On The Move Again

Fort Pierce
27 27.02 N 080 19.35 W

Well, we finally left Vero. We're on the way to Marathon and taking a short stop in Fort Pierce. Tomorrow I have a mechanic coming to help me align the engine (I'm getting vibrations so we need a fine tuning of engine-propeller shaft alignment.)

Last week we were off the boat. My sister Marilyn flew down for Thankgiving. Libby and I rented a car and drove to Orlando to pick her up. The next day, we took her to Downtown Disney. Then we took her to my bother Ed's house. We all had a really great Thanksgiving dinner with Ed and his family. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday was a very stormy day. Three times, violent thunderstorms passed over and dumped lots of rain. I had to bail the dinghy three times to prevent it from sinking.

This morning I peeked in the engine compartment. The pan under the engine was all full of water. Uh Oh, where did the water come from? I thought at first that it must be rain water, and that we had a big leak someplace. I started siphoning the water in to the bilge, when it was partially full, the bilge pump started. Ay ay ay. A hose connection had broken off for the bilge pump connection. Intead of pumping bilge water over board, it made a dirty water shower for the engine and the engine compartment. I had to repair that.

Next, the Sirius sattelite radio stopped working. Uh Oh. As a rule, miniature electronic devices are not repairable by ordinary mortals. However, I had a suspicion of what was wrong. It has a crack in the circuit board that makes the 12 volt power connection intermittent. I pried open the case and then put a single drop of Corrosion Blocker on the board near the power plug connector. Corrosion Blocker is conductive. It is a risk because it might short something else. In this case, it worked just right. The drop of liquid soaked in to the crack in the board, and now the radio works OK.

By the way. I just ran across some outstanding beautiful pictures of scenery from Bolivia and Brazil. It shows lakes, mountains, volcanoes, and salt deserts. I had no idea that part of the world was so lovely. Check it out here.