"After all that waiting...?"

Here's the wrapped-up truck:

You can't see the little solar panel and trickle charger for the truck's battery. We figure, it doesn't hurt to make sure the truck starts when we get back.

Day 37. Monday, Jan 6.

Move to a new hotel in fort Meyers area. Found a Florida Scrub Jay. Tough bird to find because of habitat destruction.

Day 38. Tuesday. Some birding. Turns out the work on the hull was done a few days ago and they “couldn’t reach us”. Nor could they leave a message. Nor could they land on our missed calls list.

Day 39. Wednesday.

Back to Safe Cove for our second launch of the season.

The Through-hull repair was perfection. Not a drop of water.

Were there problems? Of coursse.

• I turned the fridge circuit off. Everything we’d left was maggot-infested. Took about an hour to clean everything. Some storage boxes are history. Clorox to reduce the likelyhood of mold continuing to live in the fridge. CA was furious at the waste. (And the icky maggotty mess.)

• The fuel pump (I think) was leaking under the pan under the engine. Maybe a half-gallon of diesel has to pumped (and sponged out.) I was depondent that we still have more engine problems.

Ugh. What now?

Important observations:

• Mr. Lehman started perfectly. Idled perfectly for an hour. Perfectly. The leak -- while distressing -- is somewhere ahead of the filters. No air is getting into the fuel line.

• With a diaper I did detect a tiny leak from the fuel pump. Some quality time with a wrench and a new diaper and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Day 40. Thursday.

Carpenter came to rebuild the cabin sole. The through-hull remains perfectly dry.

Now The cabin sole is safely closed.

We can finish this with a little teak oil and floor wax. Later. For now, the hole is covered. We have access to the trhough hull. The through hull does not leak.

Tomorrow afternoon looks (a) warm and (b) wind from the south to provide a little more depth for getting through the South Gulf Cove Lock and into the Myakka River. We’re both a bit nervous about this.

Problems? of course.

Now that we have time to look at it, the dinghy ("Scout") is not holding air in the port tube.

I dragged her all the way to North Carolina last spring. Inflated here, and waited. After a week, she hadn't lost enough air to suggest she was leaking.

Now. She's barely lasting 6 hours. Which means the leak is visible. And it also means we're not leaving with a warm south breeze tomorrow. Our "anchor out and live cheap" agenda depends on a working dinghy.

Day 41. Friday.

Locate the leak. A little soap and we could see where the tube was blowing bubbles. There's a a seam under the piece of chafe guard on the underside. I have patches and 1-part PVC adhesive. How hard can this be?

The 1-part adhesive instructions are: a “thin coat, wait 5 min until tacky”. Then another thin coat, wait for tacky. Then push them together.

5 min? It was tacky as I was brushing the adhesive on. 5 minutes and it was hard.

It peeled off in rubber-cement boogers. Mostly. It took a lot of rubbing and MEK to get the glue off so I could try again.

(It turns out, the better approach might be to use a heat gun, then wipe with MEK.)

The second time was paint adhsive on the patch. Paint the tube quickly. By the time I was done with the tube, the patch glue had started to dry in places. Second coat even faster than the first. Second coat on the tube. Wave the patch in the air a moment. Line them up and...

Hardly sticks at all.

I think the glue is bad. I'm replacing it with 2-part PVC adhesive. This one-part has too short a shelf-life.

After an hour, it didn't trivially peel off. It's not stuck down super well, either.

Despair.

CA suggests we use the mast boot tape. It comes with warnings that it's impossible to remove. A big patch of tape to hold the dinghy patch down around it's edges.

After 3 hours, I pumped it up to the minimum working pressure of 2 bar. It's holding.

Day 42. Saturday. January 11. Plans Change.

We'll be taking a hiatus. Everything's working. Red Ranger is ready to go. We're not. Family things.