Looks like Tuesday at the earliest

Captain's Log: 28 June, 2014; Hour: 2009

It's hard to believe that one simple part could hold up the entire operation but that's where we are. The generator needs a part that's being shipped from South Carolina. It won't be here until Tuesday morning and it will take an hour or so to install it.

We had considered leaving without it, perhaps having it shipped ahead to Tampa, but we were convinced by the dock master that having it installed by the diesel mechanic who knows the system was the wise course of action.

So, we've kept ourselves busy. The outside varnish on this old lady is in serious need of replacement so we've spent part of our time on that. On an old boat like this there's plenty to keep us busy. We continued to familiarize ourselves with the boat and the electrical system. She was partially rewired several years ago and apparently the owner didn't bother to relabel the breakers. We've had a fun time tracking down things like running lights and the microwave and the washer/dryer and things like that. We have an electrician scheduled for Monday (he was supposed to be here today but we've learned how that works) to go over the electrical system and make sure everything is safe. At that time he may either move wires to their proper breakers or relabel what we have.

We had her hauled today to install the depth finder from the Garmin unit. She already has a depth finder aboard but redundancy never hurts and since it came with the unit we thought it a waste not to install it while we were here. While she was out of the water we had a chance to inspect the hull work that was done back in February. Several planks were replaced at that time and she got a fresh coat of paint on her bottom. It was nice to be able to see that for ourselves.

After the haul-out we took her to get the fuel tanks topped off for the trip. I was pleasantly surprised that diesel fuel was only $3.86 a gallon. I had expected closer to $5 on the water. The captain noticed a little tightness in the steering and we're have that adjusted on Monday while we wait for the generator part.

We hope to be gone by Tuesday but reality tells me it might well be Wednesday.