Wednesday February 20: Out with the Old, In with the New :-)

So Joe and Joy (former dock neighbors from East 55th St Marina in Cleveland) arrived on schedule Saturday.

The nice thing about boaters visiting is they are boaters! No need to explain things about heads or shortage of on-board space :-)

They live in New Hampshire when not living on their boat High Spirits (currently on the hard in the Chesapeake Bay area).

Sunday, with perfect weather beckoning, Joy and Steve headed out for a day of dingy fishing under the bridge.

Loaded with live shrimp, squid and a bag of chum (a bag of ground up fish pieces which is hung over the side of boat to entice the fish toward the boat), it would be a short run and then hopefully fresh fish for dinner!!

I did warn them though NO GRUNTS!

It wasn't long after they left and I was settled in for a long read (Joe was at the local movie theater to see "Lone Survivor"). Mmmm .. do I hear noise and voices at the back of the boat?

What are they doing back so soon???

Seems the engine died - fortunately not very far away from the harbor - but Steve was able to get it to at least idle so they made it back to the boat.

So ended the fishing for the day :-(

Joe and Joy decided to take the tour of Crane Point - a museum and trolley tour around an excellent example of a Florida hardwood hammock.

We went there last year when Christi and Will visited last year and highly recommended it.

For info check out their website at :  Crane Point

In the meantime, Steve called in the experts! We met Billy several weeks ago - he was highly recommended by some boat neighbors here. Young kid just starting out with his own business - super guy and very knowledgeable.

After a short time, Billy indicated the carburetor needed rebuilt.
Seems our diligently running the fuel out of the engine when we won't use it for a while is not such a great idea as it just sucks up all of the junk in the small drain under the carburetor. Who knew?! As Billy was working, he showed Steve how to rebuild the carburetor. How super!

So off Joy and Steve went again. Engine ran great - fishing was not so great. Steve caught a really nice grouper (about 2 feet) but once again out of season. Back it went.

Then Joy got in the act and also caught a nice sized grouper! So big it took both Steve and Joy working to coax it up to the surface.

Funny thing? When they finally got it up - a big chunk was missing!! Most likely what happened was a shark (which are seen swimming under the bridge quite often) was hanging on it and finally bit it in half.

I argued that even though it was out of season, why didn't they keep the part the shark didn't take? Steve was having none of that - out of season is out of season. Seems like a reasonable exception to me .....

But a good time was had by all. Euchre at night (I'm pretty sure the women came out ahead), play during the day. Joe and Joy are here one more night but at the hotel here as John and Daisy are scheduled in tonight!

So - out with the old guests and in with the new guests :-)