooo much vibration until they picked us up for another tow.   A bit of research on Active Captain and I found a boat yard in Fernandina, which was just north of the geographic line which grants us a discount in our insurance.  A little silver lining.  Tail wedged back tight between our legs, we were towed in to Tiger Point Marina and Boat Yard in Fernandina Beach in Florida.

They were ready for us and hauled us right out.  Ugh.  It was apparent what the the problem was.

Ach!  Didn't that prop used to have four blades?!

We had lost one blade from our prop.  Damn.  It had a stress fracture that was diagnosed by a diver and repaired five years ago. The repair wasn't guaranteed but he said they often last many years.  It had finally let loose.   At least it didn't happen out in the Atlantic coming back from the Bahamas!  Another silver lining.  (Note:  Jeff later realized that the new exhaust leak was from an old exhaust clamp that came undone while the boat was vibrating from the broken prop.  Easy fix. Whew!)

I immediately flipped into planning mode.  We could get a rental car and drive to Daytona to pick up our truck while Jeff did a wee bit of research to figure out what size of prop was needed and then find a replacement hopefully between Daytona and Fernandina and then drive back to Fernandina Beach with said new prop and truck and maybe pick up a few more fans to blow out the still-undiagnosed-exhaust-leak and get it all done somehow magically before the weekend was up and we'd be limping on our way.  This would work...  We could do it....    I saw Jeff's shoulders drop.  He shook his head.  I knew it was no use to argue.  Gran Vida was done....   for now.

To complicate issues, well, actually to solidify the situation, we received an email notice that our extended health benefits through the Retired Teachers' of Ontario was calling us all home because of this Coronavirus.  We had ten days to get our behinds back to Canada if we wanted any travel health insurance coverage.  We have been pretty much self-isolated for the past six weeks or so, anchoring out and staying away from shore for the most part, so we weren't too worried about being infected.  But we certainly wanted extended health insurance coverage if we did happen to get sick.  

So the stars were lined up.  We were Canada bound.  Gran Vida will stay here and we'll figure out our next move.  It will be a surprise!  To us included!  That's boating life.  We'll just see how it all unfolds.  

In the meantime we're busy putting GV to bed and looking forward to a road trip.  That's always fun! Our house is rented out to housesitters for the next month so maybe a trip to the Eastern provinces?

This seems to wraps up our sixth season on Gran Vida.  Not at all the way we expected.  We were so looking forward to finishing our Loop this year.  So until season seven, if there is one, thanks for following.  Here's to living a big life!

Paying the Piper

When we bought Gran Vida she was already an old boat.  We didn't pay a lot for her.  She was comfy, safe, easy to handle and cheap to run.  Occasionally, as she was an old girl, people would ask, "Do you think she's going to make it all the way around the loop?" And you know what?  We honestly weren't sure.  But we've pushed the envelope and cruised on her for six years now and have had a GREAT time!  And she hasn't given us a lick of serious trouble.  Until now.  So you can't really blame Gran Vida.  We've asked a lot of her.  We've driven her thousands of miles, back and forth to the Bahamas a few times, took her out of fresh water and put her in salt.

So here we sit.  In Daytona Beach during Bike Week, when all the mechanics just want to ride around on their bikes and not be bothered by the likes of us.  We've been here ten days now and other than Jeff completing several projects and bending over backwards to make things easier for the mechanics by ordering the parts and taking off pieces that are in their way, nothing has happened.  Several appointments have been made and ignored as we sit here waiting all day with the hatches opened and everything all layed out for their convenience.  Calls and texts go unanswered.  And the clock is ticking on the time we're allowed to be in the States.  Jeff's been trying to put the boat back together, and he's a capable guy, but without the tools and the specific know how with this old Perkins, we really need an experienced mechanic.

I apologize if this post comes off a little negative.  Boat mechanical problems are the worst and we've had a bunch lately, but we're hanging in there and trying to make the best of it.

