In scuba diving they say "plan the dive and dive the plan". When doing something complicated or potentially dangerous you need to get your ducks in a row before you do it. We planned this trip as much as possible but you still never know what's going to pop up and blow that plan to pieces. We weren't supposed to be launched yesterday until 3:00 in the afternoon but we were awoke to the sound of travel lifts running around the yard and Dorice decided to go charm the guys running one to put us in. It worked....by 10:00 we were in the water. No leaks, dry bilge, the diesel fired up first shot. All Is good! We waited for our 2:00 tide window to get out of the marina and cast off. Finally!!! We're on our way.....NOT! The engine high temp warning starts blaring like a fire engine.....back to the dock we go. The yard mechanic watched us as we pulled out and said we had water coming out the back but I still thought it may be the impeller so out come the tools. The fresh water pump is actually very easily accessible on the yanmar 3GM and I had the cover off the back in 5 minutes to show a perfectly healthy impeller. Crap. Now what? I fired it back up and in 5 minutes the alarm goes off again. I started by disconnecting hoses in the fresh water supply side of the heat exchanger and saw the water was pumping as it was supposed to be and started to get the sick feeling that it may be the water pump on the engine side that circulates the anti freeze in the closed system. luckily, the local boat store had one, not so luckily, it was$495.00. I still suspected the problem was on the fresh water side because everything looked ok on the closed side so I felt around all the fresh water and anti freeze hoses going in and out of the heat exchanger and noticed the fresh water hose coming out felt really stiff and even crunched when I squeezed it. I pulled it off to find a blob of rust and goo jammed in it. Just to confirm my suspicion I got a ten foot section of hose and connected it to the fresh water output of the heat exchanger and ran the boat. Voila. Cool motor. Ok so now I have to figure out how to get the goo out of the riser on the heat exchanger.....an hour later it was clean, engine is running fine....it's 5:00, we missed our tide window. However, the locals tell me there is still enough water in the channel on this particular low tide for me to get out so I'm going for it. After all the weeks of planning and anticipation and staring at the picture of this boat on my screen saver, then staring at that bridge half a mile up the creek that I have to get under....I'M GOING SAILING DAMN IT!!! We head up the creek (no pun intended) and pass a sailboat coming in. He yells to us "the rt 35 bridge is broken, they can't open it, we've been sitting there for an hour! Back to the marina for the night.

So....here we sit, Saturday morning, hoping they fixed the bridge so we can finally start this trip. All of the tide charts I had planned out are blown to bits. I stopped planning. Gonna see where the wind takes us today. Even if the sails aren't up.