Saturday, October 17, 2009

Cooling Off

Wow - it's finally supposed to cool off a bit in steamy Florida. While the rest of the country has been experiencing fall, we've been hotter and steamier than summer. But tomorrow's high should be 75! We're finally getting a break, yay!

This past week we've been pretty busy, socially and with Lucky. Here's the run down!

We had CJ, Margie, Sandra and Dan over for Martin's chili the other night. It was so much fun (and so filling ;) I got to see Sandra's pics of an octopus eating a crab - she's an awesome photographer! We have plans to go out diving with them again, hopefully this Wednesday. Thursday we went to see Hangover. Meh, not bad as comedies go...

We have some fun plans for this weekend. Tonight is Leonard Cohen in concert - woo hoo! I'm soooo excited! And tomorrow we're going to Naples to visit Sue & Armando. It was Sue's birthday this week and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again!! We're planning on riding bikes around town and then having a lovely stone crab dinner (or at least Martin is planning on that, he's a stone crab junky).

As for Lucky... Martin and I took her out on a sea trial on Friday. I haven't been on Lucky (moving) since June and I was all nervous! We did fine though Lucky didn't perform up to hopes. At 3400 rpm she's fine. That's slightly above our usual cruising speed. So that's really good! But when pushed full throttle - not so good. The port engine runs about 20 rpm shy of the starboard and overheats. The worse is that Lucky leans really, really badly to the left (at full speed). It kind of freaked me out. Martin says it's because the port engine isn't performing as well as the starboard so she "tilts". We debated letting her be as she is - so we can't run her full throttle - at this point who cares?

But then this morning (the drama just doesn't end), the head mechanic wanted to see Lucky and he and Martin found she was massively down in coolant. So it's boiling out of the engine. This can't be left alone. Sigh. So the work continues. Flipping raw water pumps between engines, blah, blah, blah. Another sea trial early next week but it'll be Martin and the mechanics. I'm good for now :)

2 comments:

Louise said...

Sorry to hear Lucky is still having problems. It sounds like you're enjoying your social time in Florida, though.

We visited the Maine Cat (power catamarans) last week, and they are lovely boats. We've added them to our "short list" of boats to watch for on the used market in a couple years.

While not nearly as bad or expensive as your poor port engine, our windshield wipers are completely busted, so we're stuck in place on any day with rain, like today. Waiting for parts is tedious, but we, too, have been visiting friends.

Good seafood and alcohol with buddies can cure even the most stubborn blues! Hang in there!

Louise said...

That should be "visited the Maine Cat manufacturing plant"...