Most Bad Days of Cruising are Better Than Working

At least I think so.  This has been a strange year!  We’ve always known that there would be mechanical problems from time to time, but his year it seems like it has been non-stop.  The really strange thing is that several of the cruisers that we got to know last year have also had a rash of mechanical and electrical problems this year as well.  It seems like we’ve had one thing after another since we left the end of January.  We arrived here in Key Largo to find that our house batteries were acting strange.  When we checked them they were extremely hot.  We checked the alternator and the shore power charger and everything seemed normal, but the solar controller didn’t seem to be functioning properly.  The batteries were toast, so we set out to locate the best replacements.  That in itself turned out to be a real challenge.  Based on all the suppliers we talked with, it appeared that our current batteries were mis-labeled and we didn’t have the capacity that we thought we did.  So we went with similar type and size batteries and assumed that the capacity would continue to be adequate for the things we have on board.  As we speak I’m waiting for a new solar controller to arrive so that we can change that out.

It was nice to return to Manatee Bay Marine in Key Largo.  The owners and staff had always been very pleasant and welcomed us back.  We got some great help with trouble shooting the electrical problems and if we had to have some down time, this was a great familiar place to be.  Hard to believe but we have arrangements to haul the boat out of the water in about 5 days.  That will give us enough time to clean things up and prepare to leave the boat.  We will then head to the British Virgin Islands where we’ll meet friends from Denver and Bismarck for some charter sailing time.  Plans are to return from the BVI about April 27 and then start the trek back to Bismarck.  We hope to visit our son Tom for a few days in Savannah, GA on the way back.

Haul Out area at Manatee Bay

Spent several day in this well protected area

Made it to Ft Lauderdale

These photos don't  really do justice in giving you and idea of how many people are there

Things have been running much better since we had the work done in Port Solerno and I found the crud in the fuel line.  

We've been working our way south on the Intracoastal Waterway, mainly because there are few good inlets between Port Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale except for Fort Pierce and Lake Worth.  When we got to those inlets, the wind was coming from the south.  Go figure!  One of the stops that we made was at Boca Raton Lake.  It was a wonderful anchorage until we hit the week-end.  I thought we had gone to never never land.  I really don't think I've seen so many boats in one place except at a boat show.  Then in addition to the regular crowd, the Hillsboro Yacht Club was having a change of commodores and the whole club was there with all their boats rafted together.  Thank goodness we had anchored before everyone started to arrive.

We arrived today in Ft Lauderdale and are staying at the Las Olas Municipal Marina for a few nights.  We're convinced that some schools must be on spring break since there were so many young people at the beach and it's only a Monday.  We hope to kick back for a few days and then head for Miami, Biscayne Bay and then the keys.  

Heading south but not very fast

Cristy McCaliff Bridge on Merritt Island

Vero Beach evening on the mooring

After leaving the Titusville harbor we immediately experienced a problem with our gages and then the engine died.  After changing the filters and resetting a tripped breaker I was able to get things going again.  Things ran great as we headed to Dragon Point near Melbourne, FL.  However, after about 3 hours we started to experience engine problems again and it finally died completely.  All my best attempts to fix things on the water failed.  So, with our Boat US membership card in hand we called TowBoat US and got a tow to Harbortown Marina in Port Canaveral.  From there we contacted 3 different shops to see about a mechanic .  None of them could do anything for 2 or 3 days depending on who you talked with.  We made arrangements with 3 to see who could get there the fastest.  In the mean time I started to do some trouble shooting which resulted in my finding a major clog in the fuel line inside an “Algea-X” fitting.  This fitting which is not stock and was there when we bought the boat, is supposed to eliminate algea in the fuel by means of a magnet system.  When I saw the clog and the limited space for fuel, I made the decision to remove it.  The engine has run great since it was removed.  So I called the mechanics and said never mind. 

After leaving Port Canaveral we made it to Dragon Point and then on to Vero Bech where we took a mooring and stayed for 3 days.  Early February 23rd we left Vero Beach and headed for Peck Lake close to Stuart, FL.  We arrived there about 3:00pm after fighting the Sunday afternoon boaters cruising around the St Lucie Inlet.  Lots of fisherman, big power boats and no one that cares what happens to their wake.  Peck Lake is a nice anchorage, but the Army Corp of Engineers currently have dredging operations taking up about half of the lake processing dredged material from the St Lucie Inlet.  Normally there would have been a dozen or more boats anchored there, but this night there were only 3 of us.

Plans were to be up early and head for North Palm Beach.  After we left the anchorage we had only just  begun when once again we had a high temperature alarm.  We immediately shut things down and anchored.  Found that the fan belt had broken.  I had a couple of spare belts, so I quickly changed it and restarted the engine.  Unfortunately our pesky gage problem had returned, so I shut down the engine to reset the breaker.  Long story short, the breaker wouldn’t reset and we therefore couldn’t restart the engine.  Tow Boat here we come.  We got towed back to the Stuart, FL area and the Port Salerno Marine Boat Yard.  Like Marilyn said, she thinks we stepped into an episode of “Duck Dynasty.”  Lots of good old boys working in and around the boat yard.  The good news is that they had someone that in about an hour found the frayed wire that we had on our alternator.  After repairing that and easily resetting the breaker, it fired right up.  We hope that’s the last of the breaker problems.  Once again we now plan to head for North Palm Beach in the morning.  We will be hitting a marina so we can get a better shower and maybe even watch a little TV.  Stay tuned for the next episode of fix this old boat.

We made it to Lake Worth, North Palm Beach and took a slip at Old Port Cove Marina.  Compared to the Salerno Boat Yard that was like Duck Dynasty, this place is like Dallas Dynasty.  They were extremely helpful coming into the slip and their rest rooms, showers, laundry and boat center are wonderful.  They also have transportation that they provide to the Publix grocery store and West Marine.  We're going to check that out sometime today.  Hopefully the rest of our trip south will be a little smoother.

Finally Splashed !!

We finally splashed the boat back into the water on February 10th, 2014, and decided to stay here a few more days to make sure that everything like the frig, hot water heater, stove, etc were working the way they should.  Very glad we decided to stay.  The engine fired up right away so we moved to the slip that they assigned.  With the engine still running and while we were tying up, the hot engine alarm went off.  Naturally I was not happy, but after we got settled and I had a chance to think about it, I knew, but had forgotten that I needed to add more coolant.  When we cleaned the heat exchanger, we had to lose a lot of coolant, so I knew I was going to have to add some more.  After adding the coolant the engine maintained temperature and everybody, especially me, was happy.  The next thing we ran into was the dinghy outboard.  It would start and run pretty fast, but then immediately die.  With the help of our friend Mike Link, who we met in the Bahamas last year, I was able to pull the carburetor and clean it.  Mike said he's done his so many times, he can do it in his sleep.  It was pretty gummed up and I think the float was sticking.  After cleaning and replacing, it ran fine.

Last night we had a pretty big bank of thunderstorms come through.  Glad we were in the marina.  According to the weather reports, there were over 5,000 lighting strikes between Orlando and the east coast of Florida.  It was pretty windy and it rained quite a bit, but nothing too scary.  We hope to get things topped off and ready to go so that we can start to move south a little.  If the weather cooperates, we hope to head out on Friday, February 14.  That will be our valentines present.

Slip at Westland Marina after "splashing"

This is why we keep following our friends the Links

Outboard is running great after cleaning

A STRANGE WINTER BUT AFTER A LONG WAIT THE WEATHER IS MUCH BETTER

I know, I know, I’ve been really bad about posting to the blog, but like I said, it’s been a strange winter.  Rather than heading for Florida in early November like we'd hoped, I ended up making a short visit to the hospital and Marilyn thought she better wait for me before she left too.  Ultimately it wasn’t anything serious.  Seems I had a heart valve that got a little out of wack, but was taken care of with medication.  So now I’ve joined the club of others taking aspirin and Lipitor.  The worst part of the whole thing was that it set our schedule back by about 2 1/2 weeks.  That meant we had to change a lot of reservations and find somewhere else to stay while we worked on the boat.  Things got worked out and we settled in to work on things and get it ready to go back into the water.  As we worked on things, it took much, much longer to deal with the engine repair that I had planned.  After completing a few projects, it became clear that it didn’t make sense to go anyplace with the boat if we planned to go home for the holidays, so we left it on the ground and headed for cold, cold North Dakota.

North Dakota seemed colder than normal this year, but regardless, we had a wonderful Christmas with daughter Andrea and grandson Kyle.  Unfortunately, son Tom couldn’t be there, but, Oh yes, he did get to spend some time with us over the Thanksgiving holiday and we had fun in the warm weather with him.  We spent some time with friends skiing in Colorado, before preparing to head back south.

On January 29th we headed back south to two straight days of rain.  But, at least it was rain and not snow.  One of the final couple of things that we need to do before putting the boat back in the water is to fix the port centerboard.  In order to do that we needed to have the boat hang on the lift for awhile before it goes into the water.  The best option was to have it hang for a week-end when workers are not at the boat yard.  Unfortunately, there was a scheduling conflict which has postponed our lift by another week.  We hope to get the lift and fix the centerboard next week-end, February 8th and 9th.  Then finally, we should be able to drop her in the water.  As soon as we get her wet, I hope I have some more interesting narrative to share.

Cleaning the winches was so much fun

Record high temps in FL made for nice beach time

Westland Marina next to where the boat is kept