I woke up early again and felt the same as yesterday, so now I’m fairly certain that I’ve only got a cold. I headed ashore early and watched some very big mega yachts negotiate the bridge opening, then topped up my internet with another gigabyte of data; it seems that Microsoft has come up with an update that used up my last 1Gb of data while it was loading in the background. Once back aboard I could check whether the bank transfer had gone through (it had) so I finally went to Budget Marine and got a new outboard today. A nice, shiny Tohatsu 18HP to replace my beat-up Tohatsu 9.8HP outboard! What I neglected to consider was that the new outboard is quite a bit heavier than the old one and lifting it into the dinghy and back onto the transom is a lot more work and just borderline for my upper body strength. I think I might have to hit the gym before I come back next season, or figure out some way to use mechanical advantage to get this lifted up/down. After getting the engine mounted the first thing I did was to replace the nice cover with an old and beat-up one supplied by Andy from Five Star Yachting – this will hopefully make the outboard less of a target for theft. I’m breaking in the engine, and took my old outboard to Five Star at Bobby’s marina; this trip takes just a couple of minutes each way when the dinghy is planing, but as I was idling the engine it took close to 20 minutes each way; but I’m still breaking in the new workhorse.
For dinner I joined Mark and others at the “Pink Iguana” for a cruiser’s night with live music followed by dinner at Maho at “Cheri’s Café”
