We’ve mentioned in previous posts that we’ve been having trouble with our starboard engine. We knew the problem had to be electrical or fuel-related. Thanks to James, the mechanic at Spring Brook, we finally got the answer. It’s fuel-related!
Now we had a decision to make. Stay in Spring Brook and get the repairs done there or start heading south and get the repairs done at a stop on the way.
Leaving Spring Brook
We decided to leave Spring Brook on Thursday and head for Heritage Harbor.
Things we will miss:
- Steak Saturday and Trivia Wednesday at the 252 Restaurant. Check out their Facebook page.
- the swimming pool, and most of all
- the people.
Jimmy and Paula, the previous owners, were so friendly and gave us lots of tips. John, who loaned us a really nice fishing rod and then gave us two fishing rods when we returned it. Captain Bill who we met on the way and came to look at our engines and spend some time with them when we mentioned our troubles. Gene, who took Greg and Matt for a ride in his cart and shared some stories along the way.
Before deciding, though, we needed to take a trip into town. We had no breakfast or lunch food and regardless of our decision, we needed to eat.
Our Trip to Town
We borrowed the courtesy vehicle to drive into town. It was a pickup truck, which was cool. I love trucks.
The truck broke down.
Boat Engines, Truck Engines — What is it with Engines?!
It took us a minute to find the hazards. That was tense. It was dark and we didn’t want to get rear-ended.
Almost immediately, a police officer pulled up behind us. We were instructed to call for a tow truck and get the truck off the road.
The officer offered to drive us to someplace where we could sit inside, but we declined. It would have been awkward sitting in the back seat of a police car with all of our stuff. We were carrying two inflated ball fenders, a garbage can, a knee pad, a paint can, an electric heater, and an extension cord. No groceries, though.
The tow truck came and took the truck away. The officer left because crimes were happening.
Now we had to figure out how we were going to get back to the Marina.
NO UBER IN OTTAWA, ILLINOIS. NO LYFT EITHER.
Greg thought there might be Lyft since the app didn’t say that there weren’t any cars available. (Uber immediately told us there were no cars.)
There were no Lyft cars.
Ottawa has two cab companies. The first one stops working at 4:00pm on Fridays. The second one couldn’t come until 11pm, which was three hours away. So now we had to figure out where to wait.
PICNIC TABLES AND PORTA POTTIES
There was a park across the street from where we broke down. It had picnic tables we could sit at while waiting and a porta potty Greg could use if he had to. There was no TP so I was SOL if I had to do anything biological.
I was wearing a sweater and leggings, so I wasn’t too cold. Greg, though, was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and shorts.
We did try to share body heat to keep Greg warm, but it was impossible to keep both his arms and legs warm at the same time given our height differential. So we shared my sweater and I did some exercises to keep warm.
I said jokingly that it was too bad that there were no plugs because we did have an electric heater. Then I started walking around looking for plugs and lo and behold, every lamp post had an outlet! When we plugged in the heater, though, it wouldn’t turn on. We guessed it was because the power had been shut off to the outlets. We discovered later that it was likely because you have to press the button on the bottom of the heater to fool it into thinking it’s on the floor and not tipped over.
SILVER LINING
The silver lining in all of this is that we had not done our grocery shopping before the truck broke down. If there had been no cab, we would have had to have walked to a motel. That would have been impossible if we were lugging groceries as well as our hardware store purchases.
