We really left!

We are finally on our way.

On our way back to Key Largo from Boca Grande we had found our motor dripless dripping (that obviously is a bad thing ;-)), so we hurried back home. We were hoping for a quick repair without having to haul out, and our friends Ray and Genna came to the rescue. Ray assessed the problem and ordered the parts, but it would take at least a week for the parts to get to Key Largo. So we settled in for a stay in Port Largo for close to 2 weeks – not what we had hoped for but necessary.

Since we had slept so well without air conditioning and just a fan, we settled on a middle way – we set the A/C to 83 degrees and slept with a fan, and enjoyed our air conditioned home during the day, which made for much more fun repairs down below.

Almost 2 weeks later we were ready to leave again, thanks to our “motor whisperer” Ray and his wonderful Genna. Ray found a few more problems in the process, so more motor and helm parts were fixed, and we planned to leave a day later. Realizing we still had lots to take care of we delayed another day, and Monday the 12th of August we gave up both of our cars and got ready to leave. Rob was not feeling well with an infection, and so we ended up at Urgent Care instead of leaving the dock. He would be ok, and armed with antibiotics we finally set out on Tuesday.

We waved goodbye to all our friends on the dock, and about 6 minutes later (we were still in Port Largo canal), the engine overheated again. What a deja-vu nightmare!!! We limped out of the jetty and achored to see if we could find the problem. We were both VERY intent on not going back into Port Largo! With the help of our friend Kim to the recue again on the phone, we tested every raw water system we all could think of, but found nothing wrong. Next on to the freshwater system, and finally found the coolant leak that was causing the overheat. Fixed the leak, refilled the coolant, everythig worked again, and we were off again, not having to return to the “harbor of shame”.

By then it was almost 4 pm, so we headed north to moor up at Elbow Reef, that was as far as we were going to get considering there was no wind. We spent the night rocking and rolling (with pretty unhappy cats) and started heading into the Gulf Stream the next morning.

Early this morning we passed Carysfort Reef Lighthouse which has an interesting story. Begun in 1848 and finished in 1852 it was the first Screwpile Lighthouse built . By screwing the legs deeply into the coral and having a circular profile the intention was to lessen the wind impact . It was manned until the 1950’s and is still running today . Can’t imagine sitting through a hurricane out here !

We made good progress going north in the Gulf Stream, after having realized that sailing was out of the picture as the wind was blowing between 1 and 3 knots. We rode the Gulf Stream up to Key Biscayne, and followed the breadcrumbs from our delivery trip to a nice anchorage Mark had shown us. Very nice and calm anchorage with a nice view of Miami:

The cats were really happy that the boat was not moving fromside to side, and finally came out of their cubby holes :-). Tomorrow is an early start to ride the Gulf Stream again and get as far north as possible…