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Last
Day, Saturday July 5th
So
here we are, the last day of our "Adventure" and ready
to head home. Rick Martinez, the mechanic, came by the next
morning around 9:00 am and fixed the steering - fun guy (he was at
the Tiki Bar the night before) and with a nautical business name
like "Tiger Marine Services", you gotta love the guy,
right? He was actually quite knowledgeable and it's always good to
have a good one (a mechanic that is) in every port! We left Roland
Martin's Marina at 10:30 am and cruised down the
"swamp" to arrive at the Moore Haven Locks - with
steering no less - how spoiled are we?! On our way out of the
Lock, we heard a "clunk" and we both looked back
thinking - "now what" but there was nothing in sight and
never thought anything about it. We were following a big new
trawler the whole way down the Waterway and through the Locks -
diesel fuel is good on the pocket book but real stinky in the
Locks! We found out days later that the diesel fumes/spray from
the boat in front of us in the Lock probably resulted in black
spotted "stains" on the bow and port side of Salty the
Boat. As we were going through the last Lock, which was W. P.
Franklin Lock & Dam, of course the inevitable happens and as
per usual the clouds roll in and the sprinkles start to fall….
not a deal, we're quite used to it now. We are able to put Salty
the Boat up on plane and boot it on toward home and didn't stop to
put up the bimini extension as we are running from the rain -
confident we wouldn't have to. As we approached one of the large
"manned" bridges and start to slow to no-wake speed as
is usually required, the bridge attendant leans out of the window,
looks down at us and points in the direction from which we came.
Lordy - there is a solid wall of rain coming toward us at
break-neck speed! Barry throws the throttle forward and we're off
- up on plane in no time but we seem to be making no headway as
this storm surely is after us! Gave new meaning to "leaving
it in our wake" literally but the only thing was that we
didn't seem to be "leaving" it anywhere. I said,
"how fast can a storm go anyway?", to which Barry looks
down and says, "well, at least 25 knots anyway because that's
what we're going"! The bend in the River was the best thing
to happen to us because we turned one way and the storm kept on
going the other way - whew that was a close one! Shortly
thereafter at 2:00 pm we rolled up to our very own dock… to our
very own house… to our very own Salty Dog and all three of us
were smiling. It started to sprinkle a bit - a nice warm, gentle
sprinkle that was softly soothing as it rinsed the salt-water from
our skin. We walked into the pool with a glass of wine in hand,
faithful Salty Dog by our side and life was good.
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