SV Jade and the Broken Down Outboard

Back aboard Holiday, we also made some great friends in Key West. My favorite part of cruising! We spent some fun times with Ren, Ashley, and Ani that grabbed a mooring ball next to ours aboard their trimaran Jade. Apparently, we were having so much fun that we forgot to take many pictures, but the couple I have here display the helpfulness within the cruising community. While dinghying over to Jade one day, our outboard motor seized up. Not wanting to bother Ren with it, I started to get out the oars to row back to Holiday and see if I could figure out what was up. Ren insisted that I bring the motor aboard Jade, and he would help me fix it. Having no idea what was wrong, how long and involved the fix might be, and not knowing all the things Ren and crew might have been planning for their day previously, I tried to refuse and head back to Holiday (not to mention dragging all their tools out and dirtying up their boat deck). He wouldn’t hear of it though, and he, Lindy, and I set to dismantling the old Evinrude. To shorten an already long story, it ended up being that we needed to replace the impeller, but Ren’s generosity didn’t end there. He gave me a ride to town in his dinghy, let me borrow one of their bikes, and rode around town and helped me find the part I needed, before taking me back out to the boat and helping put it all back together again. All told, we spent most of the day working on it. Thanks again Ren! I’ll say it again: the people we meet is the best part of this cruising life. Check out Ren, Ashley, and Ani here. Looking forward to seeing you all again up in NC!


Oh, I found one other associated picture…this awesome sunset shot I took off the deck of Jade: