Monday 27th January 2020.
If you can analyze the tone of my postings you might be able to tell that I am seriously stressed out. I am concerned about getting to Deltaville in time to take advantage of the really cheap fares. I am stressed about any little thing that goes wrong with the boat. I have a cold....

Last night as I lay in my bunk I had to deliberately biofeedback myself to calm my heart rate down. It took a while but I got it down from 87 to 57 or so. Where it should be.

Shrillll.....

Ok. Whine over.

On the positive side, we have until the end of the week to still be in January and get out of Florida and past Georgia to remain on schedule. This can be accomplished I believe.

Last night, to get over everything, we thought that we would spend some more money and give us a break from galley duties. So, we went out to a restaurant on the property of the marina called Marker 32. If anyone is ever in Jacksonville this is definitely a place you should try. We had a duck confit on flatbread and an order of calamari with Vietnamese style piquant drizzle for starters which we shared. Barb normally doesn’t like the latter but this might have converted her. As a main course we split a Pad Thai and good thing too. Even only the half each defeated us. We will be having the rest of it for lunch today. Check out their website www.marker32.com One thing about US restaurants, even the upscale ones, the portions are huge! Barb and I have often commented that US tourists to Canada must feel cheated at the portions they get in Canadian restaurants. Last night we watched people get served a rib eye steak that would be defined as a rib roast for a family of four at home.

One positive piece of news. This morning I actually used my head and thought, I have checked every connection on the RAM mic except the first one, the one on the back of the radio. I disconnected it, sprayed it with contact cleaner and plugged it in again. Hey! Presto! The RAM mic works again. Why didn’t I do that first?

Sigh!

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mike.

We filled the water tanks again, the main one and all the little jugs we use in the galley, and generally got ready to move.

This morning, while we were waiting for the mechanic to arrive we watched one of the yard crew operate their own mini dredger which apparently they need to run almost continuously to keep the marina from becoming a shoal sandbar. It’s a neat little version of the larger ones and apparently after they start at one end and get through to the other they have to start all over again. I took a photo of it in operation for today’s post.

The mechanic arrived and replaced the last piece of fuel return hose for Yoki. Apparently the old one, in his opinion was pretty shot. Also it wasn’t Marine grade. Hmmm? He wasn’t being critical of it because he immediately said that the stuff he was putting on wasn’t Marine grade either but it was reinforced and it did have the necessary fuel and heat ratings. He also told us that the vibration problem was due to the fact that he could see that the rubber was perished on the engine mounts and a couple of them needed to be replaced. I have figured that if we need to do two we should do all four.

We arrived at Fernandina Beach at three thirty and went for a walk in town. We wanted an ice cream but found a tavern that sold two beer for the price of one kiddy cone. So guess where we spent the afternoon. Yummm!

Back to the boat and getting dinner ready. I think we will be staying another day to see if we can get a temporary fix for the engine mounts. Perhaps some shims.