Key Largo - The freight train stops

 

The African Queen from the movie of the same name is still in service.
Notice that it’s now driven by an outboard - no fire hazard in the middle of the boat.

All of a sudden this afternoon, quiet descended upon Fleetwing. It was roared here for the last two days, rocking the boat all through the night. About mid-morning, the winds slacked off and now it’s quite nice. It’s back to more normal Florida Keys weather. 

With all the high winds of late, the seas are still stirred up so we’re going to let them settle down over the next day and head out Friday when a south wind of around 8 kts is predicted. That’s the type of conditions we like for a moving day on the ocean. We’re less particular on the ICW but in the ocean where seas have a long memory, we prefer a calmer ride. 

The calm comes to Key Largo - what a difference!

I had ordered a new hot water heater to replace the one that died and had it ordered in plenty of time for it to arrive Wednesday for a Thursday installation by a local technician. Evidently the warehouse was aware of my desires so they let the unit sit untouched for a full day before UPS picked it up to start the delivery cycle. I paid for 1 to 2 day delivery and now it’s going to get here too late. It’s projected to arrive 7:00 pm on Thursday when I must leave at 7:00 am on Friday morning, there’s no time for an installation. I’ll shove it in the corner and hope I can get someone farther up the line to install it. 

Meanwhile, the reason for the tight schedule is an A/C unit waiting for installation next Friday in Titusville (not this week, the next week). To reach that appointment, I have to leave this Friday from Key Largo.

On the other hand, Defender Marine called today and said that although I ordered the A/C unit one day after the sale ended (an expensive mistake by me!) that they would honor the sale price for my purchase even though the sale was over. I thought that was a very nice gesture and good customer relations from Defender Marine!! It saved me $400! What a nice company!