New Smyrna Beach

07-08 July 2017

Since we needed repairs to our engine we wanted to be at a marina slip instead of on the hook as previously planned. We called the city marina and they were kind enough to make room for us on short notice.

I looked at the new pump and couldn't see what was wrong with it, so I took it apart and put it back together again. Still nothing. I had the idea of taking the old leaky pump off the engine and comparing the two side by side. Off went the bolts again and I pulled the pump off the engine, about an eighth of an inch. I pulled. I tugged. I started to pry and stopped myself. Something was clearly different because the pumps had always pulled right on and off, other than aligning the shaft with the drive gear off of the engine, seen to the left in the picture below.

We asked about a diesel repair guy and were told that their equivalent of Diesel Don was currently in the Bahamas. Our second choice was Al. We called and he was over that afternoon. He had never seen anything like it in 30 years of doing this, but it had to come off, so he advanced to the higher level of prying and pushing. It finally popped off and he observed that the pump shaft was chewed up. He looked into the engine and saw that the little drive gear for the pump was trashed on the inside.

We looked at the new pump and the shaft had some less significant rounding of the corners. The gear had failed and ceased to engage the shaft so it could be driven. It was nothing but dumb luck that when I slid the old pump on in Mosquito Lagoon it had somehow engaged with the damaged gear, but semi-permanently, which is why I couldn't remove it.

Well, we knew what the problem was, which was good, but Al had only seen this a few times in 30 years. It was unlikely that the gear was sitting on the shelf near us, if at all. He gathered up the pumps and the gear and went off to find new ones.

We were clearly going to be here for a while. We were supposed to be in Brunswick in a week, and Heather flew out in less than two. Maybe not.

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Mosquito Lagoon

07 July 2017

We left Cocoa Beach in the morning. There was little if any wind, and the water was glassy. The building below is I believe part of the NASA launch facility. It is miles away, so it is much bigger than it seems in this picture. We need to try and do the tour there on the way back.

We plugged along north under bridges, and then entered what is called Mosquito Lagoon. It was still mid afternoon and hot, so the mosquitoes were not out in force, but there were lots of bugs, big ones. There were also lots of manatees, mostly because we were in the middle of nowhere.

I was driving (why do most of the unintentionally interesting stories start that way?) and I heard a slight change in the tone of the engine. I started looking around and saw that we were no longer belching out water from the engine exhaust. A glance at the temperature gauge showed it was above 200°F and still moving higher.

I yelled for Heather to come up and drive, and we drove out of the ditch to the lagoon alongside. We oozed to a stop in the thick mud while I got the anchor out, then we quickly turned off the engine. The overtemp alarm hadn't gone off but it would have within seconds. We had turned into what little wind there was, and it was enough to slowly unground us from the muck, but at the cost of drifting closer to the ditch, which still had a fair amount of traffic. The hook set and we stopped right at the edge. Not too bad for an emergency drill.

Since we were far from much of anything we would probably not be able to get a tow today, which meant spending the night here. It was not appealing to wait for dusk and the namesake creatures to come out and play. I went below to try and figure out what was going on. The water pump had less than 50 hours on it. The most common issue with no raw water flow is a broken impeller, which is a little rubber waterwheel shaped thing that drives the seawater thru the pump. I took off the cover and the impeller seemed new, which is was. Okay, upstream or downstream.

I looked guiltily at the raw water strainer which I had never cleaned. I took off the lid, but other than a few twigs, some strands of sea grass and a little algae the basket looked pretty good. I cleaned it anyway with a small brush and put it back. I took off the intake hose and could blow bubbles underneath the boat, so no water intake clogged with a grocery bag or jellyfish or whatever. Water could get to the pump. Maybe the exhaust elbow for the engine was clogged, similar to the generator. I could blow in the exit hose freely, so nothing stopping water from proceeding downstream.

I asked Heather to turn over the engine while I watched the pump. The weep hole that was leaking on the old pump also allows you to see the shaft turning in the pump. The shaft wasn't turning even though the engine was. All I could think of to do is pull off the new pump and slide on the old pump. Better leaky than nothing at all.

Heather started the engine with the old pump on it. We were spitting water out of the exhaust again, and the engine temperature was back down where it should be. The old pump was still slowly leaking but should get us to our next stop - New Smyrna Beach, home of Bob Ross. That guy's soothing patter while he painted could put me to sleep in record time.

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Cocoa Beach

06 July 2017

We anchored just north of the bridge in Cocoa Beach, setting the anchor quickly in the thick mud and shell on the east side. It was too much trouble to deploy the dinghy for one night so we stayed on the boat and had dinner. It was a quiet night and we moved very little.

Up came the very messy anchor in the morning and we headed north to New Smyrna Beach.

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Velcro Beach

02 July 2017

In the morning we departed and headed north to Vero Beach. It has become a major spot for cruisers to gather, getting the nickname Velcro Beach because it is just too easy and pleasant to leave. While there is quite a bit within walking distance, there is also a little local shuttle bus to drive you to the grocery or the movie theater. They pick up, fill then return propane cylinders. Everything a cruiser could need.

A breakfast place we went to more than once was Mrs. Mac's Fillin Station. It was cute and good and cheap. I learned that you could grill a biscuit (along with everything else).

