Day 23
We woke up this morning to a frightful sight… The boat had started to sink over the night, and we had 3 inches of water in the back bedroom, and about a foot of it in the engine compartment – NOT GOOD!! We hurriedly turned on the bilge pumps and fortunately the water was leaving the boat quicker than it was coming in… Now to diagnosis the problem… We talked with the harbormaster and he called the local mechanic to come take a look. By the time the mechanic arrived the water had subsided enough to see where the leak was. Remember the strange sound we heard on the Ohio yesterday?? Well, that was the pacing nut spinning loose where the transmission shaft leaves the hull of the boat to go onto the propellers. Everything was still operable, however it caused a minor leak, and since we didn’t notice it until morning was able to look serious. The mechanic was able to fix the problem with a few quick turns of his wrench, and said we should probably replace the seal inside the nut once we get to FL. No big deal… Whew!
After we knew the boat wouldn’t sink we topped of the fuel tanks (151 gallons!) Ouch, going up river is not very economical… We pumped out the remaining water, and then it was cleaning time. The carpet in the basement was soaked, and stunk. We did our best with the gallon sized wet/dry vac and empted it about 15 times! All we can do now is let it air out…. Grant hired the mechanic to do some oil changes on the engines, and the guy was really nice and went through all the systems with Grant and taught him a few things about general marine maintenance.
Grant went up and talked with the harbormaster for an hour or so, trying to get as much information out of him as he could. I think he is coming up with another one of his “great” business ideas… Yep, buying marinas and living on a boat the rest of our lives… I suppose I could live with that!
The marina had a courtesy vehicle so we took that into town and did some more grocery shopping. Grant is such a food Nazi!
Our dreamboat drove into the marina about 8:00 that night. It was a 62 foot Carver Mistique, and it was beautiful! Two guys got off the boat and Grant of course had to go talk with them. The boat was brand new, and they were delivering it to Ft. Lauderdale, or Puerto Rico, depending on where the owner would be when they arrived in the area. They had left Alton, IL that morning and traveled 270 miles in one day, the same distance that took us five days!! The boat had two diesel engines that were 1,500 HP each. Comparably, Grant’s boat has two gas engines that are 240 HP each!!
After we knew the boat wouldn’t sink we topped of the fuel tanks (151 gallons!) Ouch, going up river is not very economical… We pumped out the remaining water, and then it was cleaning time. The carpet in the basement was soaked, and stunk. We did our best with the gallon sized wet/dry vac and empted it about 15 times! All we can do now is let it air out…. Grant hired the mechanic to do some oil changes on the engines, and the guy was really nice and went through all the systems with Grant and taught him a few things about general marine maintenance.
Grant went up and talked with the harbormaster for an hour or so, trying to get as much information out of him as he could. I think he is coming up with another one of his “great” business ideas… Yep, buying marinas and living on a boat the rest of our lives… I suppose I could live with that!
The marina had a courtesy vehicle so we took that into town and did some more grocery shopping. Grant is such a food Nazi!
Our dreamboat drove into the marina about 8:00 that night. It was a 62 foot Carver Mistique, and it was beautiful! Two guys got off the boat and Grant of course had to go talk with them. The boat was brand new, and they were delivering it to Ft. Lauderdale, or Puerto Rico, depending on where the owner would be when they arrived in the area. They had left Alton, IL that morning and traveled 270 miles in one day, the same distance that took us five days!! The boat had two diesel engines that were 1,500 HP each. Comparably, Grant’s boat has two gas engines that are 240 HP each!!
posted by Grant & Tabbie | 8:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home