The Next Day

1/7/2019  Monday
    We stayed in port today.  We met several people who are traveling on the route, all starting at different places, at various times.  Most are heading for south Florida to spend time for the winter.  We spent the day, staying busy with chores.  We exercised, then Karl had to fix the water intake on the boat, which had broken.  People often ask, “What do you do all day on a boat?”  It turns out there are lots of things to keep us busy.  Now, we don’t have a car, so we have to walk or bike to places.  We walked to the Post Office, walked to a restaurant for lunch, walked to the ACE hardware (one of Karl’s favorite places)!  And walked to the IGA.  Karl stayed busy washing the anchor chain, which had gotten muddy when we anchored.  He is very handy at fixing things, thank goodness or we just could not do this.  Things break all the time on a boat.  I went to the laundromat to wash clothes. We talked with our new “looper” friends and discussed the next day’s crossing of the Gulf of Mexico to Clearwater.  We will do the crossing, along with the family in the boat Have Another Day.
    We ate dinner on the boat and enjoyed the big football win of Clemson beating Alabama for the national championship!

1/8/2019. Tuesday
     We woke up bright and early (5:30am), getting everything prepared on the boat for the 150 nautical mile trip across the open ocean, which will take about 8 hours.  We can travel at about 19-20 knots. This includes turning on the generator, unhooking the shore power, getting the fenders off and secured.  Karl checks the engine oil and coolant levels and checks for water in the fuel.  He does this every time before he starts the engines.  We have two Cummins 540 horsepower engines.  Our boat is a 50 foot Mikelson sport fisherman.  I always secure everything inside the boat for the trip.  We walk Salty.
     We planned  to leave at 7:00 am with Have Another Day.  We wiped the windows down, turned the heat on the fly bridge and cranked the engines. The starboard engine did not crank.  We spoke to our new friends who were crossing with us and fortunately they had some ideas of what it could be.  He suggested that it could be the starter or the solenoid.  Karl took a mallot and tapped the solenoid pretty hard, after a few tries, it turned over!  Thank goodness, I had visions of having to miss this wonderful “good weather window” and the opportunity to cross along with another experienced boater!
     We enjoyed a perfectly beautiful smooth crossing, could not have been any better!  Saw lots of dolphins! We stayed in touch with Have Another Day and ended up staying in the Clearwater Beach Municipal marina right next to them.  They have been so helpful and a wealth of information, having done the loop before.  As always, very thankful to have arrived at our destination safe and sound!
    We fueled up and got into our slip for the night, hooking up to power and water.  Salty was so happy to take a nice long walk and find grass!