Pardon me while I scream quietly
29 May 2017
• Port Royal Landing
by Mike/Hot and stickey
Last night Barb and I sat up in the cockpit after sunset and were entertained by an astounding pyrotechnic display. There was a lightning storm to the north in the area of Charlotte which easily covered 30 degrees of the horizon. It was far enough away that we heard no thunder but the lightning lit up the clouds and every so often one was a little closer and we could see the forks of light arcing through the sky to strike the ground. This went on for the hour and more that we watched and was still going on when we went to sleep. Hard to believe that there is that much static electricity up there.
We were up and away bright and early this morning with our objective to be in Beaufort NC by Wednesday AM. We took the Beaufort Channel way out and after two hours we were still heading for the fairway buoy when I noticed that our RPMs were less than what I thought I had set them at. Then, 20 minutes later, they were less again, and still less 20 minutes after that. My first thought was that the fuel filter was clogged so I went below and switched the Filter Boss filter system to a fresh filter and still no affect. So, I thought, I don't want to be out in the ocean with an engine that has just died and try to change the filter and re-prime the injector pump while the boat was rolling in the seas, we would return to the marina at Port Royal and do the work there. On the way back I relaxed enough to notice that, although the tachometer was now reading less and less, the feel of the engine, it's vibrations or rpms hadn't changed. Odd, I thought. Then I looked at the tach again and it read 0 but the engine was still happily putting away. Very odd, says I. Clearly the problem isn't the fuel supply.
We got to shore and spoke to the local diesel mechanic with whom I had a discussion on Saturday about the starting bank and the 12V system on the boat and he reminded me that the instrumentation needs power and that if the batteries are too low then then the would begin to misbehave.
So, we are back at Port Royal Landing Marina to await the mechanic who will arrive tomorrow to have a look at the 12V portion of the system. That's not all bad since the marina has a stay for two get the third day free policy and this will be our free day. Also it was my opportunity to prove to myself that cleaning the contacts on the fuse for the 30A shore charger fixed the problems that we were having with it and it seems to have done the trick. Hurrah! We are going to have 3/4" thick rib steaks on the BBQ tonight to make ourselves feel better.
So far on this trip we have alternated between hanging around on a mooring like we did in Stuart waiting for a weather window to go offshore or on an anchor for the same reason. There are two reasons for going offshore - one to make straight line time, and, two to avoid skinny bits in the ICW. I am now coming to the realization that the only reason that is an absolute MUST is to avoid skinny bits. After all, if it hadn't been for health issues interrupting us we would still be living aboard and wouldn't be in any rush at all. So, once I am comfortable that we have fixed our problem with the engine, and if there are no skinny bits to our immediate north, we will head up the ICW to St Helen's Inlet then out and off to Southport, weather permitting. Otherwise we will just continue on up the ditch until we can get home. I'm tired of feeling pressure to go, go, go. Especially as I really don't remember where that pressure originated from.
Today is hot and humid and I really wish we had some form of AC on the boat. I never thought that I'd say that, but there you go. We are on shore power so at least we have a little fan running but that is only moving the hot air about. Even Barb, who normally eschews alcoholic beverages is asking me for cold drinks, and we are lying in the shade of the cabin wiping the perspiration off our faces, our necks, our.......well, our everywhere. This is still May! I don't want to find out what July is like down here.
The mechanic will be here tomorrow morning and I hope the problem will be fixable and we could be off by afternoon.
We will let everyone know.
Comments