Wednesday June 29 - Repair Day (Ugh)

As I may have mentioned we stopped for the night last night in a Marina just inside the inter-coastal Waterway in Pensacola. We picked the Marina from the information stored in our GPS. It was close and had all the amenities we were looking forward after the first leg of our trip. The GPS listed features like, Fuel, Water, Electric, Ice, Groceries, Restaurant, Showers, Laundry, Restrooms, etc. We arrived last night as it was raining, so after securing the boat and hooking up electric, we told the harbor master we would settle up in the morning. This morning, I went up the dock to find the showers and restrooms and there was nothing there but a small office with nobody inside. I asked the guy in the yard and he said “We ain’t got no showers” I then asked about the restrooms, he pointed me to a single “port o let” across the parking lot. So much for amenities. We met the owner this morning and he is a cool guy, Chiropractor that owns a couple of Marinas but he rebuilt after the first hurricane, second one tore it up again and he is battling a bit with FEMA without insurance and with all the changed regulations, sounds like he might not build it back to what it once was.

Oh and my Friend Mike from S/V Kosrae, told me years ago that “Cruising is working on your boat in exotic locations” Today was no different. Last night our bilge pump wasn’t working and we pinned it down to a small hole in the bilge hose not allowing it to get enough suction. We woke this morning to no DC power. I spent the majority of the day sitting on the water muffler with a headband flashlight on trying to find fault in the electrical wiring. We took a break and caught a cab to West Marine to get the hose we needed and grabbed another battery just in case we needed it. I thought it had to be some major connection that came loose on the trip but just couldn’t find it. Finally after taking a couple of breaks and speaking to Mike and Mike (Thanks guys). It did turn out to be a negative buss connection near the electric panel. 5 hours to find, 30 seconds to fix. Figures. The good news is in an anticlimactic fashion, all is working. Yeah.

So tomorrow morning, we plan on fueling up when the dock opens at 7am and we are heading west bound. We didn’t really plan on spending a day not making any progress so we have a bit of ground to make up.