More Trying Times.

We ended up staying four nights in Steinhatchee.  It was long enough.
There were good things about Steinhatchee.  We had some excellent meals there.  We had lunch at Roy's on the advice of our cousin Alice.  Excellent seafood!  Trevor and I split a seafood platter, and we were too full to eat dinner that night.  The restaurant was a bit of a walk in strong winds, but worth it.  Down the road the other way was a place called Fiddler's.  They came and picked us up!  How awesome is that?  It was really cold the day we went there, and the restaurant was farther away than Roy's, so a ride to lunch was a very welcome treat.  And the food was amazing!  We had sandwiches on flat bread.  Between the four of us, we had grouper, softshell crab, shrimp, and prime rib.  They were all awesome!  But I think the winner was the prime rib sandwich.  If you ever get lost and end up in Steinhatchee, you should definitely make a trip to Fiddler's for lunch and get the prime rib sandwich.  They have a menu online, and their appetizers look crazy delicious.  We almost went back for dinner, but we hated to ask for a ride just to order a bunch of appetizers.  Next time, though.  (Not sure I want a next time, but the food will be a bright spot if there is one.)  Oh, and we had pizza our last night there for good luck. 
But there were less-than-awesome things, too.  Sea Hag marina wasn't great.  When we got there (after dark), they put us at the end of a pier with another boat.  There wasn't enough room there for both of us.  Our bow was hanging over the other boat's stern, and our stern was off the end of the dock.  We couldn't reach the electric plug-in either.  "This is our port in a storm?!" I was hungry and grumpy at the end of a long day, so I was not patient.  Luckily, they moved us to a more reasonable slip. The docks themselves aren't great, but they work.  We were fine tied up in crazy winds for a few days.  And the showers were terrible.  The women's at least.  My first attempt to shower ended in complete failure.  I let the water run and run but got no hot.  So I gave up.  Trevor had a more successful shower (apparently the hot water takes a while to get there, and I gave up just before it did).  So I tried again.  The windows for the women's shower was open, and stuck that way.  So it was cold in there, really really cold.  And I had to duck down to get under the shower head.  I had a less-than-satisfying shower.  I hate it when I finish a shower shivering.  And the final bad thing about Sea Hag is the blatant price-gouging on diesel fuel.  Trevor and I don't use much fuel, so it didn't affect us terribly.  But Mom and Dad took on 60 gallons.  And they were charged $3.75 a gallon for it.  Just down the street at the gas station, it was only $2.75.  Unreasonable!  We were really happy to get out of there.  The cabin fever was taking hold, too.
Okay, rant about the marina is over.  We stayed for so long because of the wind and the cold. 

See how choppy the water is?  We were pretty well sheltered here, and it was still choppy. Wicked winds.

This is ice on one of our dock lines.  Nasty cold.

But the lucky pizza worked!  We had some trouble starting the engine due to the cold.  And after a few minutes, it died.  So Trevor drained the primary fuel filter to check for water.  There wasn't any.  But then we ended up with air in the fuel lines.  Ah crap!  It took quite a while to get the air bled from the lines, but we finally managed.  So out we went.  Ready to steam down to the Cedar Keys and then on to Tarpon Springs the next day.  Well, you know how plans go.  The wind didn't cooperate.  It was (and here's a shock) not what the forecast called for.  Oh, the marine forecast around here.  So frustrating.  So the wind was on our nose.  As usual.  We couldn't sail with our jib, but we managed to use the main sail a little.  We had to have the bimini down to use it, but a little extra sunshine was kinda nice considering how nasty cold it was.  So the main sail gave us a little speed, we think.  And we got to the Cedar Keys and anchored before sunset.  We had leftover vegetable-beef soup (Mom's delicious soup!) and grilled cheese (so good!) while the sun went down.  Oh, you like sunset pictures?  Okay.

