A toy of the 1%, the Intuition II

T'was a day of misadventure. We set off for the neat little park on Boca Chita but we didn't end up there. Here are Ann's notes for the day (edited just a little):

8:15 cast off mooring ball (in Largo Sound)
9:05 sailing - beam reach in 13 kt wind/6.5 kts boat speed, 2nd cup of coffee for Ann (she has a little cup), lovely sailing - even if a little rough (waves were in the 1 to 2 foot range)
9:10 whoops - feels like autopilot (drive) belt is broken, we'll have to hand steer (till we get to a stopping spot - fixing the belt requires removing the wheel)
11:26 super large private vessel in our way, it's the Intuition II flying a British colony flag, Anquilla maybe (this boat was anchored off the Ocean Reef Club and Marina on Key Largo, an exclusive private club with, according the guide book, superb security - Presidents vacation there)
12:15 (we had just motored through a cut from the ocean side to the bay side when) the engine stopped

Ann took a few notes here but we were so busy that they don't tell the whole story. So, here's what we did. Allowing the boat to drift, we tried to restart the engine. We quickly found that the engine would run at an elevated throttle setting but would die whenever the throttle was pulled back to idle. So my first thought was that something was restricting the fuel flow. Sure enough, we found the fuel system water strainer filled with goop. For the last several days, we have been running on the starboard fuel tank. We have had such favorable winds since we left Pensacola back in November, that this tank hasn't been used till now. There's most likely a layer of scum generated by bacteria growing in the bottom of that tank. The scum probably got shaken up in the mildly rough water during the morning and then sucked into the engine when we fired it up.

So, we cleaned out the strainer and switched back to the port fuel tank. The fuel in it is, at most, only a month old. After a few minutes of running at a higher throttle setting, the engine settled down and idled nicely. With that, we ran up the sails again, shut down the motor, and got back to sailing.

After reviewing our options, we decided to sail on in to Dinner Key Marina and skip Boca Chita (for now at least). You have to motor up a shallow, restricted channel to get into Boca Chita and we were afraid if the engine acted up again we could end up stranded there.

Here are Ann's concluding notes for the day:

12:50 beam reach, 17 kt wind and 7.5 kt boat speed
4:45 tied up at the dock (in Dinner Key Marina)

That leaves us stuck here in the marina for at least three days maybe more so this may be the last entry for awhile.