Bringing The Words “Just in Time” To A New Level

6/7/2024

When we first arrived at Green Cove Springs Marina, we anchored in the Marina’s harbour with the plan of getting ourselves oriented and ready for Wild Horses to be hauled out of the water. You see, none of this was in our original plan for our first five years living aboard. No, the plan was to stay in the Caribbean for several years. We thought that any trips back home would be done by either Mike or myself, never together, so that we wouldn’t have to figure out the logistics of getting Ocean on a plane or finding a pet sitter. What we didn’t realize back then was how much we prefer to stick together, all three of us, as a family. Hence, the new plan of coming back to North America after only two years.

But we were unprepared for this decision so there has been a bit of scrambling to figure it all out. We don’t have a home marina to go back to, we don’t have a car, we don’t have a land house. We loosely tied some ideas together before finalizing our decision but we knew we would have to figure out a lot of things in the moment.

And we have.

We figured out the ins and outs of our new marina (who to talk to, where to get things, etc), got our rental car, secured our storage unit, and explored the town. We felt fairly comfortable after a few days and knew pretty much how we were going to move forward.

Our morning view at the anchorage at Green Cove Springs Marina

Fireworks for Memorial Day, enjoyed at anchor.

Ocean relaxing as we load our storage locker

TOn Tuesday May 28, we asked the marina to move up our haul out day from Saturday June 1 to Wednesday May 29. They could easily accommodate us and asked that we immediately move Wild Horses to the wall in front of the “Haul Out Well” so that we could be the first boat hauled the next morning. No problem!

Except, there was a problem.

We weighed anchored as we normally do and Mike steered Wild Horses into the boat basin through the maze of moored boats. It all seemed so delightfully easy.

Then our high-water temperature alarm began screaming. Huh? We were almost docked at the wall so continued the docking maneuver, even with the intense blaring of the alarm. Once docked, the engine was shut down. We secured the boat on the dock wall for the night and then checked for issues around the engine. There was no smoke and no burning smell. All engine parts looked normal. Oh, wait, except our coolant overflow bucket was completely empty. What? It was full before we weighed anchor. A quick look in the mixing elbow and, yikes, there was barely any coolant there. Somehow our engine lost all its coolant in a matter of minutes.

Thankfully, one of the tasks we completed while anchored was to hire an engine mechanic. We thought he would be just giving the engine a once over but now realize there will be far more work required. He is a well-recommended marine mechanic and immediately he went to work diagnosing our alarm issue. The prognosis? Our heat exchanger has given up the ghost. This will be a big fix but the good news is that it is fixable. We have scheduled the mechanic to do the work in October, when we return to the boat. We will likely need to stay at Green Cove Springs for six weeks (four weeks longer than our original plan) in order to get the engine ship shape. Then we will, once again, set off for the Bahamas.

The haul out well at Green Cove Springs Marina

Wild Horses docked against the wall just outside of the well

Wild Horses being lifted

Lots of grime and barnacles gettting scrapped and sprayed off of Wild Horses

The trip to our spot in the work yard

The crazy good Green Cove Springs Yard Crew sets up Wild Horses on jack stands

In the meantime, Wild Horses will remain safely on land. We have spent the last week getting her ready to spend her summer stored in “Canada Yard” baking under the hot Florida sun. She has been cleaned and waxed, the insides coated with mildew preventer, and roach traps set about the floor. All our stuff is in a climate controlled offsite storage unit to keep it all safe from mildew and boat smells. Our dinghy was cleaned spotless (this was no small feat for Mike!) as was our anchor. We also ran a “salt away” treatment through the engines for both Wild Horses and for our dinghy “Ocean Transport”. This was tough work with the days hitting 35 degrees and the overnight low never going below 22 degrees. And, yes, we lived on the boat while we worked on it in the boatyard.

First morning waking up in the work yard

One of the crew guys (Robert) loaned us the set of stairs he built for his own boat. Ocean could board the boat with ease!

Ocean's first time on deck while on the hard

Mike starts the work on "Ocean Transport"

One pretty dinghy. Thanks Mike!

Mike drying our anchor chain after cleaning and desalting it first

We are now done all our work and are very tired. At 6pm yesterday, the crew of Wild Horses squeezed into our packed rental car and drove 2 hours north to Georgia to the hotel we reserved for the night.

In three days, we will be back home in Canada. We are three very happy and excited sailors 😊.