2020: Tools overrboard!

31 March 2020 - Maintenance Run on Sunset Delight
Depart: Faro Blanco Marina 1:45
Arrive: Faro Blanco Marina 8:10
Distance: 7 nm

Since it has been a full week since we operated the boat, and since rain is predicted for tomorrow, we took Sunset Delight out for her weekly maintenance run. We lounged around in the morning, ate lunch, and then pulled out of the dock to spend the afternoon out of the marina. We had a tri-fold agenda -  do our maintenance run out to John Sawyer shoal, drop anchor to change out old zincs on the hull, rest at anchor to see the sunset, and then return to dock for the night.

As we traveled with the wind, the ride out to John Sawyer was hot and sticky. Once we started to make our turn for the return to drop anchor, however, the wind rushed through the boat. We heard a noise as the wind gushed by, and both said, "What was that?" I looked around and said, "Where's your hat!!!???" It was on the bench next to him before the gust of wind and now it was gone.

I took the helm from Clark so he could look to see if the hat hid under the dinghy once again as it has done a couple of times in the past. As he walked out on our "dance floor" to have a look around, I spied the hat. I said, "Come back, come back, it's here!" The hat was "hiding" under the throw cushion on the bench seat. The wind must have lifted the cushion as the hat slid backwards. When the cushion came down, it hid the hat quite nicely. If I had a creative mind, I would write a children's book about the naughty chapeau!

We navigated to the waters directly in front of the marina and dropped our anchor, so Clark could work on replacing his zincs. It seemed straight forward, but today's was not destined to be an easy chore. He got his tools and put on his swimsuit and dive mask, dropped into the water and began removing the first old zinc located under the swim platform.

All appeared to be going smoothly until I heard, "Oh no!! The end of the socket wrench (the socket on an extension piece) fell into the water!" "Which way are we swinging?," he yelled. "I didn't know we were," I responded. I looked around and tried to take a fix on our position based on objects around us.

He stopped work and starting diving repeatedly for the bottom to try to find the lost tool. On his rapid, repeat dives he saw lots of weeds and red coral on the bottom but no socket wrench. As he surfaced after one of his dives, he came up wearing a "new hat". I told him to dunk himself again quickly as he came up with ugly weeds covering his hair. Yech!

When he finally stopped for breath, I asked if it would make sense to borrow Mel's magnet to go fishing for it. He thought that was a good idea "if" the tool would cling to a magnet. It took me a while to find a magnet on the boat to test the metal. I finally found a refrigerator magnet to test it, and it stuck solid to the remaining portion of the socket wrench.

At which point I called Ann to ask for Mel's aid. Mel's is a powerful magnet on the end of a long rope designed for fishing in water to find metal objects, so it seemed like the perfect answer to our situation.

As I watched Clark at work, I heard his phone give an alert to a text message. I checked and it was Eric on "Slow Lane" asking, "Is that you anchored out there?" When I said yes, he offered to send his drone out to see us. I said okay.

Later as Clark was working on his zincs (I was inside doing something), I heard him say, "And now we have a drone buzzing us! I bet that's Eric." I hadn't told him that Eric said he could come spy on us. I came out to wave and smile for the camera.

It took a while for Mel to join us at the boat. He was at the pool, so Ann went to find him. Then he had to get the dinghy down. That all takes a bit of time. When he appeared, he had his new puppy, Stella, in the dinghy with him.

Mel and Stella come to help

While we were waiting for Mel to come to our rescue, Clark found alternate, but less efficient, tools to use to complete the work of changing the two zincs on our stern. When Mel arrived, Clark had just two nuts left to reattach to be done.  Mel did a little "fishing" with his magnet while Clark finished up the last two nuts and then they worked together.

Clark took the line and dropped the magnet as he swam around the area trying to find the wrench. His effort proved fruitless and did not seem to be in the right area. After a while, Mel suggested that he could secure his dinghy to our stern and propel Sunset Delight such that Clark could see where the boat swung as it moved back and forth on anchor. 

That wasn't working either, so Mel had another idea. He suggested that Clark sit on the swim platform and fish from there instead of swimming around.

Mel and Stella (dog at feet)
with dinghy tied to swim platform and
pushing Sunset Delight 's stern to and fro

Clark "fishing" off the swim platform

As all of these efforts proved to be fruitless, and since Clark had more zincs he needed to replace, he thanked Mel for the loan of his magnet, waved goodbye to Mel as he headed back to the marina, and went back to working on more zincs that needed to be replaced.

It must not have been a good day for tools and Clark because no sooner did he start working on the next set of zincs than I hear, "I just dropped the allen wrench in the water!" I once again quickly looked up to take a fix on our position. He "fished" in the area for a while but came up empty. We double-checked to make sure other wrenches in the set clung to a magnet. They did. We just were unlucky in recovery!

Because the day was getting on, just about 5:00 by now, Clark decided he better finish the zincs job and worry about tool recovery afterwards. As with the missing socket wrench, Clark managed to scrape together tools that were "close enough" to the one he actually needed to get the job done. Once he declared the zinc replacement job complete, he went back to searching with hope of recovering at least one of his missing tools.

Clark decided that a better way to search would be to take a kayak and paddle around with the magnet hanging under the kayak. He paddled up and down and round and round for ages and came back with nothing to show for his efforts excepts more vegetation from the bottom. One thing was for sure, with all the diving to the bottom, swimming, and kayaking, he got a lot of exercise today. After all was said and done, he came up empty-handed. He'll be shopping for replacement tools now.

We debated staying out overnight and tying the magnet to the swim platform to let the boat do the fishing until morning. Clark checked the weather report and nixed that idea as rain is predicted for the morning. Instead he said we should eat dinner and return to dock afterwards, so I pulled out spaghetti and meatballs for a quick, on-board dinner.

While I prepared dinner, Clark came in asking for the camera. He said we had a dinghy parade coming our way. Instead of putting his dinghy away, Mel had brought Ann out with him as well as his neighbors - Lou Ann and Rene. Clark invited them to tie onto our swim platform to wait for the sunset, but they declined.

Mel and Ann  (and Stella) - "Morning Star II"
Lou Ann and Rene - "Zoey's Adventure"

Afterwards, as we ate dinner, we watched the sun set off our stern. It did not start out as much of a show, but it definitely got better as the evening wore on.

Anchorage Sunset (during dinner)

Color of the sky as we lifted anchor to return to dock!

We weren't the only ones admiring the sunset. When we checked Facebook later, we saw that Jim on "Hour Plan" had been busy with his camera as well.

Faro Blanco Sunset
(Picture taken by Jim Stebel)