We’ve been feeling pretty beaten up lately, between a rough ocean passage and then a 48 hour nor’easter in an unprotected anchorage. We could use a break, you know what I’m saying?

Fortunately, the weather looks calm and sunny and gorgeous, and we’re heading south on the ICW which means the only rough water we should see is when a big sport fisher passes us. Most of the time the big fishing boats come off plane just enough so that they’re pushing maximum wake at us, it’s like they have no idea how wakes work (On plane: hardly any wake. Slow down enough to come off plane: maximum wake. Slow down even more: no wake).

Anyway, we left the mooring ball Friday morning and immediately passed through the Bridge of Lions. Our first stop was the marina on the other side of the bridge, we wanted to fill up with fuel and water, plus we had to return our shower access cards. I haven’t docked in a while, since we’ve had a couple tough docking situations and I’ve chickened out and let Kyle handle it. So today I dusted off those skills and pulled into the dock at a snail’s pace. Kyle and I had discussed strategy, we decided on a port side tie up. He immediately started putting fenders on the starboard side. I let it slide, chalking it up to a lack of coffee so early in the morning. But then he tied up a stern fender and never dropped it off the side of the boat, causing us to (barely) bump the dock! So maybe I’m not the one whose skills are getting rusty. Sorry Kyle, I’m writing the blog, which means I can tell any story I want!

The marina is crazy busy this week since it’s race week, so we moved off the fuel dock as soon as we could and got underway. The next big stress for today is Matanzas inlet. It’s a known shallow area with lots of shoaling, absolutely notorious for grounding boats.

Kyle was working and I was driving when we arrived at Matanzas. Moving at walking pace, we transited the area without ever seeing less than 10 feet of water. All that stress for nothing! The Navionics charts were extremely accurate, as were the hydrographic surveys we’d pulled off the internet, so transiting was a breeze. The chart below is telling me that there’s basically no depth in the middle of the channel, and that in order to transit the area I need to hug the shore in order to keep water under my keels – it goes against all common sense, instinctually you always want to keep the boat in the middle of the channel, but to get through Matanzas I had to keep the boat in between shore and those black diamonds – where the blue dots are.

After Matanzas, I asked Kyle to take the helm and I relaxed with a book. As I was reading, there was suddenly a THUMP bump bump bump bump. It was nearly impossible to tell where the sound came from. To me, it sounded like we’d thumped something in the water and then it bump bump bumped down the hull as we passed it by. Without being able to find the cause, I went back to my book.

A few minutes later (it took a surprising amount of time for the engine to overheat!) the engine alarm went off and the port engine shut down.

I switched spots with Kyle. When he came out of the salon, he was holding a severed pulley. The cooling water pump shaft had sheared off, which sent the pulley flying in the engine compartment and then it bump bump bumped its way down the wall and came to rest at the base of the engine.

After everything we’ve been through, after all the challenges of the last few months and the last few days especially…now this. We’ve been back in the water with two functional engines for two weeks, and now we’re down to one again. We carry a lot of spares on board, but not this one – we’ve got about a hundred raw water pumps, but no fresh water pumps. We’re back to one engine, and we’re going to have to wait for parts.

I held it together until Kyle got some lunch made, then I sobbed through a bowl of ramen. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t handle this anymore. Boat life is supposed to be high highs and low lows. We’ve only experienced low lows and even lower lows.

Initially, the dream was to get to the Bahamas, play around for a while, then head south to get out of the hurricane box. Then we got delayed. We revised our plan, get to the Bahamas and decide if we want to push really hard to get south, or if we want to take it easy and just head back to the States for hurricane season. Either way, the Bahamas was always the start of the adventure. Now I’m not even sure if we’ll make it there.

Kyle found a marina an hour ahead. We pulled in and parked. Neither of us in interested in trying to limp along on one engine again, especially after what happened last time. Kyle got right to work trying to find a replacement part, it’s Friday afternoon and we need to get that shipped to us ASAP. Unfortunately, our favorite parts place wouldn’t ship to FL as that’s out of their territory. No one in FL would ship to us either. Eventually we decided to have parts shipped to Kyle’s dad in NC, and he’ll forward it on to us.

With a new water pump on order, we walked to a nearby plaza. They had a brewery there and 2 for 1 beers. We sat there for a couple hours, drinking and talking about…everything. I told Kyle that I’m starting to see symptoms of depression. Maybe I’m not cut out for cruising life.

We headed back to the boat. Kyle made burgers and we watched Infinity War. I felt numb.