Captain’s Log – Sat 5/17/25
With fingers crossed we took the dinghy to Tavernier Creek on the quest to get the replacement water pump for our engine. Craig’s Bait shop was nice enough to let us tie up for a couple hours. We then took a $60 round trip Uber back to the marina in Key Largo we left a couple days ago where we had the pump overnighted to for $90. At least I didn’t have to get a plane ticket like the parts run in Freeport. We made a side trip to Napa for more coolant and some liquid gasket just in case. We got ice at the bait shop, a new filet knife to replace the scamazon one I had and some chips. I felt like we should buy something there since we tied up there.
The installation went smoothly. There were two spare gaskets on board so no need for the liquid gasket. I was actually able to save about 95% of the coolant and reuse it. I didn’t want it going overboard in such beautiful water down here. The only challenge was doing the job in the 95 degree cabin, which got even hotter when I tested the engine. That wiped me out. Had to jump in the water to cool off, so I scrubbed the waterline while I was at it.
Mahalo’s to my friend Art whose super power is locating obscure parts in stock somewhere, to Discount Marine who made sure the shipment made it to UPS in time for next day delivery, to UPS the second time on this trip, for getting the package to me overnight, and finally to Craig’s bait shop for letting us tie up to run errands.
Tomorrow morning we will head further south to do some snorkeling and diving. Between the weather delay earlier this week and the engine breakdown it would put us in Key West Memorial Day weekend. Which would be ok if everything wasn’t booked up. So between the delays and the sudden heat wave, we will likely start heading back to St Pete when we get to Marathon. Sadly we’ll miss all of our friends that just got to Key West with the Bone Island Regatta.
✌️❤️⛵️
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