Today marks the end of our first week cruising, and it’s been a week that tests our mettle and our self-reliance. We have had more problems with equipment than we have ever had in much longer periods in the past. For those of you who aren’t boaters, let me tell you that things happen on a boat that you would never put up with in your car or your house. And, there are not repairmen nor dealers nearby. The short list of problems is: two problems with the waste disposal system, a dead refrigerator (remember the posts about all the provisioning, much of which is refrigerated), a dinghy motor that wouldn’t go into forward (and not near the boat), the anchor chain ending up in knots after a bumpy ride down the coast, and the watermaker leaking and not taking in sea water.
Fortunately, Tom was able to fix or diagnose all of the problems, and we are, right this minute, in a steady state. Which is good because a front is coming through, the wind has shifted and the wind is howling. If we were in Upstate New York, we’d be expecting to lose our power about now.
But, we’ve been anchored in a wonderful bay near Cayo Costa Island (mostly a state park) only accessible by boat. We’ve had a great time and had very comfortable temperatures for the past five days. Today, we walked part of the beach and picked up litter. Although we filled a garbage bag, it seemed as though the beach was in much better shape than in previous years when we had done this. This afternoon, Tom mentioned a saying that "cruising is fixing your boat in a series of exotic locations". I was hoping that this week was the exception and that we were just getting all the kinks out of the system.
Pictures of this exotic location will be posted soon!
Joyce Cayo Costa Island
Lee County, Florida
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