Saturday December 17,
2014
We are anchored in Ft
Lauderdale now.
The engine
installation went well. Spent a lot of effort to ensure the output shaft of the
engine matched up to the template I made of the propeller shaft in the boat and
that the engine was at the proper angle. The actual install went very quickly
after that. The engine was in place and adjusted by the end of the day
including a couple runs into town for miscellaneous parts. I ordered new control cables and while waiting
for them got hold of the welder again and modified the exhaust to cross over to
the opposite side. While he worked on that I had to modify the engine
compartment to move the lower edge back an inch or so to give the exhaust more
clearance. When the welder came back with the new manifold I gave him the last
project to weld up, an “A” arm to attach to the new wind generator tower to
lift the outboard off the dingy onto the big boat. The projects this year were,
install new engine, install wind generator and tower, weld on brackets for
dingy lifting, sand blast keel where it was rusting after the keel bolt and
epoxy coat it, bottom paint where needed, install new galley taps, test our new
mattress, Repaired the outboard so that it can be tilted up where it was rusted
up solid at the hinge. We ordered new Chicago screws for the windows but they
never arrived until we got to Ft Lauderdale and they are back in Green Cove and
we just found the order is wrong. We ordered for delivery to Vero Beach and
installed an Actisense NMEA 2000 to 0183 converter to get GPS data into the
radios, and lastly a valve rebuild kit for one of the bilge pumps.
We left Green Cove on
Wednesday Dec 3, a sunny but cool day without enough wind for sailing. What
wind we had was out of the north. Prior to leaving the railroad bridge had been
locked in the down position for a week for maintenance. Once it was opened
there was an exodus of boats finishing up and departing to get through and
south, some just in case the bridge should get closed again for more work. The
RR Bridge is old and they only now seem to be catching up on long needed major
work. From what I understand the pivot hinges that the entire bridge rides on
had to be replaced. Not a small job for the B&B men to get done.
We arrived at
Jacksonville Landing that afternoon and would wait until the next day to try
and ride the tide down to the ICW. Someone misheard the Main Street bridge
times and we had to wait until after rush hour for an opening. The motor sail
down to the ICW was uneventful and we got as far as Pine Island that day. We
might have made it to St Augustine that day but we’d forgotten to change the
GPS to the correct time zone after changing it the previous year. But Pine
Island is a nice peaceful place to anchor and we would have been fighting the
current the rest of the way if we’d continued. We anchored south of the mooring
field seeing as there were no moorings left after topping up with fuel and
water and pumping out. We anchored for two nights and had dinner one night at
the VFW hall. Sunday we left St Augustine for a motor sail down the ICW and
that afternoon we stopped at Palm Coast Marina. They offer a $25 a night
dockage with no services but a nice lounge and gift shop/chandlery and good hot
showers. The next day was cold and blustery with occasional showers but we were
determined to get farther south. We intended to anchor just north of New Smyrna
but the cold wind was blowing straight down the cut. I was already cold so we
continued on and I treated Jeanne to a night at the New Smyrna Marina where we
could get another hot shower, I took two, and plugged in so that we could fire
up the space heater and warm up the boat for the night. We left early the next
morning for the long fifty mile run down to Cocoa Beach and arrived there at
15:30 to anchor for the night.
The next morning we
left for another long run down to Vero Beach and arrived at the mooring at
16:00 Wed Dec, 10 with ¼ tank of fuel left and 43.1 hours on the new engine.
From St Augustine to Vero we ran 27.2 hours on 14.75 gallons of fuel for an
average consumption of 0.54 gallons per hour. With a 20 gallon tank and 15
gallons on deck leaving a ¼ tank in reserve we should be able to motor for
almost 60 hours.
We spent a few days
in Vero waiting on parts and just relaxing. The Actisense arrived first and
once connected we now have lat/longs and time fed to our two radios. Our butyl
tape arrived the next day but the screws still hadn’t shown up back in Green
Cove. We decided to move on to warmer parts. On Sunday December 13th
we pulled up to the fuel dock at dawn and took showers while we waited for the
marina to open. We were fueled, watered and pumped out and left the marina at
08:20 in the company of Tangara and Panonica for the run down to Ft Lauderdale.
We anchored for the night in Hobe Sound and continued on in the morning. At
Lake Worth we headed out the channel and continued on to Port Everglades, Ft
Lauderdale Arriving at the entrance after dark at 19:00 and had to dodge a
cruise ship turning in the basin to head out. Distances can be very deceptive
at night and it appeared that the ship was backing out. The rate of turn and
the visual on the AIS and the appearance were confusing but a pilot boat that
was accompanying the ship could see us on the AIS and called to ask our
intentions. We told him we’d be going north once inside and he told us the
cruise ship was turning to head to sea and that we could hug the north side and
all would be well. We told them that if needed we could wait at one side for
the ship to pass but that was not necessary and we continued up the ICW to Lake
Sylvia. We slid in along the east side close to shore and were safely at anchor
about 20:00.
