Sometimes dreams really do come true!

Location: Zimmerman Marine - Cardinal, VA
Position: 37 24.446 N 076 21.203 W

The morning of the scheduled engine alignment:
"I had a dream last night." she says
"You never remember your dreams." he says.
"Well, I remembered this one." she says.
"What was it about?" he asks
"I dreamed we had to get a new engine." she says
"You're not allowed to dream any more." he says.

She tells The Crew about the dream at breakfast:
"You're not allowed to dream any more." says The Crew.
"See? Told you!" he says.

Later in the day she tells The Mechanic about the dream:
"You're not allowed to dream any more." says The Mechanic.
"See? Told you!" says The Crew.
"She never remembers her dreams." he says.
"Anyway, it was just a dream." she says.

Waiting for 'The Part' to arrive so that the Mechanic can determine if 'The Problem' really is in the transmission, they fill their days with busy work. The Crew goes home on Thursday. 'The Part' arrives the following Monday. The Mechanic dives into the basement and works his magic. The diagnosis is not good. The transmission's output shaft bearings are definitely shot and the output shaft itself is also worn and may be bent!?!

We rejoin our protagonists as The Mechanic tells them the news:
"$3,000 to rebuild the transmission?" he asks.
"And that's only IF they can find the parts?" she asks.
"You're not allowed to dream any more." he says.
"See? Told you!" says The Mechanic.

Assuming we can find an output shaft, we could do the rebuild. Unfortunately we'd still be stuck with an engine and transmission that are almost 30 years old and are pretty darned hard to find parts for. Not a good scenario if something were to break, especially somewhere "off the beaten path".

We think paying about 1/4 the cost of a repower to rebuild the transmission and get the drive train set up correctly is probably throwing good money after bad. So we've deciding that we should bite the bullet and get a new engine and transmission. Ouch.

Who said dreams never come true?? They are big fat liars and deserve a good WHACKing!! On the other hand, some dreams don't come true. This is the second year in a row that we've dreamed of going to Maine and the second year in a row that we aren't going. What a bummer. Very disappointing.

When we get down and out like this Mark likes to bring out his fake Scottish accent. "Och, aye, lass!" It always works - the 2 of us end up laughing and feeling 'no so bad!'. Last Saturday we went up to Deltaville to have dinner with friends at the "yacht club". After dinner we all went out for a cocktail cruise around the creek. Mark stood on the aft deck sipping Scotch ("Well, maybe 'sipping' is an understatement..." she says) reciting Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky ) in his bad fake Scots accent with his hair blowing wildly. We all laughed heartily - thank goodness we still both have a healthy sense of humor!!

Even though Zimmerman's is out in the middle of nowhere (from their web site: "Inconveniently located on the beautiful Mobjack Bay in Mathews, Virginia. We're not close to anything... except our customers.") and hot as blazes right now, we really like the people here and we are making new friends, despite Mark's bad fake accent.

It is SO hot and humid here. We borrowed the yard's loaner car and picked our van up last Monday after we realised we were going to be here for a while. A lovely but quick two-day trip to Blacksburg to visit our daughter Charlotte and her family and pick up the window air conditioning unit followed. Now we are at least a bit cool aboard Rachel.

The dinghy rebuild is progressing well. We've taken her out for a bit of "gunkholing" the past two days and she seems to be fine again. we're hoping to finish up the sail rig in the next day or so - at least then we'll be able to get out and do some sailing this summer!

Dreaming of being cooler ("No! Nononono! Remember? You're not allowed to dream any more!!" he exclaims)