Swimming with Gators
26 November 2014 | Vero Beach Florida
Tom
We made the short trip south from Titusville to Melbourne Florida. The vibration issue we’ve been try to sort out persists and may even be a little worse. So far I’ve consulted amateurs, experts, professionals, even a psychic but thus far have only managed to narrow the list down to 3 possible. The Prop, the motor mounts or the cutlass bearing.
I had dove under the boat back when the problem started expecting to find something caught up in the prop. At the time I tried to check the cutlass bearing but wasn’t sure what I was looking for. So after anchoring in Melbourne, Patrice from LaSmala and I dove under the boat again. He had replaced his Cutlass bearing recently so was familiar with the problem. The water was warm but the visibility less than a foot. Armed with a pair of underwater flash-lights the problem was quickly sorted out. The Prop was fine the cutlass bearing was not. Another trip or 2 under the boat with a caliper and the measurements were acquired. A couple skype calls later and a boat yard was found that could haul us out. They even emailed us an hour later to confirm the part would be in. So as of now we are hanging out in the very cool Vero beach City marina until sun when we will make the short trip down to Fort Pierce on Sun with plans to be hauled out at the Cracker Boy Marina Monday at 10:30.
Oh ya so the Aligator.
Didn’t see anything that evening in the water ( could barely see the boat) but the next morning as we turned south back on the ICW we say a 6 to 8 foot Gator floating on the surface way to close to were we’d been swimming.