The adventure continued on Saturday, I had pumped the ball on the fuel hose and believed I had fuel flow. I started the motor and ran it on the trailer for 5 minutes before putting in. The boat idled for 5 minutes while I got my middle child situated on the inner tube for the first ride of the day.

I hit the throttle and the motor dies. I figure it must be an air bubble in the line so I go to pump the fuel ball and it is sucked completely flat! "What the heck?"

So in the ICW on the Saturday after the 4th of July with hundreds of boats and PWC's flying by, I am dead in the water. It is 95 degrees, 100 % humidity.

I quickly anchor before drifting into the middle of the chanel and start trying to figure this out.

I only had a few tools along, luckily I was able to remove the nipple on the fuel oulet from the tank with a rusty pair of plyers and found that the one way ball valve inside the fitting was stuck. I freed the ball and all was well.

Ended up dragging the kids for 24 miles all together on the innertube.