Wednesday, December 23, 2009

It was a very busy day. At 10 am we were at the restaurant dinghy dock at Snook Bight Marina where we were told we could tie up to go to the Publix grocery store. Gale stopped into the ship’s store to purchase marine batteries while Maureen did the grocery shopping. By 2 pm, the groceries were repackaged, most of the produce was cleaned, and everything was stowed. At 3 pm, Gale took Maureen to shore so she could do the laundry while Gale worked on gathering the replacement parts needed. He made some calls and then dinghied to the NAPA store to make some inquiries on parts. The guy at NAPA wasn’t sure whether the solenoid he had would work on our engine and said Gale should walk across the street to the Westerbeke dealer. It turned out that Roy, the man Gale had been talking to on the phone trying to get service scheduled, was located right there. He only had one service guy and he would not be available until Monday or Tuesday of next week. Gale told Roy that we could not even start our engine and asked if there was any possible way to get the repair done sooner. Evidently, during the conversation Roy became confident in Gale’s knowledge of the engine and his ability to make the repair so he gave Gale the parts and encouraged him to go ahead and try the installation himself. He would have his service guy stop by next week and complete the warranty paperwork.

Great news! When Gale installed the solenoid, he decided to test the glow plugs. He found that they were not even “finger tight” and when he tightened them down, the motor started right up! In fact, it had never started better! It would appear that the glow plugs had been that way since day one. With three new batteries and properly working glow plugs and solenoid, we were in business!!

Maureen put laundry put away, cleaned, cut and packaged the salad vegetables and made the bed while Gale took Lucy to shore for some exercise. We had a late dinner and were very happy with all the things we accomplished. Almost every day we ask ourselves – Where does the time go??