Here's what we've been working on:

out with the old water heater

...and in with the new shiny water heater

These are the required fittings I was sent out to seek.
I was pretty proud of the little plumbing supply store I discovered
where I found the prize.  It was like a scavenger hunt!

This is Jeff, wondering which wrong fork in the road he
chose that brought him to this particular dirty hole in
this floor at this particular moment.

A lot of suntanning time spent on this swim platform
scraping the old epoxy off the side of the dinghy in preparation
for the new davit ring.

This is our turbo charger (left) and old oil cooler which is broken
Note the piece at the bottom of the turber charger with the two squares
I drove to Jacksonville (1.5 hours) to pick up a new gasket for it.
Luckily, Jeff had schooled me on what I was picking up and
took this picture for me to bring with me.
The guy brought out the entirely wrong gasket and I was able
to say, nope, sorry.  It took him three tries but we got it right and I
and came home with the right gasket.
Another scavenger hunt!

So those are our days.  Not so glamorous.  Not really living big at this point. The mechanic assigned to us blew us off without a word again today even though we confirmed our appoinment with him twice.  It's kind of disheartening.

But to end this post on a high note, here are some pics from our Sunday break day from our pitstop chores.  It is bike week and it is a big deal here in Daytona.  There are bikes everywhere!  And they let you drive on the beach here!

Up the ICW

We carried on up the ICW for several days, basically driving during the day, and pulling over in the early evening to make some dinner and enjoy a peaceful evening at anchor.

An issue with our dinghy came up.  During Hurricane Irma one of the davit hooks we use to pull the dinghy up on the back of the boat came loose.  Jeff had epoxied it back on and it lasted for three years, but we noticed it was coming loose again.  We currently had the dinghy up on its davits but we knew that if we put it down to use we may not get it up again until we could purchase the required two-part epoxy kit and complete the repair.

So without a dinghy to get to shore for supplies, we were glad to arrive in West Palm Beach.  We pulled Gran Vida up to the free public dock so I could get to the store for a few groceries, very grateful for that well-timed convenience.  Jeff filled the water tanks, organized and took out days worth of garbage.  From there we spent the next few days just driving and anchoring somewhere off the ICW at night to sleep.

I read about an anchorage close to Merritt Island where you could dinghy to shore, tie up to the small docks at a bait shop and walk a couple of blocks to a West Marine.  Bingo!  Our epoxy kit could be purchased! We put the dinghy down and made our way there only to be frustrated as they were out of stock.  Ugh!  Now we couldn't get the dinghy back up and would be towing it from here on until we could find what we needed for the repair.  That meant we would be need to be taking it easy with the dinghy under tow and keep the rpms down...  except, oh yeah, the tachometer had just recently frozen up.  Yikes. Enough already!  We'd have to judge the rpms by the sound of the engine.  Things just didn't seems to be going well.

They were predicting a storm one night.  Looks like it's coming!

And here it is!  Wash all that nasty salt off our boat!

The other issue we had was that nasty exhaust leak that Jeff  had so cleverly McGyvered together in the Bahamas was coming apart.  We had the proper clamp on order for that repair and had arranged to have it delivered to a marina in Daytona Beach.

Also, as we were travelling we noticed that we were having water pressure problems in the faucets.  On investigation Jeff found that our hot water heater had rusted out the bottom and was in need of repair.  So we ordered a new one to be delivered to the same marina in Daytona.

It was one thing after the other and I was aware that all of these mechanical problems were falling squarely on Jeff's shoulders.  Mechanics are his department.

I scoured the reviews until I found a marina that had a hot tub, figuring my hard working captain really needed to soak that sciatic leg which was bothering him.  With parts scheduled for delivery, hot tub lined up, epoxy repair kit for the dinghy found and on hold up the road in Jacksonville to be purchased in a few days...  things were looking up!

