April 28, Friday, Day 18; St. Augustine

Thursday started out pretty well in terms of fixing the fresh water pump. Our marina has a small, well supplied marine store with an experienced maintenance guy – Bobby. He not only installed our new/used water pump but also fixed two other leaks, eliminating the need for me to crawl into the engine hole again. We also ordered some sound insulation sheets (ours fell apart as we removed the stairs to get to the water pump) to be delivered next day.  We cleaned up and decided to go see San Augustine. As we walked out of the marina I enjoyed the tree and plants a permanent boat resident had added to his deck.

We enjoyed a Town Trolley Tour of Saint Augustine and then had dinner downtown at Harry’s right across the street from the Intracoastal near the famous Bridge of Lions where wedding pictures were in process.

Later we traveled to Home Depot &  bought all the tools we might need for future challenges, and got back here via Uber of course. Much to our surprise the faucets produced no water! The new (used) pump wasn’t working! So much for leaving today.

To cut it short, today was spent buying and installing a brand new water pump – Dirk’s project – and re-covering the stairs with the new insulation and rug material – my project.  It was about 90 degrees in the boat, the foam was hard to cut and we hadn’t been careful to note the order of the previous carpeting before ripping it out. Opps. I missed Ellen and Gail who helped me make the aft cabin curtains and to figure out the best way to do it. The stairs came out looking pretty good, but were difficult to reinstall. We were too tired to go far so ate at the marina’s Hurricane Patty’s- how appropriate.

(Note: I bet you thought this blog would be about TRAVELING on a boat – not fixing it!)