Tuesday April 5: Back to Working

For a single engine 36' boat, it seems there sure is a lot of work to do. The generator was overheating a couple of days ago - the decision was that the water pump impeller (which sucks raw water from outside the boat to circulate through the generator to keep it cool) was bad. Unbelievably, we did not have a spare! 3 spares for the engine but none for the generator. So today we took the pump off and checked for sure. The picture of it is at left. It should have 6 arms on it :-) Some of the pieces were still inside - kind of makes me wonder where the rest of it is. Also changed the oil and filter in both the generator and engine as we wanted to have the job done when we return from California at the end of April.

The boardwalk is great for biking - wonderful breeze next to the ocean. We rode by the Diana Motel that is right on the boardwalk here at Hollywood - stayed there a number of times in the past. Then a 6 mile round trip bike to the pier at Dania.Lots of people fishing for pompano. Apparently they travel in schools and when they hit, EVERYONE has a fish on. Must be quite interesting as many poles were lined up within 1 foot of each other. It was very windy!!!

We are leaving the boat in front of a waterfront restaurant when we leave for CA later this week as the marinas around here are very expensive. A fellow MTOA member worked this out with the owner for us (his boat is the one at the other end of the dock- the MI-T-MO - quite an interesting boat that we first saw in Jacksonville several years ago. He carries a mini-van on the front deck!). The restaurant doesn't have breakfast though but we have managed to find places right on the beach which is just a couple of blocks away. Steve also tried his hand at fishing since one of the guys working here pulled in a nice mangrove snapper! The sushi chef gave Steve a small piece of salmon and tuna to try for bait - nice of him. But it didn't work as Steve couldn't get the big snapper (you can see the fish under the boat) didn't go for it. Maybe tomorrow :-)