Part 3 - Pensacola Preparations

Mary and I were roused from our nap by some other folks looking to make room on the Pensacola Yacht Club's T-Dock for another boat, which we obligingly did.

That afternoon, my dad and his wife Amy stopped by to check out the boat. I gave him one last chance to come on board as crew, but he declined. However, they were kind enough to let us use their "Red Truck," a big Chevy 2500 DuraMax diesel 4x4 crew cab that they use to haul horses with. It may be the most fantastic pick-up truck in the world. The DuraMax diesel, complete with turbocharger, will push it well above 100 mph. That's 160 kilometers per hour for all of you metri-cized people out there. Leather seats, a Bose sound system with controls right on the steering wheel, and heated seats make for one sweet ride. I'd put it up against any luxury sedan anyday.

So now we are terrestrially mobile. First things first, we went out for Cokes and Pringles. Then I got into repairing the seawater fountain that had made our trip over so uncomfortable. It took all day to get the old hose off, and when we did we could clearly see a 2-3 square inch hole in the side. Mucha agua.

The next day we woke up to get the critical repairs finished and pick up the dodger. The dodger is the canvas and plastic "glass" that protects us from the waves in the cockpit, much like a windshield. We had been in the process of getting a new one made for a long time, not for an insignificant amount of money. And without whining or going into great detail or potentially becoming the object of a libel suit, Island Canvas or Bill's Canvas (it was never clear to me which they were) do not do conscientous work for the price they charge suited to an offshore yacht, or for that matter any yacht whose owner takes pride in its appearance.
We had to drive to the hinterlands of Mobile, Alabama, between it and Dauphin Island to pick up the dodger. Bill's "shop" is located down the end of a dirt road in which we had to negotiate barking dogs, trailers, cars on blocks, and a worn Confederate battle flag. The "shop" itself was a cross between a barn, a garage, and a chicken house. The rework to the rework still didn't meet our expectations, but it was obvious by now that we weren't going to get it. So we took what we got, hopped in the truck, and headed back towards town before encountering a Deliverance episode.