We stayed for a few days and I gave the freezer coolant a go. I had some trouble with the fittings and hoses, and am now convinced I removed more coolant than I added at first. I gathered some more hoses and adapters and gave it another try the next day. It took a couple hours, but I finally got it just right (filled but not overfilled) and the temperatures in the fridge and freezer began to plummet to new lows.

We were in Vero Beach for the 4th of July. There were at least five fireworks displays visible from the boat, with the biggest one just on the other side of the bridge.

And finally a public service announcement, an important safety tip. What is the most important sign in the picture below? That's right, the warning about the previously referred to crab holes. Enough said.

On the 5th we headed north to anchor near Cocoa Beach. Reaching Georgia before we needed to head back to Arizona started to seem within our reach.

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Palm Beach

30 June 2017

We headed north on the ditch for the Palm Beach area, leaving FtL behind. While there are not as many bridges heading north compared to south of us, there were still quite a few to clear.

It was also the beginning of the 4th of July long weekend, and there were party boats everywhere.

We ended up at a marina at a place called Riviera Beach. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant next to the marina and called it a day.

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North to Stuart

01 July 2017

In the morning we packed up again and headed back up the ditch toward Stuart. We got a slip that was a ways up the river from Stuart adjacent to a Club Med, next to a boat named "Broke & Drunk".

We walked around the Club Med but it didn't really seem worth buying a day pass for one dinner and there was very little else around. There were quite a few rabbits running around.

Back to the boat we went for dinner and a drink.

Once again we were back at it in the morning, enjoying making some progress north.

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Ft. Lauderdale

27 June 2017

We were able to start the engine right up in the morning. Over to the fuel dock we went. There was a powerboat in the way so we had some time to float around and plan our approach a little more. We topped up with diesel and headed back out the way we came, past the Cape Florida Light and back into the Atlantic.

We were going outside into the ocean instead of inside along the ditch through downtown Miami and such primarily because of the Julia Tuttle bridge. All new permanent bridges on the ditch will clear at least a 65 foot mast or so. Not the Tuttle. It mysteriously will clear 56 feet, not 65. The urban legend is that a dyslexic typo in the engineering resulted in this one different bridge height, but no one has ever fessed up. I've reviewed enough engineering drawings to believe it's possible.

Compounding this is the fact that we were not entirely sure what our mast height really is. After proceeding this far were were certain that it was less than 58 feet. Several bridge tenders had expressed doubt that it was even that. Even when you clear a bridge by a few feet, looking up from 50 some odd feet below it looks very close.

I didn't want to be the second person to drive this boat into a bridge. Not a typo - second. The previous owner, after a very long and stormy day managed to drive into a bridge on the gulf side of the ditch. That is why our boat was one of the very few 20 year old sailboats with standing rigging that was only a few years old, which was good. But our mast was no longer necessarily a factory configuration.

We had a good day sailing up to Ft. Lauderdale. The picture is of the Miami skyline from a mile or so offshore.

The Ft. Lauderdale channel is straight and straightforward, but there was quite a bit of traffic. A tug tender cleared the channel in front of a big freighter coming out. The first bridge we approached was new since I had been thru a few years before on the Bahamas trip. Although it opened it cleared at least 58 feet closed. We requested an opening of the bridge anyway on the VHF radio and the bridge tender kindly suggested we get a little closer and consider going thru with the bridge closed. As he said, it wasn't in his interest for anyone to hit the bridge either, and he felt that we were clearly less that 58 feet. We got closer and he said we would definitely clear the bridge. As we went thru he estimated we had more than four feet of clearance, putting us at less than 54 feet. It sure didn't look like we cleared by four feet watching from 50 feet below. But now we were confident that we were less than 55 feet, which is an important metric for boats and bridges on the ditch. We will continue to refine our estimated mast height.

We went further up the river to the Las Olas city marina. We had some difficulty backing into the slip with the current, but Heather hung in there after I would have bailed more than once. When we have to abort an approach or miss a turn or such we call it a victory lap. The piers were concrete and fixed, and the tide was very low. Heather could't even get off the boat until the tide came in some, but we were finally here.

We had a few tasks scheduled for FtL. We had been carrying a couple of sails all the way from Texas that we had very little use for at this time. There was a genoa that turned out to be a deck sweeping 170% (70% bigger than the distance from the bow to the mast). Kind of an old school sail at this point, and way to big for us to handle. There was also a spinnaker that the previous owner says had flown for about 5 hours total. We had never flown a spinnaker and weren't about to anytime soon. Each sail filled the biggest duffle bag you have ever seen. Since FtL is one of the world boating centers there were multiple businesses we could sell these sails to. We picked one, loaded them up in a rental car, and both sails were layed out in the loft. The spinnaker was very colorful and even had a snuffer to aid in deploying the sail and bringing it back down. We got several hundred bucks for the cruising kitty and a whole lot of space cleared up in our lockers.

We also thought there was someone here that could look at our freezer. Maybe that was just during the boat show. We called the manufacturer and there wasn't anyone here specifically to look at it, and he emphasized the coolant charge rather than the thermostat this time. I looked at his videos online and decided to take it on.

There was also a delightful french bakery just on the other side of the parking lot from the marina. The only business that was closer was a liquor store, which are usually not far from most marinas. We rented another car and topped up with groceries, visited Bluewater Books for some more cruising guides, and hit a Costco. After a few days we were ready to get on the move again.

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