We continue to explore the salty waters in Florida each week launching out to find new territory. Deciding on Naples, we were excited to check out the city dock and do a bit of fun. We had all our checks in order a d felt we were set to go ~
Reservation at Marina ✔️
Boat fueled and cleaned ✔️
Navigation set ✔️
Boat packed with food, clothes and libations ✔️
Off we launched ~ and soon we were blowing bubbles on the inter-coastal waters of Fort Meyers Beach.
Our ETA into Naples looked to arrive shortly before 4:00 pm. Perfect, it would give us time to tie up, put the bikes together and start our journey around Naples.
And then it happened! Someone or maybe I should say something had a better plan for us. After spending a few bucks to upgrade electronics on the boat we quickly learned once again Mother Nature is more powerful than us or any new fangled GPS.
Before we knew it we were up on a sand bar cruising lightly and the water quickly was turning mucky tan. Ohhhhh man ~ we tried tip toeing off the sand bar to get us to deeper waters and make it disappear like it never happened. It worked ~ as slow as we approached the sand the same routine worked to get off.
We thought we were out of the woods and back on our way when we felt the vibration. Now this sounds like a song, but this vibration wasn’t even close to making your toes start tapping.
Hmmm, only being 30 minutes from our dock we asked ourselves, do we continue or go back? After a few choice words we felt it was best to turn around to go back at our dock and contact a diver to go under the boat for a check.
Arriving back home, with egg on our face and making a few calls it was Tom De Coste from Apollo Yachts that came to our rescue! Tom quickly jumped into his gear and made a splash under the boat.
After a quick analysis it was a bent propeller making all the ruckess. We were amazed something so heavy could bend so quickly. But there is a silver lining to this story.
Years ago when Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast many boats were damaged and totaled out with insurance companies. My thrifty husband capitalized on this and bought several things from a boat recycled website for our boat “including two props”. In the twelve years we have had the boat, we have been lucky enough not to have to used them, until now.
Tom our man was amazed we had the exact prop to fit our boat driveshaft. Another splash in the water with tools, the prop and a few bubbles it was changed out in no time!
You see many good things came from this little episode. We met Tom, our man of many hats. Networking was done on the dock between Tom and another guy that sold canvas and worked on his fathers boat many years ago, rekindled friendship. And, the prop that was stashed ten years ago came in handy.
So, Mama said there would be days like this, yes she did. We feel fortunate no one was hurt, fun was had and tomorrow we will launch again for Naples. Wish us luck ~
Meanwhile I can’t seem to get this song out of my head as we both look at each other and grin ~