Quicksilver Sail Tales: This Old Boat

Quicksilver at anchor in Titusville

Ok we bought a classic. She is beautiful and "salty". But she's a 1981 beauty. So we traveled for three days and when our favorite motor propelled huge cruiser goes by and churnes up the water, we start loosing speed. At first Jon thought we might have gone aground. (When these large boats go by the water is so churned up by their zillion horse powered boat that everything on the bottom comes up and our depth meter will read very low or in this case not at all..it makes you question for a second if you are still in the channel or aground). So he dialed back the excellerator and then tried to excellerate and it wasn't excellerating correctly. We called our friends ahead to see if they were having same problem..thinking maybe there is a strong current running. Nope. Then it hits our friend, Denise, that perhaps it's seaweed or something wrapped on the prop. Yes! That could be it. So we stopped excellerating all together and gave a little reverse....bingo , bango..we have excellerating and speed, Huston! We were right outside our destination of Titusville, so we pulled in south of the bridge and dropped anchor. Alls good that ends well. Jon and I had plans to meet Ruby Kinch (one of my family's old friends..I've known since I was tiny) we were treated and enjoyed a night out with Ruby and her daughter, Patty, son, Jerry and his wife. They took us to my dad's and his buddy's favorite spot, Steve's Diner. It was great and so fun to catch up up with these wonderful people. When we get back to the boat Jon makes his usual rounds of checking all the engine fluids and notices antifreeze all over in the cockpit locker and under the engine. Before he can get in bummed out mode he figures that we probably just overheated a little (not that our instruments indicated any such thing) and the antifreeze boiled over through the overflow tube. So he tops it off and runs the engine for a little while..everything seems good. He mops up all the antifreeze and we go to bed. All good ..until morning and we are getting ready to pull up anchor and move on. Jon remembers he wants to clean our the raw water filter as it probably got clogged as well. As he pulled it out he notices antifreeze in there,..,what?! The only way that could happen is if in came threw the engine and through the HEAT EXCHANGER! Ok alls not well..we need a heat exchanger and it's Sunday. Guess we're going to get to know Titusvillle better. So we placed the order and they can get it here Wednesday. The good news as long as we're here I can look for an eye doctor and get an exam and order contacts. I do just that. My contacts will be in on Wednesday as well (Yeah! I was wondering how I was going to do that. ).

So we are poking around Titusville.,Jon's ex-boss and good friend, Tommy and his girlfriend, Michele, are in Melbourne and plan to catch up with us here. Our friends Ladd and Denise from the boat Blue, have decided to hang with us here. So today is movie day and we are going to have coconut rum and strawberries and watch Across The Universe in their air conditioned boat. Ruby and Patty are back in town so we will try to connect with them one more time, so much to do. Tomorrow is Wednesday and we we'll give this ole lady a brandy-new heat exchanger. Pretty soon we will have a brandy new 1981 classic.

Ruby Kinch and daughter, Patty. So fun and funny. Thank you!!!