That's Life

  While everyone this winter has been digging out, we've been just diggin' it. We spent some time on Sombrero Beach recently, and once the winds had calmed down, we gave the dinghy a workout.
  Not everything is idyllic at Sombrero Beach, however. On our last time there, we had another run in with a woman who insists on letting her large Labra-Doodle (Labrador Retriever/Standard Poodle mix) run loose on the beach. When Holly sees any dog running around on the beach, she creates a fuss, apparently wanting to jump out of the dinghy and join in on the fun, but even though she doesn't jump out, the other dog may run over and see what's going on. That's when the trouble starts.
  Several times, the other dog will try to jump in the dinghy to get at Holly, last year on Boca Chica, one tried to bite. That ain't gonna happen.
  I reminded the woman that her dog was supposed to be on a leash, and she preceded to tell me that her dog was on "an invisible leash". I wanted to tell her to get into her invisible spaceship and go somewhere else, but instead I told her to just keep her dog away from our dog. I used a word that starts with an "F", and it wasn't "friendly".
  The woman called me a "cranky old man". She may be delusional in one respect, but I must say she's right on the money in others. I'm cranky as hell when it comes to the well being of our pet.

   Why can't Holly just stare silently at the other critters on the beach like I do?
So avoiding the beach for a few weekends gave us an opportunity to go explore in the dinghy. Last week we took the dinghy to Hawk's Cay Resort, about twenty miles northeast of Marathon on Duck Key. For the record, I pronounce Cay and Key the same, kee. Look it up.
  We have friends that pop in there every time they leave Key West, it seems, and it's easy to see why. It's very fancy and ritzy, but I wouldn't want to take our "big boat" there. The marina is too far away from the social areas to suit me, and there is a mighty tidal current that whips through the marina basin.
  On a previous trip, we saw a place near Vaca Cut called the Island Fish Company, so on this day we stopped in on the way home as we had crossed over to the bay side. Happy Hour started at 3 P.M., and wouldn't you know it, we walked in at 2:55! Our brand was $1.25 per bottle, so we had a couple of those along with some shrimp cocktail and a Dolphin wrap. The food was good, and the service was better. We'll go back.
  Speaking of Bud Light...I was, wasn't I? A couple of weeks ago some blog readers popped into the marina here bearing gifts in the form of a six pack of my favorite beverage, and if you think it was a half dozen bottles of YooHoo, you haven't been paying attention.
  But life is not all fun and games. We've had some boat maintenance issues too. One thing was that our shaft seal on the starboard side had been leaking more that normal for a while now, and I finally got up the nerve to address it. We have the Sure Seal System installed on both shafts, and a spare seal is installed on both shafts in case we need them, but I decided to try to fix my minor leak without using a new seal, while the boat is in the water.
  I got a tip from a mobile boat mechanic we had become friendly with while we were in Key West last year, and he said I should try to clean up the shaft with some emery paper first, so I loosened up the collar on the seal, loosened up the clamps on the flexible hose, and pushed the collar back toward the hose to reveal the surface that the seal rides on. A little water was leaking in, but nothing the bilge pump couldn't handle, and I found the surface to be a bit rough. But most of that may have been salt residue. At any rate, I used some wet/dry 220 grit paper to clean up the shaft surface, then I re-tightened everything back, but only moved the collar forward a fraction of an inch so that the seal will ride in a new spot.
  Water pressure running from a hose supplied on the raw water system for each engine keeps the seals pressurized and keeps the ocean water out. There is a cross-over hose from one system to the other in case you get some blockage from one of the engine hoses.
  Initially, the leak dribbled to nothing, and over the weekend we gave the boat a workout out at sea, and the subsequent check found our seals not leaking a drop, which is how they are supposed to work, as opposed to a packing nut system.
  On our last dinghy run I found out that our fuel primer pump on the Mercury had sprung a leak. It's not the big bulb you might find on a fuel line running from the external gas tank, but a small button type pump on the front of the engine that can be pressed a couple of times to prime the carburetor. Any rubber takes a beating in this environment, so I wasn't very surprised at having to replace the $23 part, but I had to order it from the local Mercury dealer.
It only took a week to get and I popped it in this morning in about five minutes. I coated the rubber with some Yamalube sealant so we should be good for a few years.

  We gave Swing Set a work out by taking it over to Newfound Harbor last weekend, anchoring just off of Picnic Island, which is pictured above. We got there Thursday night and didn't return to Marathon until Monday morning. We co-mingled with some locals, met some folks we'd like to see some other time, and also met some folks we never want to see again. I'm good for about a 20/80 for/against ratio.

  By Sunday our beer supply was running low, but what we had left was icy cold in our Engel cooler. These coolers, like a Yehti cooler, are supposed to keep drinks cold for days at a time. This is in theory. An outfit like Consumer Reports will do a test on coolers, filling them with ice, and then tell you how many days the ice will last. This type of test is useless. Give me a test more based on reality, like how long will the ice last when you are opening the lid every ten minutes getting a beer out. We were on the hook for four days and used four bags of ice. Do the math.

  We had some fantastic sunsets while on the hook, like the one above, but really no better than the ones we get here at the dock.
  We took a two hour slow cruise back to the marina yesterday and stopped into the fuel dock to fill up the boat for the first time in months. I hope the six dollar a gallon fuel gets along OK with the $3.50 a gallon fuel. I only need a 20/80 ratio with diesel.