We are preparing to leave for St. Petersburg in a car. A car! What a concept! We have our boat on a mooring ball in St. Augustine and we will be back in a few days with our decision of whether to stay or go.
We were successful in getting the leak from our stuffing box under control, at least for now. Cap’t K. was finally able to get into the project yesterday and tried tightening it….and lo and behold it worked! It was that simple. (actually, it’s not that simple….to get at this part of our boat requires us to take EVERYTHING out of not one but two cockpit lockers, unscrew some boards, and climb down into the bellows of the boat in a very awkward position.) We will still need to replace the stuffing material at some point in the near future, but not today!
Our dinghy motor is not doing so well. In fact, it is pretty much dead. It has been working very unreliably for awhile now, and Capt K had reached the limit of his ability to fiddle and tinker with it to try and pinpoint and fix the problem. So yesterday we found a local mechanic guy who came over and looked at it. He pronounced it dead, basically, and said it was basically just good for spare parts. We were hoping it was some simple fix, but no. The cost to fix it would be about the same as replacing it. This is a major bummer for us right now. Not having a reliable dinghy makes it very difficult to get ashore, especially in an area like this where there is a very strong current, making it challenging to row if you are against it. I love rowing, but inflatable dinghys are not the best boats to row, especially if you have two people in it. So we are really limited right now and looking for a new dinghy solution.
Here are a couple of pics from our walk around St. Augustine yesterday.
By the way, any donations received right now are going towards our new camera, and many thanks to those of you who have already contributed!!
Flagler College. What a gorgeous campus
Old charm in St. Augustine
Also, here is a little video of the amazingly beautiful entryway of Flagler College. This campus is stunning! Absolutely beautiful architecture.
Also, we finally got around to uploading a bunch of random videos that we have taken over the course of this trip onto our Youtube channel. So if you have some time and you want to watch a few of them, they are fun tiny snippets of our travels.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Thanks for being with us!!!
Hope you both have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!!!!!
Deb
Hey! Just got a recap of your sailing adventures as of late. Miss the both of you poppin in for some supper and a movie but I know the call to adventure is oh so loud and rewarding (at times). Erin’s camera has served us us quite well. Its a marriage between a digital SLR, vid cam and point n shoot. Its the Olympus Pen II, which runs about $650 or so. A bit pricey but WOW. High def video and great qaulity pics. Hope you all enjoy your time in St. Pete’s!
Yeah we miss hanging out with you guys too! Hopefully you can come visit us on our boat! When are you going??
Got back a day before Thanskgiving. Had a blast. Spent a lot of time at a sloth’s pace at la playa. When you guys are a little more settled we can skype it out. Good luck with making your decision. I find that we put so much effort into decision making sometimes that we get so worked up. Its then that I try to realized that the place you left will still be there and you can simply go back to it if you like. St. Aug. looks and sounds amazing. Erin says you should take up the ghost walk tour. As for coming down we are totally still thinking about it. If we did I think it would be around March when there is a good inch of ice beneath everything and I just can’t take it no mo. We’ll be in touch. One love
Have a blessed Thanksgiving knowing you are cared for and loved by many. It is a time to remember how the Pilgrims saved the natives from starvation. Just kidding!