Day 14 – Saturday – 12/15/18
Progress was made, we are happy to report! The morning had hiccups but the day ended well.
We are anchored in Sunset Lake (Fort Lauderdale) after motoring (yes motoring…with a functional engine!) for about 5 hrs. We also stumbled into some fun, as Fort Lauderdale’s HUGE holiday boat parade is tonight of all nights. We are anchored right beside all the grandstands they set up for land lubbers to view the parade. Police have closed the ICW and all drawbridges will be locked open. We strung our Christmas lights around the cockpit and have front row seating and no crowds! We’ve been told this is the 6th biggest one in the USA. Woohoo! Time to get into the Christmas spirit.
It has been exactly 2 weeks since we left CO. On one hand we can’t believe we’ve only made it as far as Ft. Lauderdale (it’s less than a 2hr drive from Indiantown Marina!)….on the other hand….when we think the boat was on the hard, has only been ‘splashed’ for 11 days, we’ve been on the move for 5 days, dealt with engine crisis yesterday, took a day to celebrate xmas with Dad, and provisioned for 3 months then stored it all. That’s a lot. When in CO, we wouldn’t have thought it would take this long!
The day started with much rethinking of the engine, plans, what could be broken, what is the right path forward, which pump to prioritize on rebuild, should we remove the one on the engine but leave us disabled for many days. We had a rental car reserved for 9am to get the spare high pressure injection pump taken to Ft. Lauderdale to be rebuilt. We felt the pressure of the rebuild shop’s special 9-noon weekend hours. But then debated if Mike could rebuild seals himself – but we lacked the seals, and a garage/machine shop to work in. So, in the end, we rushed to shore, rushed to rental car. But…. then got stuck in long line, big delays, got a car that was blocked in, drove away only to discover that a back door didn’t open! Ugh – so much time lost. Talked to rebuild guy – he wasn’t actually going to start working on the pump till Monday at 7am anyway…so we bailed on the rental car, got a refund, and were back at the boat at 10:30am…having just gone in another circle. (That’s how yesterday started too!!). We’ll just drop that pump off some other way on Monday morning.
We made a quick decision to pick up anchor and try motoring south to test out the engine. Skies were dark with rain, but winds were light. We stopped many times to turn engine off and check levels – which were not increasing – a very good sign! We cleared a dozen drawbridges, had fun ‘meeting’ new boating friends as we traveled in a pack trying to make the bridge openings together. One boat even threw us a whiffle ball with a message and present inside. Shark teeth for the kids! What fun. Mike did most of the steering inside the fully enclosed cockpit today (what a nice treat – on Mandolin we were fully exposed to the elements). There was lots of rain and drizzle but light wind and warm weather. Tina and the kids did the cooking, the dishes and some real ‘school’ time. They were treated to a movie during the worst of the rain.
This adventure has reinforced some friendships and amazing how many new connections we have made. During the engine crisis, we often had Reid (boat owner) on the case by phone or text, Mike had phone support from his awesome Uncle Dan in Nebraska all day long (diesel mechanic and farmer), Jaime was so helpful (Reid’s oldest son and also sailor) and then we started getting offers from so many other people that had friends or family also knowledgeable in engines. The love and outpouring of support was impressive. Today Mike spoke with Tom Fulker, the father of one of Mike’s colleagues from CLEER and a former chief engineer of offshore fishing boats in Alaska and a former sailboat owner as well. He was great to brainstorm with and helped us with new root cause understanding. It seems as though the bad injector might have been our culprit… leaking so badly that it flooded fuel past the piston rings while running. Runaway diesels are more common than we knew, it seems! Today’s long successful run of the engine with it’s new injectors went well with no increase in levels was a great sign.
Now we are off to enjoy the boat parade and tomorrow will assess weather and readiness for a potential crossing in the next few days. Mike would like to add that , in recent days, he really has helped with these updates… he’s just not equipped with Facebook to take much credit.
Fun Afloat 