Boating with Sunset Delight: 2018: Marathon FL dinghy

12/10/2018 to 12/13/2018
@ Faro Blanco Marina

Since we arrived at our "winter home" of Faro Blanco on Sunday, we have been settling in and catching up with our boating friends (new and old) that are here with us at the marina. Of course we both arrived here with "to do" lists with Clark's being quite a bit longer than mine. After finding the dinghy unusable at Bahia Honda State Park, we both agreed that getting the dinghy fully operational was a high priority. After all, how can we go on pub crawl if we don't have a working dinghy?!

Fixing up the dinghy turned into a community project. I started things going by putting a lot of elbow grease to work with a spray bottle of "Totally Awesome" cleaner. That stuff is "totally awesome" as stains that I thought were potentially permanent dissolved to reveal white seats instead of grayish-black. The best part of the product is that I can buy it at the Dollar Store for a dollar!

Clark saw me busy with washing down the dinghy and came to help. Eventually he took over the job as there are parts of the dinghy I could not reach and was not willing to risk my life to work on cleaning it. Scrubbing the dinghy to remove the grime turned out to be the back-breaking, but easy, job.

Hoping for a quick fix, Clark began working on the engine issues by replacing the fuel filter. When he took it out for a test run, it stalled repeatedly. Our friend, Jim on "Third Degree", said it was probably the fuel gone bad and suggested that Clark put some in a plastic bag to see if it had water in it. We did not see any water so we suspected that we must have bad fuel. Jim loaned Clark a gas can so that he could pump all the fuel out of the boat tank into the gas can to start over with fresh gas.

When Clark took the boat out on Monday to check out the new fuel filter, he ended up using the paddles to get the boat back to dock. With no fuel in the tank, the boat had to be paddled once more to the fuel dock. He decided to enlist my help. With two of us paddling, he could keep the boat going straighter, and of course, two oars are better than one.

The dock hand saw us making our way to the fuel dock, so he waited for us and when we got close enough, he grabbed our line and pulled us down the dock to a spot where we could fill up the tank. Prior to this, Clark and I had taken a walk to West Marine to pick up some Sta-bil to put in the tank to help keep the fuel from going bad as quickly. Jim recommended that Clark put high-octane, marine fuel into the boat. It costs more but lasts longer. Hopefully it is worth the $4.50 a gallon we paid for it.

After filling our tank, we took the boat for a run in the bay. Clark figured that if he ran it fast on rough waters, it would mix the old fuel, the Sta-bil, and the new fuel. We definitely got shaken up on the ride as we bounced over some waves. While we were out there riding around in circles, Clark took some pictures of the cloudy sky.

Clark was still not satisfied with the running of the engine as it idled too rough. Talking to Mel, who is on the boat next door to ours, Clark got a recommendation to put some carburetor cleaner in the tank. Mel even gave him a bottle of the stuff to use for the job. Clark used it to clean the spark plugs and added it to the fuel filter. After letting the carb cleaner run through, he saw a definite improvement on idling. Eureka! I think we have a success story in hand!

During our short time here at the Faro Blanco marina, we have already seen some interesting wild life.

A brown jellyfish unlike any we have seen in NJ

A manatee next to our boat - eating lunch off the piling

Licked it clean - off to find the next one

When we rode our bicycles to the recycle point to dispose of the bad gas, we encountered some iguana.

This iguana did not want to give way
on the sidewalk for our bikes.

This one spied on us as we rode by!

We incorporated the need to do some shopping into our bike ride to recycle. Clark wanted to purchase a replacement O-ring for the dinghy gas cap. Unfortunately, this item was not to be found at either West Marine or The Home Depot. In our search for the O-ring, our bike ride took us to the far end of Marathon to the NAPA store. Along the way we stopped at The Dollar Store to replenish our stock of Totally Awesome cleaner.

I found the bike ride to NAPA, 5 miles distance from the Faro Blanco marina, to be grueling as we had to bike into the wind the whole way. After the first two miles, my legs complained from the abuse they were receiving.

As a reward, on the way back to the boat from NAPA where we did find the O-ring, we stopped at Sweet Savannah's for ice cream and a rest. Afterwards, riding back to the boat on the shady side of the street with the wind helping to push us, we made good time getting back to the boat. We got back at 4:45 in plenty of time for docktails at 5:00.

On our trip to and from NAPA, we saw some Christmas decorations - "Keys" style.