Titsusville Municipal Marina, Day 2

The pumpout boat comes by at 9:00AM. Linda had signed up the day before for a holding tank pumpout. Once that is done I start work on pumping out our fuel tank. The fuel in the lower half of the tank is rather cloudy. I come to the conclusion that we have emulsified water mixed in our fuel, which causes the random shutdown of the engine. Since it quickly passes the engine is able to restart. After dumping all our fuel, I fill the tank back up with fresh fuel from the Marina. After I am finished I wash the boat and fill our water tanks.

Again we walk to Dixie Crossroads for dinner.

Titsusville Municipal Marina

In the morning we head into the Marina. $1.25 a foot, pretty good deal. We walk to NAPA to buy a fuel pump to pump out our fuel tank. We find that Titusville Municipal Marina takes old oil and diesel fuel for free. A company picks up the oil and uses it in asphalt. I thought we were going to have to haul the fuel to an engine repair business next door and pay them to dispose of it.

I find a truck diesel fuel pump with a high flow rate. I wired up the pump with a switch to pump out the fuel tank. Linda worked on cleaning the inside of the boat. For dinner we walk 1-1/2 miles to Dixie Crossroads a very popular local restaurant which we discovered on our previous trip.

Titusville RR Bridge

Port Canaveral Bridge

We get up at 4:45 have showers and leave the dock at 6:00AM for the bridge opening. Unfortunately the next Bridge, the Christa McAuliffe bridge, does not open because of commuter traffic so we have to anchor an hour to wait. 

 

Breakfast stop past the Lock

So we have our breakfast stop. After we pull up the anchor and head for the bridge our engine dies again. We are able to find a safe place to anchor. I tell Sea-Vu-Play to go ahead and not wait for us, nothing they can do. Worst case we call Tow BoatUS. I have a back up fuel pump, that I use for fuel transfer, so I install that pump and remove the old one. I know it was waning, but when I test it, it does not pump at all. Since our fuel tank is higher than the engine we can run the tank below half full without a functioning fuel pump. That could be the cause of our problems. Anyways, the engine starts right up and it looks like we have a fix. The Bridge operator was very nice and open up for us, obviously heard my radio conversations with Sea-Vu-Play about our engine problems. We are soon on the ICW heading north into 20 mph winds.

Just as we go through the Addison Point Draw Bridge the engine stops. SOB ! We quickly unfurl the jib and call the Bridge operator not to close the bridge because our engine died and the high winds are pushing us back into the bridge. He closes it anyways, asshole ! We can not sail off left or right, because there are power line poles and guide wires on the northside of the bridge blocking us from tacking in either direction. We look to be screwed. I decide to try restarting the engine since we are running out of options. The engine starts right up without any problems. What the hell ! We continue on our way without the engine skipping a beat. A couple hours later the engine is still running fine and we find a very protected anchorage just north of Titusville. I still can not find anything wrong with the fuel system or engine. I am getting good fuel flow. The only other thing I can think of is our fuel is contaminated. So I decide to go into the Titusville Marina and replace all our fuel the next day

Port Canaveral Yacht Club

Slept in. Had a great nights sleep. So, now that I washed the boat yesterday, it rains hard all day long today. Linda heads over to Sea-Vu-Play for the afternoon while I work on our engine problem. I remove fuel lines to check for blockages, but can find nothing wrong. It was still raining so we give up on walking to dinner and have dinner on the boat. The wind is out of the north so sailing outside on the ocean is out. We will have to travel north on the ICW. Unfortunately we have to travel west 5 miles to the ICW after we go though a swing bridge and a tidal lock. The lock is shut down from 7 AM until 5PM for repair work, so we will have to leave before 6:00 AM in the dark to go through the Bridge and then the lock. Thank you very much !

Port Canaveral

We may have to call for a tow when we get near Port Canaveral in the morning. Thought maybe we were developing a vacuum in the fuel tank making it hard for the fuel pump to suck fuel. When we get close to the inlet I crack open the fuel filler cap so air can freely flow into the tank. The engine starts right up, but I am not confident it will keep running. We arrange to pull into the end of the T-dock at the Port Canaveral Yacht club in case we have to drift in. The engine is still running fine 30 minutes later, so I decide to take a regular slip and we pull in just fine. We tie up at 10:30 AM. Fortunately there are lots of people to help us into our slip. Port Canaveral has rather funky docks and a fairly good tide range. They use square cement pilings which aren't as forgiving as wood pilings, so you really don't want to be bouncing off them.

After we pay our bill, I wash the boat. It was pretty salt encrusted from our over night sail. Unlimited free water, what a luxury after having to haul water in five gallon jugs in the Bahamas.

That evening we walk to a restaurant for dinner since the Yacht club's restaurant and cafe are only open on the weekend.

Overnight to Florida

Sea vu Play

We all got up at 6:00 AM to listen to Chris Parker's weather forecast on the short wave radio. It will still take us all day before we clear the Banks and get to deeper water. Even though we are still on the Banks it is still rather rough. Once we leave the Banks late afternoon the swells start building. Very confused seas, very hard to walk through the boat, bouncing side to side. Linda tried a new motion sickness medicine that is not available in the states, but it still made her sleepy.

Sunset

Hitch hiking cormorant

Once we get out into the Gulf Stream the seas get even more confused, but at least we get a little speed boost. Strangely we see very few ships on AIS or radar. Around mid-night we start seeing lightning far to our west on the Florida coast. This went on for 3-4 hours as we got progressively closer to the coast. Soon after midnight our engine stalled and stopped. I change the primary fuel filter, because the vacuum gauge was running high which is an indicator that the filter is clogging up. It looks clean but I change it anyways. A couple hours later the engine stops again. Since we had so much wind I did not bother trying to restart it, figuring it was a fuel pump issue. Our speed only slowed down a little without the engine running. Sea-Vu-Play had gotten a couple miles ahead of us and had some rather close lightning strikes near their boat. The sound delay coincided with the distance they are ahead of us. About an hour before sunrise the Thunderstorms end. Of course the thunderstorms or the rough conditions were not predicted by Chris Parker or anyone else.

Great Sail Cay

We were getting ready to leave around 8:00 AM and while we are down below we hear some yelling. We run up to see Sea-Vu-Play swinging by on their way to Great Sail Cay. They had just left Green Turtle and decided to catch the predicted weather window, before it closes to head back to Florida. Great Sail Cay is a jumping off point for cruisers heading back to Florida. It is north of Grand Bahama in the middle of nowhere. No one lives there. NASA once had a tracking station, but nothing but foundations exist any more.

Tug towing a barge full of sand, Why ?

We motor-sail most of the day since we had a good distance to cover. The water has a good chop. But since we are on the shallow banks, 15-30 feet deep, ocean swells do not penetrate this area. With all the wind lately the water is not very clear. We can not see the bottom at 15 feet. Last time traveling through here the water was crystal clear, we could see the boat and our shadows on the bottom as we were sailing along.

After we arrive and anchor on the west side of Great Sail, Mark and I decide we have one last chance to clean our boat bottoms. Mark has the benefit of his scuba tank, I have to dive and hold my breath. The water here was very murky, I could not even see our boat length under water. Very unusual. Manana had some serious growth going on. It took over an hour to get the bottom relatively clean. 

 

Bottom growth and bottom paint falling off our new rudder due to poor prep.