Club Championship

What a fun weekend! My wife and I played golf on Friday as a practice round for our Couple's Championship tournament scheduled for Sunday. The format was a "modified" Pinehurst Tournament which means: We both tee off, hit each other's ball on the second shot and select the best of the two and play altenate shot until the ball is holed. Well, we actually played good on Friday, but Sunday, we were outstanding and won our club chamionship!... I couldn't believe we held it together for the entire tournament against another couple that put up one heck of a fight but failed to maintain on the final six holes. My wife drove the ball farther and straighter than ever and my short game was on. We won with a score of 78 and they finished with an 80...Now bear in mind that the next closest score was an 87, so we really had a stellar round and until you play that format, you have no idea how good the score was.



Saturday we planned to attend a MarinMax raft up at Peanut Island in Palm Beach. We loaded the boat with our day's provisions and headed south through the Jupiter Inlet and down to Lake Worth inlet a trek of approximately 10 miles. Upon arrival we were thrilled to see the most beautiful water and the calmest of water presenting an awesome place to anchor for the day. We circled the island and searched for the MarineMax flotilla and to our surprise did not see any signs of a raft up. I contacted our salesman and he said everyone is on the way, so we decided to anchor and enjoy our day. We had so much fun by ourselves that we decided that even if we spotted a raft up, we would just stay put for the remainder of the day. The issue was we planned on traveling up the intercoastal to our favorite waterfront Restaurant (Seasons 52) and dine at 7:30PM.

Smoke on the Water

Well you'll never believe what happened ...That's right, the boat broke down. This time it was a little scary due to flooding and smoke. We were approaching marker 44 (our favorite local anchorage) and received an alarm on the smart craft system. The starboard engine was overheating and causing some flooding in the engine compartment. I immediately turned off the engine and dropped anchor to assess the situation. I opened the engine compartment hatch and discovered approximately 1/2' of water in the bilge and a significant drip coming from the aft end of the starboard engine. I asked Rebekah to look at the thru-hull port and let me know if water was being pumped over board and was pleased to hear that there was a small stream of water flowing. At this point, I felt as though everything was alright and we had only lost the cooling due to a hose rupture or something. I closed the hatch and decided to let everyone enjoy the day boating and we would leave just a little earlier than planned since it would take longer to return to the dock on one engine. As I closed the hatch, I detected a small hint of smoke...that's right...smoke...I immediately started scanning all compartments of the boat and discovered the air conditioner circuit breaker in the tripped position and realized that the water in the bilge may have caused the AC seawater pump to short...And that's exactly what it was...So, we continued having a good family outing and returned to our dock right on time.



I contacted MarineMax and they dispatched a technician to investigate and he discovered a clamp on a raw water line on the starboard engine had failed and caused the flooding. He also verified that the water caused the AC pump short. The good news is that everything was covered by our warranty. We were back in business by Friday.



This was a very valuable experience for me because even though I knew what could cause the problem, I didn't think of how many questions would be asked by the passengers while I was trying to discover the source of problems. I must say that overall, the girls and my wife reacted appropriately but I've learned that I must brief all passengers on emergency procedures including the need to follow directions immediately...Also I need to let them know that the captain will brief them on the status as soon as the problem is under control or an abandon ship order is commanded.



Until next time,





M

Mother-in-Law Visit

My mother-in-law (MIL) is visiting this weekend which is always a treat. She is really fun to have at the house and it absolutly makes my wife happy. We all decided to take Wonderfun out on Saturday and try out the newly acquired underwater dive scooters. I picked up four of them from Sam's Wholesale Warehouse on Friday as gifts to the family(http://www.seascooter.net/products.html ). I bought two children and two adult units thinking they would really enhance our upcoming Summer on the water. My youngest took to the water with her new scooter with ease...Ok, maybe a little coaxing and bribary to get her into the chilly water and use this new contraption, but after her initial try, she took to the water with ease. As for the other child....I can't even begin to write how bad an experience I had with her...Let's just say I don't want to record it in the blog in hopes that I will soon forget how awful this day was... What happens in a 12 year old mind that makes them behave so badly? And, by the way, this all happened in front of...you guessed it...my MIL...perfect relaxing weekend for me. Sure am glad I bought those damned scooters...

Palm Beach Boat Show

Friday night we decided to take Wonderfun out for a trip to "The Crab House" restaurant. We departed the dock around 5:30 PM and traveled the 3/4 mile trip to the restaurant's dock. After securing the boat, we decided to sit in the bar area and listen to the music of an acoustic guitar player. The place was absolutely jammed pack with people and we were hoping to find a table so that we could listen and enjoy our beverages. As we waited, a very nice lady with two children asked us if we would like to have their table because they were on the way out. She said she wanted us to have it because we didn't "hover" over her vying for her place. We were thrilled to get the best table in the house....YAY...The music was awesome and he played all of our favorite songs. We decided to have dinner right there and it was one of my most favorite evenings....EVER...

My wife and I spent all day Saturday on Wonderfun and was it a blast...just doing nothing...Well, by nothing I mean I cleaned things on the boat while she sunned herself...I love that boat and really don't mind keeping her in perfect order.

Sunday was spent at the Palm Beach boat show. My wife and I received tickets from MarineMax and man was that fun touring all of the yachts on display. It is obvious to the two of us that we are definitely boat lovers. The show was awesome and presented literally hundreds of boats in all shapes and sizes. Of course we loved the larger boats with the awesome creature features. We visited several Azimut boats ranging from 42 - 110' in length. Azimut really knows how to build attractive yachts. Anyway, we are not planning on upgrading anytime soon but we love dreaming about that lottery win which might just enable us to purchase one a little larger than Wonderfun.