Live aboard status

Yesterday felt like we were truly castaways and living aboard the boat not just on vacation. We have a major issue with our dinghy and needed to figure out how to fix it.

The backstory…. our dinghy motor will not start. Luckily our buddy boat just happened to have a spare 5hp motor and has let us use it the last few days so we can get around. When you are living on a boat your dinghy is your car…. And when it doesn’t work you are literally stuck.

So on the list of “Must Haves’ for the boat… a dinghy motor is at the very top.

While we were going ashore to celebrate Tophie’s birthday yesterday we had an ulterior motive to try to get a hold of an outboard tiller motor…. which is like looking for a unicorn because everyone and their brother bought a boat this year.

We set off in our dinghy across the anchorage after swimming all morning with the kids. We had no idea where we were going because when you are at anchor it’s not like there is designated dinghy parking anywhere! But we were lucky and found a little rocky beach we could tie up to.

After a shopping spree at Shell World in Key Largo (highly recommend a pit stop) we swung into Denny’s for some food and ice cream at the birthday boys request. Mike spent lunch calling around to some boat shops to look for a motor. He struck out with all the new retail shops but was able to find a used one about a mile from Denny’s. After the kids were happily in sugar comas we set off in the hot humid heat to check it out.

One we got to the shop it was clear the used motor wasn’t going to work for us but as we were standing there discussing our options the guy came back and said “How about option B?” Option B turned out to be a new electric start 15hp Yamaha motor that was sitting in a dealership north of Key Largo. He could have it to us in 2 days. While this is exactly what we wanted we hesitated because of our buddy boat. If we decided to wait 2 days they would have to decide to stay in this anchorage with us or move to the next location without us and we would catch up.

So many logistics when it comes to living like this. And it is really hard to make decisions when we aren’t the only people affected by setbacks.

After talking to our buddy boat we ended up calling this morning to get the new motor. So now we wait.

I guess we’ll have to do some more swimming and exploring until our motor arrives.

Cheers from Key Largo,

Christy & Crew