Sarasota to Madeira Beach


    Day 2 started weather wise just like the past few, absolutely beautiful. Light winds, blue skies and very calm conditions. The only real waves were from passing boats. Moving at 7.5 mph is a new experience for us, it takes getting used to but we are getting into it. We plan each day with a maximum of about 40 - 45 miles. A 10 am start means arriving at our next location in about 5 hours.
We left Marina Jack at 10:05 after taking on 30 gallons of diesel (15 for each tank). The fuel gauge read 1/2 full but a fuel gauge is only accurate 2 times...when it’s full and when it’s empty. The gauge read full so I felt better. Marina Jack is nice, but very pricey, $3/foot for the slip. 
    
    About 50 minutes into the trip I did my engine room check and to pump out the seawater I knew was accumulating under the engine from the raw water pump. I noticed a pink line on the water, transmission fluid was coming out of the top of the ZF gear. Crap! Not sure how to address the issue so I called my buddy Tony Athens of Seaboard Marine in CA. It was about 7 am there but this guy is up I knew for sure. I made friends with Tony and his family probably 10 years ago through a diesel forum (story for another time), he came to our area, fell in love with it and bought a vacation house in Homosassa. Tony is all diesel all the time, his speciality is Cummins, but he knows them all and he is super good at what he does. He walked me through what I needed to do. Lucky for us, we were in the middle of Sarasota Bay and it was very calm because when I removed the cap and the filter a lot of fluid came out. I struggled a little getting is back together and fixed the leak. Although it was a challenge, I learned something about my boat. I also learned I didn’t have any extra transmission fluid but Tony said “as long as you can see some on the stick, you’re good, you can use motor oil if you need to”. I let it go for now since it was on the low end of the stick and the transmission was not running hot.
We lost about about 45 minutes but worth it for the education. We continued on. Still averaging about 8.5 mph we reached The south end of Tampa Bay at the tip of Anna Maria Island at 1 pm, cruised on and ate some lunch. At 2:35 we reached the Pinellas Byway Bridge and a Marine Patrol informed us the span was going to be closing so the only way through was a lower portion of the bridge. One of the reasons we purchased this boat was because we have a 14’ clearance bridge on our canal. We dropped the top & antenna and made it under no problem.
   
    We made it to Madeira Beach Marina at 4:05, hooked up and headed to the Daiquiri Shak for a snack and a Margarita. It was my lucky day, I got to spend a great day with Beth on Pau Hana and I found a crisp $1 bill in the grass!


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