On The Road Again

The Tolomato River
30 13.615 N 081 25.006 W

Well, after many delays we are on the road again. (I like the sound of that phrase On The Road Again, it would make a good song title :-)  

We spent three nights at the free dock on Sister's Creek.  The reason for that is our friend Terri came up with a great idea.  Jen is going to fly down for a visit in December.   We left the car in care of the marina in Green Cove Springs, and told Jen to fly to JAX and then  get to GCS to pick up the car.   Terri's idea was to park the car at her neighbor's house which is close to JAX.  Terri, very kindly, will meet Jen at the airport.   To make a long story short, we delayed leaving until today to drive down to GCS with Larry and Terri to move the car.  Whew, that took a lot of words to describe.

It felt good to be back on the road again with Tarwathie, but after only one hour, Libby called me to the cockpit.  She said the engine instruments weren't working.  True, but the high temperature red light was on.  A quick check with my IR temperature sensor showed 206F.  Uh oh.  I looked over the side, there was plenty of raw water squirting out.    A few seconds later, I opened the engine compartment and spotted the cause.  It was a broken fan belt.  That took me only 30 minutes to replace and we are on our way once again.  Thank God for on-board spare parts.

Kudos to Libby for being so alert on watch.  I might not have noticed that red light, and I never hear audio alarms even with hearing aids.

So, our plan is to make it to the Westsail Rendezvous at Port Canaveral Yacht Club November 6-8.   It should work out well.  Anchor near Saint Augustine tonight, Daytona Beach Tuesday, Titusville, Wednesday, Banana River Thursday, and to the rendezvous Friday.  The only trouble is the lock at Canaveral which is closed for construction 6AM-6PM Monday-Friday.  Boo.  That means we'll have to pass the lock in the dark before dawn or after dusk.

p.s. I've had maybe 4 fan belts break in 55 years.  I do periodic visual inspections of the belts, but I've never seen any sign of wear before they break.   What exactly am I supposed to look for?