This morning while Pete went to get parts for the boat, Bud went for groceries and I did laundry. Bud called me and asked if I could bring the dock cart and meet him at the bridge over the ICW. He had missed the bus and didn’t want to wait for another hour, so he walked back. He was just starting across the bridge and the groceries were getting pretty heavy. I met him at the very top of the bridge and so got a new look at the ICW. I took a few pictures that are in the gallery.

We all got back to the boat and Pete installed the new pick-up tubes. We started the engine and ran it while Pete looked for bubbles. They were there. At first we knew they were again from disconnecting and attaching lines, so we let the engine run for a while. The bubbles didn’t go away. We shut the engine down and Pete continued to investigate. Eventually he brought out one of the fittings Bud had bought for the new Racor. It had mismatched threads (flared fitting to pipe thread) and Pete said that was the cause of the bubbles. Bud had asked about that when he bought the fittings and was told it would work fine. Both Pete and Don agreed that it would not.

The specialty stores that Pete needed to go to for the correct fittings were all closed today, so there was nothing more to be done. We took Fuzzy ashore and then came back to the boat. Another man was having trouble with his dinghy engine, so we towed him back to his boat with our dinghy. We all got back to our boats just as it began to rain.

We spent a quiet afternoon while it rained outside, but Bud and I are both encouraged that the source of the air leak has at last been identified. Tomorrow, hopefully, the thing will get fixed for good.