The next morning (Thursday), we got up bright and early.  Way before sunrise.  Took three tries to get the motor started, but it was cold.  We headed out as the sun came up.  We actually saw the sun rise over the same island that it set behind the night before.  Don't get to see that very often.  The wind came up pretty early that morning, so we had a breeze blowing us out to the Gulf.  And some dolphins escorting us out (have I mentioned that I love them?).  Once we made our turn, the wind was on our faces yet again.  (Cursed forecasts are always off.)  We ran up the main sail and charged into the waves.  The sail actually seemed to help us keep our momentum even through the waves.  We were still going considerably slower than we needed to.  70 miles at 3.5 mph is a 20-hour drive.  Eventually, we gave it up.  We were going to get the crap beat out of us forever if we continued on.  So we made a beeline for Crystal River.  As we were heading that way, the wind died down, and the seas calmed.  Ah, much nicer.  We could have gone all day in seas like that.  Weird how the wind dies in the afternoon in this part of the world.  We anchored just outside the channel that goes into Crystal River.  We didn't want to go into the river because it's 9 miles in to a marina.  That's about 2 hours.  We couldn't afford a 2-hour delay when we already have a long long drive ahead of us.  So we anchored rafted up to see how it would do.  The wind picked back up a little, and we could see our boat bobbing next to Mom and Dad's.  We knew the rafting thing wouldn't work for the night, so we were planning to separate and anchor on our own after we finished our drinks.  Then the wind picked up more.  The water got choppy.  So we separated fast, pulled up our stern anchor, and headed for the channel.  The wind was blowing hard enough to actually knock us off course and almost out of the channel.  Once we got into the river itself, we were fine.  But the depth goes up and down and up and down.  20 feet to 6 feet to 16 to 8.  Very stressful to watch the depth in an unfamiliar place.  Eventually we made it to Pete's Pier, where we tied up for the night. 
Trevor and I had a slight fuel leak, so I tried to fix it.  When I loosened one of the nuts, I hears a hiss of air going into the lines.  Ah crap, not again.  But we decided to deal with it in the morning, as it had been such a rough day.  So I went to take a shower.  And it wasn't hot.  It was slightly warmer than cold, so I gave it a try.  I only got through washing my hair when I gave it up.  This made four showers in a row that ended with me shivering and disappointed.
And now for today's events.  It was a doozy of a day.
After we had coffee and were starting to lean toward leaving, I started the motor.  Started no problem!  It's nice and warm (I was only wearing 1 pair of pants, instead of 5), so the engine was happy.  For a little while.  Then that bubble must have gotten to the important part, and the motor died.  Crappity crap crap.  We were ready to go!  So I started bleeding the lines.  But try as I might, I could not get fuel to come out of some of them.  Trevor tried and had less luck.  So I tried again, and nothing but bubbles.  Frustrated, we moped to Mom and Dad and called my brother Dave for advice.  We drained the Racor filter (because that seemed to work before), but it didn't refill afterward.  Hmm.  Talked to Dave again, and he said check farther up the line.  So we did.  Farther and farther up.  We messed with plumbing we didn't even know existed.  Ball valve?  We have one!  And it was dirty.  So we cleaned parts and checked lines and got some fuel right out of the tank.  Water and dirt in the tank.  Oh no!  Nastiness in the fuel tank is a big problem.  After weighing several options, we decided to go to the West Marine store, get an external fuel tank, plumb it in, and skip the main fuel tank altogether. 
So we strolled up to West Marine.  We called them on the way to make sure they even carried fuel tanks, and Trevor talked to a guy who said he had some ideas how to make it work.  So we got there, asked a guy on the way where the fuel tanks were.  Hey, it was the guy Trevor and already talked to!  His name was Bryce, and he was definitely our hero of the day!  So he met us over by the fuel tanks and went over our problem with us.  Gave us advice, then more advice.  Kept us from buying things we didn't necessarily need.  Said he knew a guy who could polish our fuel tank, and then we wouldn't have to buy a new tank.  (Polishing consists of pumping out the fuel, filtering it, pumping it back in forcefully [to knock the crud out of the tank] and repeating until clean.) That sounded pretty good to us!  He even called the fuel polishing guy.  No answer, but he left a message for us.  And then you know what he did?  He gave us a ride back to the marina!  Said he'd be back later to check on us.
We could not get hold of the fuel polishing guy.  We finally got a call back, but it was from a place in Key West, so no good.  We eventually ended up calling another marina (Twin Rivers) to get their fuel polishing guy to help us out.  But they said he couldn't polish the fuel, just pump it out.  But he said that should take care of the crud in the tank.  Okay, cool. 
Hey, you know who showed up in the meantime?  Our buddy Bryce!  He brought some stuff he had lying around at home that he thought might help us out.  How nice is that?  And wouldn't take a dime for it, just said pay it forward.  If there were more people in the world like Bryce, it would be a much nicer place.  He also gave us moral support, some more advice, and information about some of the places we were headed to.  We told him if he makes it down to the Keys in the next couple of months to give us a call.  I really hope we see him down there.
So the guy shows up, and he pumps out our tank.  But that doesn't take care of the crud.  At all.  And the guy leaves.  Just leaves.  Basically with a "sucks for you" attitude.  Hard to get good help on a Friday afternoon, I guess.  So we unbolted the tank and dragged it to a slightly better spot (there are no easy places to work on fuel tanks on a sailboat).  Trevor shoved a rag in and wiped out what he could.  He did this several times.  Lots of really nasty rags.  After a ton of effort, pulling the tank out completely, and some non-bloggable methodology, we managed to get that tank as clean as it's going to be.  We'll put it back in tomorrow, hook everything up, bleed the lines.  After that, all our problems will be solved!  We hope.  With a clean fuel tank and a fresh supply of fuel, we should be good to go.  Honestly, we should have cleaned the tank earlier, but we didn't realize how bad it was.  You never know how bad things are until they die, especially when you can't see them.
Oh yeah, and another cool thing.  As we were working, the guy across the dock offered us a bag of ice he didn't need.  Said he was just going to throw it away, and he'd rather see it used.  So we got ice! 
Here are my thoughts on Crystal River.  It's pretty here.  The people are really nice.  But the marinas are not the best.  But at least the people are nice.