fetchinketch

So many boat projects are two steps forward and one back. Today was definitely one of those steps back.

While the boat is on the hard is always a good chance to get hands and eyes into places you don’t always have time or access to. During our poking around, I found that the exhaust elbow on our generator was leaking salt water. Not a big deal. There is actually a local supplier here who keeps a good supply of WhisperPower spare parts, We gave them $400, they gave us a brand new exhaust elbow. My expectation was that I would have that installed in a an hour or two of work this morning, and then be off to other projects. Ha!

I was tightening the nuts to clamp it in place using my torque wrench because this is important to get right. I was coming up on the final last bit of turn when suddenly the nut got a lot easier to turn. That’s never good. Turns out I pulled the stud right out of the aluminum exhaust manifold. Argh…

It’s not too big a job to pull the manifold off this tiny little engine, so off it came. Since I have it in hand, I took it apart checking on things. It always kind of struck me as odd that this was assembled with multiple metals but no sacrificial zinc anode to protect them from corrosion. I put it down to some magical Dutch engineering at the manufacturer. Turns out I was wrong… There WAS a zinc. Normally these would be replaced every 6 months or so, but I had never done it because they never mentioned that it was there in the maintenance schedule.

After cleaning this up and making it all as good as can be, I basdically ended up at the end of the day, and I have a few more small parts and tools arriving on Monday that I need to finish it up. We’re scheduled to launch on Friday… Time to prioritize projects to be sure I get all the ones done that much be done before we go back in the water!

It’s late afternoon, and we are approaching Cape Canaveral from the north. As expected, the ride has been a fast and furious one. The forecasts have been spot-on with strong NW winds driving us on. In the last 24 hours we have covered about 180 nautical miles, a very strong showing, especially with little or no help from current.

The strongest winds we saw were last night, gusting to about 30 knots. That left us with short, steep seas. Very unusually, we actually took one wave up against the side of the boat hard enough to dump a significant amount of water into the cockpit. How much water? Enough to leave this little guy flopping behind!

Just as a curiosity, if you look at this fish, you’ll see a few black spots on his belly. This is quite common on ocean fish. I can think of at least three very different fish families with similar marking. Any fish nerds out there have an explanation for why?

Once we pass Cape Canaveral, the strategy to get south is to keep as close to shore as possible to avoid the north bound water in the Gulf Stream. From here we expect to be entering Port Everglades inlet in about 24 hours

We have been anchored off of Hilton Head Island for 10 days, spending time with Bill’s sister and her family. It was great fun catching up in a place that has so many happy memories collected over the last 50 years.

We have been waiting for the last few days here at anchor in Calibogee Sound for the weather to shift. Winds have been blowing out of the southeast to southwest, making a trip further south problematic. That changes early tomorrow afternoon when a cold front drops down through this area. After a cold front passage, the wind switches from south west to northwest, usually very quickly. This weather pattern will continue for most of the rest of the week.

We expect a fast sleigh ride with the wind mostly behind us, the trip taking about two and a half days down to Fort Lauderdale.

Unusually for us, we have a couple stakes in the sand on our calendar over the upcoming weeks. Next Monday Harmonie will be lifted out of the water for renewal of her bottom paint. We expect to be out to the water for two weeks getting her ready for an extended season of cruising. All of the usual stuff, with the addition of a professional survey for our insurance underwriters. If all goes to plan, we will be back in the water on December 6.

While in Florida we will be running around doing some medical stuff and other life logistics. Bill is scheduled for the exciting (?) experience of a wisdom tooth extraction.

Once we get done with all this, we are headed back out to the Bahamas, and then down the Caribbean.

You are the crew on a luxury superyacht. You find this EMPTY box:

What do you do?

1. Leave it there, it’s not your job to clean up after the gallery staff.
2. Toss it in the trash.
3. Take it to the gallery and dump the rest of the washing up tools in it so everything is organized in one place.

The correct answer is actually #1. The box is an original piece of “art” by Andy Warhol, and is worth $3,000,000.

The actual crew on the yacht made the wrong choice (They threw it in the trash bin). Oooops.

Harmonie’s Plan

We have been at anchor at anchor in Charleston, South Carolina for the past few days with some unusual neighbors in the anchorage:

Within a few hours we will ride the ebb tide out of the harbor here and head south again. This time our destination is about 12 hours away, Hilton Head Island. We’ll spend a week there, catching up with Bill’s sister and her family while they are there on vacation.

From there, we will make our way slowly further south toward Fort Lauderdale. We are going to have Harmonie out of the water for about 2 weeks at the end of November. During this time, she will get her bottom painted and a few other projects will be attended to.

One trip up the mast, and we got our sail put back where it needed to be. After a night’s sleep at anchor, we are off again! Pretty much back where we expected to be 24 hours ago. Right now we are blasting along at 8 to 9 knots on a beam reach, the temperature is moderate, in the low 80’s, and mostly cloudy. Overall a fast and comfortable sail.

Weather allowing, our next stop will be the weather buoy located 125 miles off Cape Canaveral to see if we can’t put some tuna in the freezer.

Speaking of fish…

We had a pair of strange visitors last night. We had the flood light on off the back of Harmonie as we frequently do to see what we can see.

Getting a photo of a fish underwater at night from the deck of the boat is not easy, and rarely are great results obtained, so apologies.

Fish with the body size of about a silver dollar, and long fin filaments off the top and bottom stretching almost 2 feet in length.

Hampered by these exaggerated appendages, swimming was slow and inconsistent. Strange creatures.

What they are is juvenile African Pompano. Normally at this stage of life they are pelagic drifters, and not seen inshore. The adults are big, tough, mean looking members of the Jack family.