Kaimusailing

Our 1 day stay at Beach Marine gave us some needed rest. We ordered a pizza from Nina's who deliver to the dock. We couldn't help but have a slice before getting to sleep. I like to have a pizza on board the night before leaving. It comes in handy for breakfast with no prep and snacks later.
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Sunrise was clear and calm, we motored up the ICW to St. Augustine. I unzipped the main sail cover and used a boathook this time to get the zipper all the way back to the end of the boom. We are not setting the sail, just getting it ready while in calm conditions. It would be more difficult and less safe to climb up on the cabin top to unzip the sail in a rough sea. That step up onto the cabin top is a big one. A small footstep would make it easier and safer to go up there.
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Motoring up the ICW was pleasant, very light breeze from ahead, only about 2 knots, but we were fighting a flood tide and our speed was only 5 knots. The port engine was putting out white smoke that dissipated quickly in the morning air, must be water, steam. This indicates either water in the crankcase oil or water leaking into a cylinder from a leaky gasket. We shut the engine down and did a quick inspection. This model boat has the engines installed just forward of the sugar scoops and aft of the aft cabins. This is a good design, the engines have excellent access with their own hatches overhead, plus engine noise that is sometimes a problem when they are located under the aft berths is reduced.
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There were no obvious indications of the source of the steam so we closed the engine compartment after checking the expansion tank and the level in the cooling system. This boat has Yanmar engines with only about 1500 hours on them, they were replacements for the original Volvos. This is considered a good change of engines because Yanmars have much better availability of service and parts. There are many more Yanmar mechanics around the world than Volvo marine diesel mechanics. After restarting the engine we saw it was still steaming. We would keep an eye on it.
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The flood current would increase until we actually left the ICW at St. Augustine and headed out to sea. At one point we were down to 4 knots running both engines at 2500. We left St. Augustine and headed into a SSE breeze that kept us down to 5 knots. Our ETA at Ft. Lauderdale would be late Wednesday at this rate.
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I used the 30D camera on the ICW and will post the pictures in an album on Flickr. I'm a bit worried about the data breach on Flickr's parent, Yahoo, but I don't have any purchase links there, I belong to a few Yahoo groups. I wish I had brought along the telephoto lens. I almost didn't bring the 30D, seawater isn't friendly to cameras.
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As we headed down the coast with our turning mark off Cape Canaveral, the coast fell away to the West very gradually. After a while only the tallest high rise buildings were visible. This reminded me of bringing Kaimu down this way 15 years ago and looking at the NASA assembly buildings on the cape. On that trip it had been cold, in the winter, and only off the Canaveral coast could I finally wear shorts and t-shirt.
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I had seen a tall white object and thought it was a tall light house on the beach near St. Augustine, but now I can still see it and I think it is a vessel with a tall white mast.
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Now, much later, I see it is a sailboat on port tack, probably motorsailing, heading toward the beach off to our right. They will probably tack back out to sea when they get into shallower water. I think the forecast of SE 10-15 going to E will work against them, on their tack back out to sea they will be headed and lose a lot of ground. If they get out far enough before the wind backs to the East, they can tack and head South, so if that happens, it will work out for them.
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Skipper will take the midnight watch again, so I stayed on, put on the navigation lights that we repaired in Beach Marine. They work. The product we used to seal the light fixture was Gorilla silicone repair tape. I've never used it before, it's like super sticky duct tape.
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Our own tactic to get around Cape Canaveral is to go right at the waypoint right off the cape, practically dead upwind. Our speed is equivalent to the other boat's VMG, velocity made good to the mark. So, as they come up on our beam, but way off to the West near the beach, they can tack back out to us, and if they are ahead of us, their VMG is greater than our speed through the water. We are not making tacks away from our waypoint. Our second part of our tactic is that we will hit the waypoint around 6 AM, more or less, and I will be getting off the 2-6 watch. We will hoist sail and bear away to South Florida, and if the wind has backed, we will enjoy a beam reach down the coast.
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The image is of the North side of the entrance to St. Augustine.