Expecting an early-perching diesel mechanic, Derek got started with the sun and made a lovely quiche-like egg dish, using both stovetop and broiler for the finishing touches. We all ate and it started to get later again (as it generally does if you sit around long enough), and behold, no passerine diesel mechanic alighted at our vessel. The rare and elusive De Jong -- ah, we called again (at 11:30 again), and a woman - Marie? - told us that he's very busy stamping out brush fires, but intends to come by after lunch, perhaps at 1 pm.

Now, Grant has math to do, and Derek still has a bit of science to do for his conference paper, so this is still OK, but we had hoped to be able to take Grant to the Key West Eco-Discovery Center this afternoon. The next person to call will probably be me, and I will definitely go into more detail than Derek has so far about the broken arm and the need for speed. This is getting weird.

Windy, blustery day! More on the Mark-sightings later...

1:32 pm: Aha! The rare and elusive Mark De Jong dropped by for a good half-hour and diagnosed our engine issues, which are mainly two: the less-awful one first: the fuel bleed bolt on the engine's injector pump is the wrong size, so it's really hard to bleed if there's air in the line. Fuel did in fact get to the injectors (but Mark warned us about this bleed bolt), so it's NOT the fuel pump (whew!). However, the main problem is the flex plate, and that brings us back to Mark Hyma, the wizard of Pensacola. He installed two new longer shafts in our engines and aligned them, new flex plates because the old ones had been so abused by the short shafts not quite meeting the engine, and um, we started using the engines to get to the boatyard and back, etc. A little too trusting, that was. Finally, after a lot of mysterious "noise" from starboard (but everything was hooked up correctly and running...), Derek checked in the starboard engine compartment underneath the engine, and found two of the four mounting bolts (the things that hold the engine itself in place) lying in the bilge -- and the other two very loose.

Apparently when he was doing the starboard shaft alignment, Mark Hyma had the mounting bolts finger-tight (as is necessary when aligning) but did not remember to tighten them down with a wrench when he was finished. The port engine's bolts were fine. But the starboard engine was running without bolts and, erm, got out of alignment. Derek put the missing bolts back on and tightened everything down, but since the engine was already out of alignment, running it subsequently put undue strain on the flex plate. Upshot: perhaps 50 engine-hours later, the starboard flex plate is shot and we have to replace it and do a realignment on the shaft/engine mount -- which will cost us between $600 and $1200.

Thing is, there is no practical way to go back to a previous mechanic and demand that he fix the problem if 1) you are hundreds of miles away and 2) you didn't catch it as soon as you took delivery. All you can do is warn the next poor boating Joe...