Saturday March 17

We pulled the anchor a little later than usual.  We got moving about 9:00.  As I mentioned yesterday, we are having trouble with our engine driven compressor. This is necessary to keep our food frozen while on anchor.  George called Jack, who is still in Brunswick but is joining us in the Bahamas the first of April, to consult with him about our refrigerator issues.  Jack told George about Rob on dock 6. Rob has a friend in the boat refrigerator business in Ft. Lauderdale.  Again Jack hooked us up.  It is really good to know Jack. So George called this friend of a friend of a friend (you get the idea!).  He was very helpful and very knowledgeable.  In fact I drove all that day because George was on the phone with Jack, or the new refrigerator guy, Steve.  He gave us some encouraging news. We were ready to buy a brand new system because we know this one is old and will have to be replaced soon, but he told us we need to try to fix what we have first.  Steve said he had some customers in Ft Lauderdale and could see us down there or he could see us in Vero Beach. Vero Beach is our next destination.  So we felt much better. We still need to use the generator when we anchor tonight.  The only reason we have a generator is because we were loaning it to Carolyn and John on Indulgence.  Now you would think this is a great situation.  Well not really!  You have to understand George has a history with generators!  Just ask the University of Georgia.  Any way that’s a long story and if we had a tailgate blog we would explain.  When we got to the anchorage John brought over the generator.  As a precaution we placed the generator next to the gate on the boat. George also tied it with a quick release knot just incase history repeated itself. When we turned it on we got a red and green light on the power switch panel.  So we called Mr. Forbes our electric guru.  He was not available so we decided not to use the generator.

Strategically located 

In the mean time we had been invited to eat onboard Graduate with John and Jan.  We both took a shower and dinked over to Graduate.  We had a great meal and afterwards we were all sitting in the cock pit having some Bailey’s, and George said,” Is that a red flare?”   We all saw a red flare. For you who do not know a red flare is a distress signal.  So we had to call the Coast Guard and report that we saw a red flare.  We also looked at the compass and gave a heading to the Coast guard. Before we could call another lady called in to report it. We called anyway with the headings. The Coast Guard then asked, “if you are standing looking at the horizon and you are holding a coffee cup how many coffee cups high was the flare. If you know me well you know this could be a confusing question.  I wanted to ask a tall or a grande.  The Coast Guard called several times by cell phone, I guess to verify it was not a prank call.  The Coast Guard who called the last time even wanted to know the address and the registration number of the vessel.  He also wanted to know the names and address of all who was on the vessel who witnessed the flare.  At that time we were leaving so John B just told them were had left. Talk about government red tape.  They did take us seriously though because this morning we heard them on channel 16 asking all vessels to keep a look out for anyone in distress because there had been a report of a red flare.

Just another sunset

Now back to the generator.  Mr. Forbes called us at 11:00 pm so we missed his call but he gave George some instructions, so we will try it again in the morning.

I am sorry this post is a little wordy and not a lot of pictures but we were so busy I didn’t have time to take pictures.

Life begins outside your comfort zone

George and Freida