Heres Part 2 of Catching Up…

After leaving the dark blue Mississippi Sound and flying through the breezy southern end of Mobile Bay, through a few miles of channels connecting Wolf and Arnica Bays, and another five miles or so of double-waterfront mini-mansions, you’ll find a very special part of the ICW. You could almost mark the point on a map.

The water just sort of… changes. Just like that. Just before Fort San Carlos passes to the port side. I didn’t get a picture of it, and I don’t even know if it would have shown up if I had, but that water just turned clear.

Welcome to Florida. We had finally arrived… ish.

We found a friendly little marina called Pelican’s Perch that’s immediately next to a reputable Yanmar parts dealer that we couldn’t pass up. [Which reminds me, there’s a reviews page coming soon!] The weather, as usual, was a bit of a bummer. The marina itself felt a world away from “paradise” but it was full of resources and good people.

We needed some time to get ourselves together before the big jump south across the gulf anyway.

We finally had a dinghy, now we needed a motor. We’d been searching for a used 6hp high and low since New Orleans, through Biloxi and now all over Pensacola with nothing to show for it, so finally I gambled the extra dime on the value of a new engine. Maybe I’m picky, but I sure am happy with the 6hp Tohatsu so far.

Now we had a dinghy and a motor, but we needed a way to put the bigger-than-youd-think inflatable on the boat without blocking the hatch slide.

Fancy that, there’s a great metal fabricator in the marina.

Of course we had a couple of anchors, but now with all this chain we’d picked up in Morgan City we wanted to put some use to our bow sail locker… so we added a poor man’s hawse pipe…

My bruddah-from-another-muddah, Capt Dax, has this great canvas flap for his companionway. We could use one…

Hey look, a canvas shop next to the marina shower house.

Water, diesel, and one more round at The Oarhouse and we’re outta here.

But wait, there’s more!

We’d spoken with a few mechanics throughout this trip about our symptoms with that Yanmar; hard starting especially on cylinders #1 and #3, ability to start quickly when decompressing either #1 or #3 for a moment, white smoke from the exhaust when it starts up, slight diesel sheen in the water from exhaust after it starts, runs perfectly after it starts, starts easily within 24 hours or so of last run, no other symptoms of running poorly or other colors of smoke from exhaust or anywhere else, etc etc etc.

They all suggested, among other things, pulling and likely replacing the injectors and gaskets as a means of solving a possible over or under fueling issue. Its about time anyway, etc etc. We’d been saving some money staying on the anchor, Pelican’s Perch gave us a good weekly rate, and we’re right next to a great Yanmar dealer, so I said screw it lets just replace ‘em.

Most of all, I wanted to be finished with engine problems on Contigo.

Plus the Cowboys were in the playoffs and I didn’t mind sticking around for the weekend :)

Anyway, it didn’t work. At least not completely or enough to start the motor normally. Anyone looking for 2 out of 3 perfectly working fuel injectors for a 3QM30?

We’d basically been hitting the wrong nail on a board with a lot of loose nails worth hitting. So, instead of moping around, we put everything back together, hit The Oarhouse to hit on some more gorgeous bartenders, and hit the Gulf of Mexico the following morning.

We left Pensacola status-quo on the old Yanmar, but with what we’d gained in marine diesel knowledge and other tweaks to Contigo, the stop was worth it.

To the Gulf, to the Dry Tortugas, and to a clear-water-paradise we go…