SeaZen

As everyone knows, if you have a boat everything is broken; you just don’t know it yet. Even though dad took the heat exchanger home and completely cleaned it inside and out with the help of a powerwasher, it still gave us a little bit of trouble. It happened about 3 days ago now. We had what every sailor fears: an overheating engine.

We left Fort Lauderdale, or Port Everglades, as some people call it. Many a great yacht was docked there. There I saw 150 foot yacht, at least, with a helicopter on its deck and a garage with a runabout tender. I vowed that I would have one just like it.

Anyway, we were steaming at a great 5.5 knots to make the bridge that was about two miles in front of us. Dad slowed and we made the bridge with colors flying. We didn’t even have to slow down. Then trouble started. We were headed up to the next bridge about a mile or so a head. Then there was a bang and a crash under the boat dad immediately shut the engine off and I ran to help mom drop the anchor. We had the anchor down in lightning speed. Dad restarted the engine and did all the checks he would usually do and the engine was fine. We thought that we had hit something in the water.

We had a fine day reading and relaxing on the boat as there were not a lot of boats out on the waterway. I entertained myself by reading, listening to the radio, sleeping, and writing. Then, there was crisis again! Dad said the engine was running hot. He opened up the ‘dog house’ or engine cover and there was a spraying of boiling hot water from a little hole next to the heat exchanger cap. It was shooting from the engine onto the aft bunk. I, thinking quickly, grabbed anything to stop the water from soaking the bed. I grabbed mom’s shorts that were lying nearby.

Then I helped Dad anchor the boat because mom was at the helm. Again, we dropped the anchor lightning fast, around a minute or less, if I remember correctly. We let the engine cool and poured coolant into the engine and it cooled down considerably. We then went into Miami as the sun was setting. We were debating whether to anchor in an anchorage we didn’t know in the dark or an anchorage we know very well in the dark. I won the discussion. We are now in Sunset Lake in South Beach, Miami, chill’n.

Peace!