Sitting through storms in Vero (Day 11 and 12)

Friday, April 25th

Air temp 79, water temp 79 (I'm not making this up folks), winds S @ 15-18

It was a quiet morning on Second Wind as I slept in a little because it was too warm in the boat to sleep well last night.  We had some of Laura's fresh baked English Muffins with an egg and bacon for breakfast.  They were GOOD!

Storms were heading at us from the north and west so today was going to be wet.  It rained on and off during the morning and we alternated from windows open to windows closed about every 1/2 hour.

Around noontime, there was a clear spot on the weather RADAR so we dropped the dinghy and headed into the marina.  We had trash to dispose of and I wanted to pay for a couple more days.  We were paid through tonight.

After paying for 2 more night and dropping the trash, we went for a little walk to loosen up.  I didn't want to go very far as there were dark clouds heading our way.  We only walked about 1/2 mile but kept the pace fast so we could get a little exercise.  Back to the boat and it started raining just a little later.  I ran the Honda generator about 20 minutes on our hot water heater then a few hours for our air-conditioning while the boat was closed up.  It made it very nice in here.

Laura took this picture of a neat tree near the marina office.  It actually has a palm tree growing in the center.  In the picture, you can just see some of the dried palm fronds near the top of the picture.

I had been smelling antifreeze from the engine room for the past few days and today it seemed worse.  Yesterday I had drained some of the antifreeze from the engine in preparation to replace the thermostat.  Then, I put it back in and ran the engine for a bit after I couldn't get the thermostat bolts out.  Maybe I had spilled some antifreeze that was causing the smell.

When I went to investigate, I saw the heat-exchanger (radiator on a car) cap was seeping.  I'd seen this before so took it off to make a new gasket.  I keep lots of different gasket material on the boat so selected what seemed right and went to the salon.  Laura is always happy to help so she jumped right in and cut out a new gasket with her sewing scissors.

 

When she finished, the new gasket looked pretty good.  It's the one on top in the next picture.

I replaced the cap and it fit nicely.  Hopefully, no more leaks.

But, a few hours later, we could still smell antifreeze.  Now we had some work to do.  Laura changed into "bilge monkey" clothes and dropped down into the engine room.  I helped from above as we removed the two oil pads from under the engine and another pad along the starboard side.  The one on the side was probably the smelly culprit as it had several green spots from antifreeze.

We used engine spray cleaner and paper towels to clean everything up then put in fresh oil pads.  Now it smelled nice in there so hopefully it will stay nice.

Yesterday I had taken the dinghy under the bridge behind us to check out the Riverside Cafe on the other side.  I was hoping they had take-out.  Turns out they were closed and renovating.  But, when I got back to the boat, I noticed their wi-fi was still broadcasting.  I configured our amplified antenna for their network and it's been working awesome.  It should, right?  There's nobody at the restaurant using it.  We were able to stream shows last night and I even downloaded on my phone a season of Vikings and Criminal Minds that we are re-watching.

Storms with lightning, thunder and high winds lasted through most of the evening but things quieted down when we went to bed around 10pm.  Then, around 12:30am, a big storm came through with boomers and winds that rocked us pretty good.  No sleeping through that but it ended about 20 minutes later and we slept peacefully the rest of the night.

Saturday, April 25th

Air temp 70, water temp 78, winds calm

The storms last night brought north winds that cooled us down nicely.  I think it actually got down to 68 outside and about 76 inside the boat.  Toward morning, I even had to pull on a blanket.

Today was grocery day.  We've been filling up our virtual cart on the Publix website and wanted to get it delivered this morning before the predicted afternoon storms.  Laura placed the order around 9am with a 2-3 hour delivery.  I dropped the dinghy to be ready when it arrived.

It was cool to watch on-line as our shopper check things off on the list and there was only 1 item they didn't have but we were able to select a substitute.  Around 11:30am it was "out for delivery" so we gathered trash (including all the dirty engine room rags from yesterday) and motored into the marina.  We arrived just as Brian showed up with a backseat full of food and stuff.  Sorry - we forgot to take a picture of us in the very full dinghy.  Next time...

He helped us load the many bags into the dinghy then we thanked him as he drove off.  What a concept!  I could get used to this except it seems pretty expensive.  When comparing the register receipt to our final bill, it looks like it cost something like $62 for the delivery MORE than getting it ourselves.  But, the website said our groceries would be about $30 more than the actual register receipt.  Dean said he knew from experience we would get this back but it would take a few days.  We'll see.  Next time we may take the 2 mile walk then spend $10 to Uber back to the marina.  What else do we have to do?

Laura finished putting away all the groceries and, after lunch, I helped to vacuum seal the 12 pounds of on-sale chicken we had ordered along with (3) 1/2 pound packages of deli-meat for lunches. In my world, you can never have too much chicken.  There's so many things you can make with it!

This afternoon was very warm on the boat.  Temp at 6:30pm was "87, feels like 97".  I took my flute up to the cockpit and played for about an hour but I was wet with sweat before I stopped - even with all the windows open.  I've been trying to practice more lately to increase my quality of play.  I played the flute quite a bit several years ago with my sister Denise on piano and me on flute.  We played several nice duets.  But...  that was about 15-20 years ago.  When you don't play the flute for awhile, all your mouth and lung parts forget how to do it.  The first time you try you can play a few notes but it's very squeaky and sounds like crap.  From experience, it takes about 2 weeks of solid practicing to get the good sound from the instrument started.  I'm almost there!

This afternoon was very little or no wind.  This is the forecast for the next 36 hours until the next front comes through late Sunday night and finally we get some nice (for me) weather of low 80s during the day and down into the 60s at night.

I took the dinghy into the marina with a load of trash from packing the groceries.  I saw Dean and Sue out on the back of their boat talking to someone so I stopped by.  After talking for a while, I ask if they had any trash which I would be happy to take in with mine.  They had more than me!  Go figure. 

The rest of today will be a few odd jobs around the boat and tomorrow will be laundry day.  It's been over 2 weeks since laundry in Marathon so, even though we wear our summer clothes multiple days, our laundry basket is full.

It was so warm this afternoon that Laura and I decided to skip dinner.  Neither of us were hungry so we'll just snack a bit.  Neither of us is going to waste-away-to-nothing....

Dean and I have been discussing when we will leave and we might stay until Tuesday.  The storms end on Sunday but winds on Monday will be out of the north at 10-20 knots.  That is the direction we'll be traveling which will really slow us down. Tuesday and Wednesday look like better sailing days and we'd get to Titusville for another cold front on Thursday.  Sounds good to me.