Seeing Daylight for the First Long Cruise

[ocgrant]

That evening the weather had changed with a passing of a cool front. We gathered up a couple of fans, opened the cabin entry way and circulated cooler outside air into the cabin. Sleeping in the cabin was a little more pleasant for the first time in several days.


In the morning, the latest marine forecast was predicting 1 to 3 foot seas for our ride home. We prepared the boat for our trip, brought in the fenders and the lines and we were off. As soon as we began our outbound idle speed exit of the canal, a line of party fishing boats and dive boats fell in behind us. We made the 90-degree outbound turn with no inbound traffic and soon were in the channel leading to open waters. We moved to the right side of the channel so the parade could pass us.


Remember the bad feeling I had about the fuel in Key Largo? It came to fruition to bite me on the butt. I have not had one problem with the engines on my boat, but now, when it was time to head home, I was having a problem. My typical mode of operation is to push the throttles up to 1500 RPM and let the engines stabilize. No problem. I then push the throttles up to 1800 RPM to let the turbo’s kick in and stabilize. Problem. The port engine would not accelerate past 1500 RPM. I knew it had to be water in the fuel. Each engine has dual Racor fuel filters. I was not ready to go below in rough seas to switch from one Racor to the other. I tried bringing the port engine back to idle and then accelerate to 1500 RPM. No problem. Next I brought the throttle up to where it should be for 1800 RPM and this time it accelerated. Whew!!!! Would it stay running? Both engines were then brought up to 1900 RPM, which I found to be a good combination of speed and fuel economy.


The forecasted seas were nowhere to be found. It didn’t take long to find 8’ to 10’ seas that made its way with the passing cold front. Since I had pumped only 45 gallons of bad fuel into a tank that had about 155 gallons of good fuel, the sloshing around and mixing of the fuels worked in my favor. Both engines ran strong for the trip home. The relentless heavy seas pounded us and everything, including ourselves, was covered with sea salt. I was wiping my glasses every two minutes. It was a sunny day at least for I couldn’t think of anything worse than being dripping wet and cold.


By the time we reached Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, we had had enough pounding around. The decision was made to come into the ICW. Yes it was a painfully slow trip the rest of way to Boynton Beach but at least we made it all the way home from Key Largo in the same day. We docked at our slip, packed up the refrigerated food, gave the boat a hosing off to remove some of the salt, and put the canvas covers in place. Over the next couple of days we would return to the boat for heavy duty cleaning and straightening out. Oh, by the way, once on shore power, the air conditioning just kept running. The theory is we sucked up a plastic bag (or similar) into the raw water intake port. It stayed with us for our trip from Islamorada to Key Largo and must have shaken loose on the ride home.


We learned a few valuable lessons from our adventure. The most valuable of the lessons is that we had “rushed” this trip. It gets exhausting getting a boat into a dock and setting up for the night only to break it all down and depart in the morning. We really never had time to explore when we were at marinas because we were worn out. From now on, once finished for the night, whether at anchor or at a marina, we will be there for not less than two nights and preferable three. Hey, we are retired…why should we be in such a hurry?


The next lesson we learned is there are three things that are key to boat traveling. One is air conditioning. Two is a head. Three is a refrigerator. I don’t know why, but Searay has both air conditioning systems cooling from the same intake. I have discussed this with my mechanic and we have decided to install another intake port and separate the cooling for the air conditioning systems so if one should fail, we can still keep the boat cool. With two heads, if one fails or becomes blocked, we still have the use of the other. And if the refrigerator fails, we always have a cooler on deck that can be used to store food instead of cold drinks. We have no problem drinking room temperature water.


In summary, we loved our trip and had set out to have a learning experience, which we did. All in all, the boat performed well above our expectations with only a minor inconvenience. Yesterday I ordered oil, filters, impellers, and zincs as I have now put 100 hours on the boat since our last oil change. We are very close to the date of annual haul out and my mechanic is coordinating his schedule so we can do what we can do in the water and then haul the boat to install the new thru hull and do what he has to do with a sea cock that has frozen. We expect to be out of the water for maybe a week and during that week I will be planning our next adventure, taking our newly learned lessons with us.

Gunner,

Sounds like a great trip.... We really liked Post Card inn... Looking to do some overnights soon in the Grove and Elliot key. Maybe a trip further south weather permitting. Still trying to get to Bimini this year but the window is closing quickly for that one. ICW will be the winter highway. Let us know if your up for it.

 

[FootballFan]

Thank you for posting your trip notes. Seems like every cruise has some unexpected twists and turns. Sounds like it was still a lot of fun.

 

[45Gunner]

Thank you for posting your trip notes. Seems like every cruise has some unexpected twists and turns. Sounds like it was still a lot of fun.

If everything went exactly as planned with nothing breaking, we may get bored. Although I have been know to say to my wife that I would like to be bored every now and then. We stay upbeat, enjoy the times, and try to make every experience a positive learning experience....we keep telling ourselves that.

 

[bracketracer]

Great writeup!

 

[Shaps]

Thanks for sharing!