From MercAlert: Mercury went retrograde 3/22 and will not go direct until 4/15 (tax day!). It entered and will exit retrograde period in Aries. "So consult your oracles, slow the f*ck down, and keep breathing."
Easy morning yesterday (3/26), dinghyed up the creek but with our paddles and landed at a small city park that, if you crossed the A1A highway, brought you to a larger park that was on the Atlantic ocean. A beach. WhooHoooo! Waves crashed. The water color in layers of green, aqua, blue and aquamarine were stunning. Joy! But David was hungry. Surprise. He gets hungry and recognizes it and shares the info, so much more often than I. I just get pissy. No prelude. No explanation. No warning.
So the little beach grill - sandwiches and ice cream - with outdoor tables, to go, or eat inside. I had a kraut hotdog with fries (the kraut was grilled!), David a fish basket. Delicious. To the beach. But wait. It looks like rain. But we'll be wet anyway. To the beach. Wadding first, to test the waters, so to speak. Chilly. Windy. Ohhh, Okay. No swimming.
No, to the beach! Gotta do it. So I stripped to bathing suit and in I went. David added clothes and guarded mine. The waves were strong, as was the undertow. I got wet up to my earlobes, knocked down once, ran away from a wave that I thought might be a good body surfing wave, and was ready to come ashore. It was a pretty scary ocean...though delicious.
Dinghyed back to Grace and noticed oil dripping from the bilge discharge hole. Oil?!?! That's not supposed to even be IN the bilge, never mind coming out in the discharge. We were going to check the oil in preparation for leaving today so after a lovely dinner out ($5 hamburger special on Monday night at Mr. Manatee, only a dinghy ride across the ICW and under the bridge) we checked the oil. OMG, the bilge was swimming in oil! Dum Di Dum Dum!
We searched with flashlights, headlamps, mirrors for an active oil drip for about 45 minutes. Nothing active located. David said that tomorrow (today) we'd clean and put diapers down. I said lets do the cleaning tonight and diaper the bilge tomorrow. So we swabbed the bilge for about 1.5 hours. Finally closed the engine room up and went to bed around 11 PM.
I did a little praying to my sailing uncles and my mechanic dad. This morning we put the diapers down, took a deep breathe and started the engine, flash lights at the ready.
I spotted a drip at the oil filter. Engine off! Yes! a drip of fresh oil. Yes, more drips of fresh oil. Yes, the problem is at the oil filter. David discovered that the filter was (newly) touching a water pipe and the vibration had, apparently, weakened the seam in the oil filter and it was leaking.
He, Captain David, fixed it!!! It was certainly not painless but a much simpler fix that it might have been.
We reconstructed our engine compartment and our living space. David went to take a shower, find my bathing suit (I'd left it in the shower room yesterday), and dump the garbage while I readied the boat for leaving
So we're underway again. Heading toward Cape Kennedy for the launch...to watch a space launch. It will take us a couple days to get there but we're on our way again. Fordyce behind us. Buddying.
Both David, if I can speak for him, and I are tired of the engine stresses. Grace, however, has a better and better power train as a result of all the fixin's. But enough now. I'd like to get back to vacation mode.
Here we are rafted up with our two mates in Vero Beach. Grace on the left, Sea Dyce in the center, and a boat from Canada. In our case Canada and Seadyce were tied to the mooring ball and Grace was tied to Seadyce.
At each turn of the tide we all did a beautiful dance together...moving in the easiest ensemble movement, changing directions as fenders complained lightly. It was charming (and amazing given al the weight) how we moved together...just like NYC ballet with the ensemble doing exactly the same thing/same/time/same leg height, etc. And, all the other boats in the harbor were doing exactly the same thing.
DANCE LIVES . EVERYWHERE
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