Sadler Point Marina - a day of testing the genset

An innocent looking pond like this can harbor an alligator in this area - although this one appears empty

After the inauspicious introduction to our new genset on Monday, we decided to stay an extra day and run the new genset with many starts and stops with the result that it performed flawlessly. Of course, the genset knew that experts from the marina were nearby so it chose not to misbehave now. It remains to be seen how it will decide to behave with the nearest help miles away. Only time will tell.

The genset came, of course, with oil and antifreeze already installed but I wanted to know just what oil brand and rating was used as well as the same for the antifreeze so when I added some there would be no incompatibilities. Nobody seemed to know! Everyone I called pointed to the manual and said specs were there for the oil and antifreeze. No dice for me, I just wanted to know what they initially put in it! After six phone calls and much waiting on the phone, I sort of got an answer from a local technician - essentially, it's whatever they bought in the last 10,000 gallon batch. The short answer was 10w-40 for the oil and Prestone type antifreeze but I could use anything once I drained the old out that was in the specs. Well, sure I knew that, I just wanted to know what they first put in it. Such difficulty with such a simple question!

Just on the other side of the bridge you can see a raised span, it's the Amtrak rails. Every few hours, day and night they pass by. You do actually get used to it after awhile.

We  borrowed the marina truck to do our last provisioning for our trip north. It was a Ford F-150, a very large truck, at least in my experience. We sat far above all the local traffic! After a visit to the local Walmart (the boater's best friend), we were back at the marina and preparing the boat for moving! We'll leave Wednesday morning for Fernandina at a mooring and we'll encounter a drain tide (a low spring tide) along the way just to make things interesting for the shoal spots, always some excitement.