Century Club: mike pitchford

Covid has had interesting impacts on boaters.  The 2020 cruise season was largely eliminated by Covid. The 2021 season is shaping up to be a significant experience for vaccinated boaters suffering pent up demand.  And so it was that 35 boats with 70+ adults and over 20 kids joined the first official AYC cruise of the 2021 season.

This cruise was a simple early season anchorage in Eagles Nest on the Magothy.  The aforementioned 35 boats is more than twice the normal enrollment for this annual event. As it turned out it was a perfect weather weekend and the pent up demand for boating and human company was at least initially satisfied. 

The south Florida winter season is almost over.  Boats and boaters from up north are beginning their trek back up the ICW.  We will be leaving ourselves in a couple weeks. 

However today was a near last chance to take some friends out for a Sunday evening cocktail and dinner cruise. So we did!

Fully vaccinated since mid February we have been trying to figure out just what new freedoms the vaccination brought us in the face of steady to increasing COVID-19 and the threat of the "variants". Fortunately the CDC and logic suggest small groups of equally vaccinated folks can get together, especially if outdoors.  Time for a boat ride!

So five of us grabbed some adult beverages and enough appetizers to serve as dinner and off we went.  It was a slow trip south on the ICW a few miles, followed by a u-turn and a stop on the way back at a little protected county recreation dock.

The tide was headed out and the water was thin and getting thinner as we entered the rec area.  The floating dock beckoned and we tied up to get serious about the appetizers.  You could almost see the falling tide.  As a response we moved through "dinner" fairly quickly and got back out on the ICW with just inches under the keel.

We were responsibly back in the slip as the sun set.  Mom would have been so proud!    

In the service life of all good diesel engines comes the time to do some of the "big stuff".  This involves thousands of $ and a week or so for the diesel mechanics to visit the boat remove the after cooler, oil and transmission coolers, heat exchanger etc.  Actually, most service manuals call for this to happen every few years.  This year it was my turn.

Winsome Winn is in Florida for the winter and the nice folks from Shearwater Marine were more than happy to take on the job. They visited the boat to scope the job, prepared an estimate, came to the boat to remove the parts, came back to reinstall the serviced parts and scheduled a test run to make sure all was good. 

The latter happened today, a nice sunny and warm south Florida day.  It was a short run but enjoyable.  Unfortunately there was a small saltwater leak in the transmission cooler so off it came and back to the shop.

Any excuse to take the boat out!  Neighbor had her sister and brother in law in for a visit.  We suggested a tour of Jupiter by water to include a lunch stop.