3/1/14: We spent the last 3 days at the Melbourne Harbor Marina, Melbourne Florida. 

The day that we arrive about 7 miles south of the entrance WE LOST OUR STEERING! Now that’s what you call a pucker moment.

During our 2013 retro-fit we had Mirage the manufacture of our boat install new rudders with a new steering cylinder & steering pump. It appears they forgot to tighten a jam nut resulting in the cylinder becoming disconnected from the rudders. We were in the channel dead in the water with no way to steer. Russ sprang into action, got down into the bowls of the boat & made emergency repairs to get us to the dock. Once at the dock Russ was able to address the problem and fix it.

Now here is the God moment with this story. As Russ was downstairs working to get our steering back I was upstairs at the helm watching for boats & watching our depth and I have to admit I was stressed! We drifted out of the channel & landed EXACTLY on a spot I had marked on our chart. It was a spot we had anchored at in November 2013. When I saw we were dead on that spot I just looked up to the heavens and thanked God for His protection. We serve an amazing God!

We had already made arrangements for AMC Electronics to meet us at Melbourne to fix our autopilot. Again during our 2013 retro-fit we had Mirage install a new autopilot & the thing never worked right. Of course the guy at Mirage said we really didn’t need an autopilot & would never use it. WRONG AGAIN! Dave the owner of AMC came aboard, we took Twelve Stones out and he got the autopilot working perfectly. We are underway as I am writing this & the autopilot working correctly has been like night and day from before. Russ is very happy.

We have learned a lot since we first bought Twelve Stones but perhaps the most costly ($$$$) lesson we learned is …. Just because someone says they know how to work on boats doesn’t mean its true.

The highlight of our Melbourne stop was the time we got to spend with our friends Denny & Linda McGovern. Also Kay & Al on Knot Home came in for a night as they head north.

Life on the water is good.