As it turns out, when you run your boat aground, there are a few things that you should check afterwards. Of course we didn’t think to inspect anything until after our engine started smoking, but hey, we’re learning.

The first thing that one should do is make sure that there isn’t anything obstructing your impeller. Basically there is this little rubbery thing that rotates to pull in raw water (i.e. sea water, lake water, whatever water your boat is in) and circulate it around your engine to keep it cool. The next thing is to make sure your raw water strainer (essentially a colander, but instead of straining pasta it strains out debris) is empty.

So I opened up our engine compartment, took one look and realized that I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Then closed it back up and consulted the internet on how exactly to find my raw water pump impeller and raw water strainer and then what to do when I found them.

To get to the impeller I had to take off a belt, unscrew a few things and then put it all back together. Actually no big deal and that was the part that I was worried about. I thought checking the raw water strainer would be even more straight forward. It’s supposed to be really easy and would have been, if the gasket that seals the whole thing had been functional.

I knew something was up with the strainer because it was caked in salt, but I opened it up, pulled out the little mesh bit inside and emptied it of sand and little shells. It had been about half full, so that was probably why our engine was running so hot.

Putting the strainer back together was a little more complicated because the gasket in the cap was all gunked up and wouldn’t create a seal, so after looking for a new gasket for a long while I eventually discovered that the old gasket was hand made. After scraping the old gasket out of the cap I meticulously cut a new gasket out of a cork mat that I found. Thanks to google I learned that it’s just called gasket material.

The last thing I had to fix from our first solo trip was the windlass. I did something really dumb. I accidentally pulled the anchor up too far and pinned the anchor against the bowsprit. With no reverse button I was having trouble figuring out how to release the anchor. After trying a bunch of things I finally asked a friend for advice and learned that if we loosened the winch manually we would be able to release the anchor and chain. It took some serious muscles, but eventually I got it.

Since we weren’t sure when, if ever, our windlass had been serviced I ended up taking the winch apart, cleaning it and then greasing it for good measure. Now I know how winches work and we are able to control the speed that we let out chain when anchoring. It was a dumb mistake, but I’m glad I spent the afternoon fixing it.

With all of the issues from our grounding taken care of it was back to the daily grind of boat life. The biggest items on the to do list were emptying the storage unit and returning the car to Denver.

My mom came to visit right after we had emptied our storage unit into the spare cabin, but she was a great sport about sleeping on a settee in the salon. Before she and I made the drive from Stuart to Denver together, Mark and I took her on a day trip to Peck’s Lake.

I’d like to say that it was uneventful, but Mark has a knack for drama. While preparing the anchor he accidentally dropped it in the middle of the ICW right before we got to the actual anchorage. I threw the boat in reverse as soon as I heard the chain unfurling and to make matters more exciting Mark tried to stop the chain from going out by grabbing it with his bare hands.

With a few more bloody knuckles than when we had started we got the windlass tightened up, pulled the chain back in and proceeded to our anchorage 200 yards away. The good news is that Mark was fine and the winch was working perfectly.

Peck’s Lake was a serene place to spend the afternoon. It was nice to have a slow day before heading out on our road trip from Stuart to Denver. Especially since Mark and I had been doing a bunch of boat projects leading up to me leaving for a few days.

Instead of returning to our slip that evening we picked up a mooring ball, on the first try, I might add. Our month at the slip was about to be up and our wallets were ready for the change and at half the price of being on the dock, we loved our mooring ball.

The next morning Mark ferried my mom and I to shore in the dinghy to begin our road trip. Secretly I think we were both dreading the 28 hour drive, but it ended up being a nice trip. Over the 3 days it took we diligently played the license plate game and we got 44 states!

I stayed in Denver for a couple of extra days, ran errands with my parents and saw some friends. But after 5 days away I was ready to fly back to Florida. Since I left Mark on the mooring ball he ran out of water, drained the batteries and discovered an issue with our refrigerator. I was ready to head home and help out.