Day 120, Year 11: Challenging Start
Date: Friday, February 19, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Hi Temp 70’s, Low 50’s, Wind E 5-20
Latitude: 27 14.681 N
Longitude: 080 13.037 W
Location: Anchored Off Jensen Beach, FL
Total Miles Traveled: 36.7 nautical miles
We made it out of West Palm Beach this morning, but the day brought us more than a few challenges. Due to all the issues we had, we could not make our destination of Ft. Pierce before dark. And that means our arrival time in Little River will be delayed by a day. One thing leads to another.
Challenge #1: Getting fuel in windy conditions.
We stopped at the Rybovich Marina and literally got blown onto the fuel dock as it was quite windy. The staff on the dock were friendly and helpful and when we were finished they actually towed us off the fuel dock until we could maneuver easily. They were afraid if they didn’t our stern would get scraped on the dock. Since there were many multi-million dollar yachts in this marina (one had belonged to Steve Jobs), I’m sure they helped partly because they didn’t want us to hit one of those. But then again, they just seemed like extremely nice people. So that challenge ended on a positive note and we have fuel.
Challenge #2: Engine Overheating
This is the same problem that plagued us on the trip south from Little River and is still not resolved. Kevin thinks that maybe growth on the prop is putting an extra load on the engine. We couldn’t do anything about that while underway today, but in the morning Kevin has volunteered to dive on the prop and give it a quick cleaning. Hopefully that will help the overheating issue. If not, we’ll just have to do what we did today and that is move a little more slowly than we would like.
Challenge #3: Bridges
Because we could not go as fast as usual, we wasted two hours of our day waiting on bridge openings. On the brighter side, Kevin got lots of ICW bridge experience.
Challenge #4: Shoaling
You always have to worry about shoaling in the Intracoastal, especially near inlets. Mark was down for a nap and Kevin and I were concerned about getting through two bridges that were less than a mile apart. We made it through the first bridge and we were in sight of the second bridge. While I was on the radio talking to the bridge tender, Kevin went aground. He was definitely in the middle of the channel where there should have been no problem. I told him to gun it while turning the wheel one way and then the other and he was successful in plowing on through. The bridge was still open, so I called to see if it would stay open for us. Luckily this was a patient bridge tender. By the way, Kevin was afraid this incident might tarnish his angel wings, but he more than earned his keep today with subsequent challenges.
Challenge #5: Mystery of the Missing Water
Sometime between second breakfast and lunch I went down to heat water to make more coffee. I turned on the filtered water faucet and nothing came out. I turned on the regular faucet and still nothing came out. Mark came down to trouble shoot. The water tank that was full this morning was suddenly empty. It took a bit of searching to find the problem but finally Mark solved the mystery. A hose going into the hot water tank had come loose and all of the precious water had poured into the bilge and been pumped overboard. This is the very first time I have ever headed out on a passage with empty jerry jugs. The other day when Mark and I worked together to fill the water tank, he just ran out of energy and decided to not make one last trip to fill the jugs. So we suddenly had no drinking water. We immediately turned on the watermaker, and . . .
Challenge #6: Watermaker Not Working
After running the watermaker all afternoon, we found that at some point it had just stopped making water. We had only an inch of water in the bottom of the tank. Now what to do? In the morning we will go to shore in search of water.
Okay. I’m exhausted just rehashing the day’s challenges. And Mark and Kevin are both already in bed because they are exhausted from fixing the issues. Kevin offered to put on a new water hose going to the water heater once the engine cooled down. In the meantime, he and Mark worked on the watermaker. They tried all the quick fixes which weren’t so quick and nothing worked. The only thing to do is take the unit out, take it apart, and rebuild it. That will be impossible to do with the kind of seas that we are expecting, but maybe we’ll have some calm times. As Kevin said after working in almost impossible conditions in the engine room, “So this is what cruising is all about.” Yep. And it sure is handy to have a problem solver like Kevin aboard to help Mark with these issues.
We’ll start the morning trying to rectify a couple of our issues. Kevin is going to dive on the prop and scrape off the growth. If he is successful, it is our hope that a clean prop will take some of the load off the engine and keep it from overheating. Then we are going to go to shore in search of water. It is quite a distance to shore and if it is still windy we’ll probably get thoroughly soaked with salt spray on the way back to the boat. But if we find water, it will be worth it. We have time to do this as we aren’t in a big hurry in the morning. It is about an hour from here to the Ft. Pierce Inlet where we will head out to sea. We can’t make slack tide in the morning, so we are hoping to go through the pass at slack tide just afternoon. Then we will finally be on our way.
 |
| 160219 Day 120 Florida, USA–Kevin's First Day Aboard |
