You know that feeling of dread you experience at the end of a vacation? For the first time in our lives, we didn’t experience that feeling as we made our way home to Alaya from the Bahamas. We were very excited to get back to the boat and to eventually start heading north again.
Once we got back to Alaya, we had two weeks left on our marina reservation in Stuart. We spent that time working on boat projects and exploring the town. Thanks to a suggestion from Anna, my niece who is in kindergarten, we found a municipal bus system that really made Stuart a lot more accessible. I spent a lot of my time trying to track down the pieces of my uniform for my summer job on Mackinac Island. The uniform is not complicated but trying to shop for specific clothing items while living on a boat proved to be pretty challenging. I won’t bore you with the details but it turned into an epic struggle, one that I like to refer to as “The Sisterhood of Emily’s Troubled Pants.” Call me if you want the full story.
Lucas spent much of his time in Stuart putting the final touches on our water maker. A water maker turns salt water from the ocean into safe drinking water through a system of filters and membranes. I really think this is the most complicated system on the entire boat. Lucas did a lovely job installing it. Finishing this project puts us a lot closer to being more self-sufficient. It will really come in handy when we travel to the Bahamas next year. Plus, the water we make tastes delicious! As Lucas puts it, “it tastes like really fancy bottled water.”
By early March, we were both feeling ready to move again. When we arrived in Stuart at the end of January, we had no idea that we’d end up staying for more than a month. This is the beautiful thing about our new life. It forces/encourages us to be open to all sorts of new ideas on any given day. We are so thankful to the marina staff, the new friends we met during our stay and the friends who we reunited with during our time there. We hope to be back in Stuart sometime next year on our way to the Bahamas.
As we exited the St. Lucie River on March 8, we turned Alaya northward for the first time in eight months. Our first stop was Vero Beach, approximately 40 miles north of Stuart. We had a great motor-sail trip with just one minor incident. As we were motoring along at 5 knots I heard a weird whirling noise below. It stopped right as I asked Lucas to come down to listen for it. Curious, I carefully pulled up one of the floorboards above the engine and saw belt pieces everywhere. Our serpentine belt had failed. It runs both our engine coolant pump and our alternator – you know, important stuff. We pointed the boat towards a safe spot on the edge of the channel and shut off the engine when the coolant temperature got to 220F, the audible high-coolant-temperature alarm working as intended. Slowly coasting to a good spot, we then dropped anchor and within 10 minutes, Lucas had replaced the belt. We were underway once again, thankful that we had many spare belts onboard and that we were in a safe place to pull over. Belt durability testing is now complete. We now know the lifespan of a new belt, so we have updated the replacement and inspection schedule to compliment our new data point.
Despite our belt hiccup, it felt wonderful to be back on the “road” again. We pulled into Vero Beach that evening with much less drama than our last visit (see our previous post).
40 miles down, only 650 nautical miles (give or take a few) to go!