We were almost at our marina when the oil pressure suddenly dropped.  Wha?!  Why?  I slowed right up and Jeff went below to feed oil to the monster. We limped into our fancy marina, tied up and shut the engine down quickly. We saw that we were leaving a bit of an oil slick on the water.  Not good.  Not good at all.  Something was very wrong.  We parked right in front of the pool and hot tub.  We would investigate and deal with it, but later.  Our exasperation had to be dealt with first.

My entrance wassns't quite as spectacular

We spent a glorious few hours sitting by the pool and then just relaxing in the hottub, until a local guy joined us and decided he wanted to sing the praises of the Trump administration.  We kept our cool and tried to keep our opinions to ourselves.  When he kept at it in a loud, brash manner and kept asking for our opinions as Canadians we tentatively expressed a few and politely pointed out gaps in his logic/facts (Trump has apparently made him lots of money in the stock market these past ten years and Obama was bad for the economy, which of course doesn't make sense... blah blah etc. etc.).  It didn't go well and he soon stomped off and hung a giant Trump support flag from the back of his boat.  We really were trying to have a civil adult conversation and were being conscious of keeping our opinions subdued.

A dinner out and a quiet evening was spent on the boat.

Then, as we were turning in for the night, I realized I had lost my phone/wallet.

Our moods sunk even lower.

The next morning, after a sleepless night worrying about where I had left my phone/wallet, I located it at last night's restaurant (cards and cash in tact!) while Jeff checked the engine.  The new problem was bigger than he thought.  With the engine running we were spewing oil out of somewhere.  But where?  We couldn't operate the boat like that.  A large knot formed firmly in the pit of my stomach.  This could be serious.

A bit of research, a few phone calls and we had a mechanic lined up a mile down the channel and tow boat U.S. coming to tow us there, with our tails between our legs.

Getting towed in "on the hip"

The timing was all wrong but Gran Vida was demanding a maintenance pit stop.  We were towed in on a Saturday morning with a promise that someone would be by to look on our boat on Monday.

With the weekend to fill we decided to rent a car and drive to Fort Myers for a much need moral support visit with friends and to pick up our truck.  If we were going to be stuck in Daytona Beach, at least we'd have wheels.

Boca Raton

We mosied on up the Intracoastal Waterway.  The first stop was Boca Raton Lake.  We've anchored here several times before and while it is quite shallow at low tide, we know the areas that are deep enough for our boat.  It has been a nice, quiet stop in the past.

Well, obviously we've never been here on a sunny Sunday afternoon during the low tide cycle.  Wowzers!  We came around the corner and was shocked to see the place was packed full of small boats with competing stereos blasting and young folks walking around in thigh deep water socializing. It was definitely a party zone!  We found a spot, dropped the hook and sat up on the flybridge to watch the show.

Note the old guys sitting there ogling the young ones.
Get a hobby, gentlemen!

Eventually, as the sun set the crowd began to thin out.  A fight broke out on the group of rafted off teenagers and they dismantled and drifted off.  Only a few anchored boats were left scattered across the anchorage.  We settled in for a peaceful evening while watching the stars appear one by one.

Just before we were about to turn in a sailboat pulled in.  Struggling to find a spot to anchor in the dark, we could hear them shouting at each other, and not in the nicest tone either.  They hovered around for awhile, deciding where to anchor, and finally decided our spot looked pretty good!  They came up right beside us, just ahead a bit, and proceeded to drop the hook.  Apparently their anchor rode was stuck in the windlass and they couldn't get enough anchor line out.  We know this because we could clearly hear their entire conversation from our boat.  They settled about thirty feet from us, drifting closer.

Jeff suggested to them that they were a little close to us.

They retorted that they didn't like that people from "God knows where" come to their country and tell them how to anchor.  Then added "Have you never been in a tight anchorage before?!"

I pointed out that this wasn't a tight anchorage and there was lots of room to anchor without drifting onto us.

The conversation degraded from there.

