Marathon, Florida

We started out the day getting a taxi to the airport to rent a car. From there, it was to Home Depot to get a replacement water pump, to West Marine to get some plumbing hose and fittings and to look for a lightbulb for one of our navigation lights (unsuccessfully). Then it was off on the 60-mile trip to Key West as we were required to make a personal appearance at Customs (ridiculous). Back on Marathon, we had lunch, shopped for some more groceries, and then Alvin and David went to work on the boat issues while I returned the rental car.

Right now, they’re closing in on finishing up the water pump and will then move on to replace the generator fan belt. My job is keeping the home crowd advised since I’m not as useful as they are in the engine room, and there’s not room for me down there anyway.

The plan is to get away from the dock in the next hour or two which should put us on a schedule to arrive in Mobile 48 hours later Sunday afternoon. I’ll keep clicking the little Spot Personal Locator as we seem to have a real following in Mobile, and Nashville, keeping track of our progress.

Update on Friday, August 27, 2010 at 06:13PM by John Samford

Ggot away at 1905 EDT with not anything really fixed. More on that later. We plan to run up the coast for awhile tonight to see how the weather is doing. More later.