They drifted even closer to us and before we bumped they picked up and moved a little farther away, while periodically flashing their spotlight on us and shaking it, calling us Canadian bastards.  Not sure what the shaking light was all about but I did remind Jeff several times that they may very well be armed and to please just ignor their antics.  He did try, but Jeff being Jeff couldn't help a few juicy retorts.

With a jammed anchor line they were not able to get enough rode out to anchor properly and soon started dragging again.  At least they were dragging away from us this time and into the channel!  We eventually got tired of the show and went inside where we couldn't hear the hollering.

During one of our anchor checks in the middle of the night we saw that they were gone.

A great big empty anchorage and they arrive in the dark and
decide to anchor RIGHT beside us?!  Jeeze.

Heading North

We lifted our anchor at first light, motored out the channel to Boot Key Harbour at Marathon (took a short cut under the seven mile bridge) and pointed our bow North.  We're going home!  We've had a good run on Gran Vida here in the South but we're both ready for a change.  We're going to take Gran Vida for a long drive -- all the way up to Canada -- and finally finish our loop.



It has been stormy and windy lately.  Checking the weather forecast, few days ahead was showing one nice day coming, with low winds.  Knowing we had to cross Biscayne Bay, which is a fairly large, open body of water, we planned our course to coincide that crossing with the nice day.  After that, there were several days of "wind event" weather and rain so we needed a place to hide.

With a bit of planning, it all worked out fine.

Day one: We drove for about eight hours and pulled off the Intracoastal, and had dinner and slept somewhere around Key Largo.

Day two:  We crossed Biscayne Bay in lovely calm conditions, then drove through Miami, which is always exciting and provides lots of eye candy for boat lovers.
So many comings and goings and a multitude of bridges, most of which we can scooch under.

 We anchored in Oleta State Park, which is right in North Miami, but if you didn't look up and see the buildings looming over the Palm trees, you'd think you were anchored off Gilligan's Island.  What a contrast to the busy city.  Oleta park is an oasis in a sea of chaos and it's a great, protected place to hide from weather.

Once we dropped the anchor a guy in the next boat came over to tell us that the last boat that had anchored there had snagged a cable or something with his anchor and had a hard time getting off.  Oh oh!  There was nothing shown on the charts.  Thanks for telling us but I wish he had said something sooner!

We spent several days here hiding from the stormy weather.  I dinghied Jeff into shore and he walked several miles in the heat to pick up a spare fan belt he had ordered to replace the one we had just replaced a few weeks ago and also to get a new air filter.   Ours needed a change.  We have been running with a bit of an exhaust leak these last few days.  Jeff's McGyver repair of our exhaust system he had pieced together in the Bahamas was finally demanding a proper clamp.  The clamp is on order to be picked up in Daytona Beach and it will need to be repaired soon, but in the meantime we're running with all windows and hatches open for extra ventilation.  It's not too bad.  It's a relatively small leak.  The exhaust in the bilge made a bit of mess of our air filter though.  Unfortunately, after his lomg walk to pick up the belt and filter that was ordered and supposedly waiting for him, surprise.  It was not.

Finally, after a few days the weather calmed and it was time to weigh anchor and get going.  Ugh.  The anchor had found that errant cable and was firmly snagged.  Sometimes you just have to marvel at how bad luck seems to come in clusters.  We've been so lucky with Gran Vida.  She's an old boat and she really has been surprisingly trouble free.  It's seems we're now paying the piper.  First the fan belt, then the generator, then an exhaust leak and now a snagged anchor.  Jeeze.

We tried several different strategies to get unsnagged.  Nothing.  We finally called tow boat U.S. Fearing we'd have to cut the chain and leave our eight-hundred-dollar-to-replace-anchor there, or hire an expensive diver, Jeff came up with a plan.  Start talking money and he starts thinking!  He put that marina-worker experience to work, looped a piece of chain around our anchor rode and dropped it down to the anchor.  While Jeff fed off more rode I was on the helm driving forward, the tow boat used it's powerful winch to unsnag the anchor.  Yay!  We got to keep our anchor!  We were on our way again.  Heading home!