Titusville, FL Back in the Warm!

     We're finally back in the warm weather, relatively speaking anyway. It's supposed to be in the 80's here for the next few days. Right now we are at 81 degrees. Not to bad for the end of December. We arrived here in Titusville a couple days ago with no more problems with the boat for the past few weeks. I think we may have all the bugs worked out finally. We'll be spending a few weeks here and then hope to head a little farther south. We don't know exactly where yet because we usually just play that by ear and end up where ever when we get there. Titusville has a nice city marina and the folks here are really friendly. It's a nice stop for a day, week, or longer. We'll have to visit the Space Center while we're here. We had a great time at Frostproof for Christmas dinner and had a chance to visit with a lot of our friends. A special thanks to all of them. Take care and stay warm if you're still up the north.

Stuck Again!

     Well, we finally got under way from Sailcraft with a new alternator and my electrical problems solved. Our first night we anchored and found that our anchor windless was broken again. I couldn't retrieve the anchor so I had to pull it up by hand the next morning to get under way. We headed south again and I called for another new gear for my anchor which we received at Harbor Village Marina, NC. I installed it and we were under way again. We anchored at Wrightsville Beach, NC and the windless worked good. Heading south again we anchored at South Harbor Cove, near Southport. Under way again I noticed my starboard engine wouldn't run above 2,000 rpm. We also noticed that the engine was smoking thick black smoke. We put in at Barefoot Landing and started looking for a mechanic to take a look at my engine. We found a nice marina to lay over at in Myrtle Beach called Osprey marina. A real nice place and the rates are great. We limped down there on one engine and found a mechanic. He said he thought it was the injectors so he removed them from the engine and sure enough two of them were wet like the cylinders weren't firing. He later came back a pulled the injectors from the port engine to send in and have them checked as well. I thought as long as I'm stuck, I might as well check all of them. So, here we sit, stuck again, waiting for my injectors to come back. Hope it won't be too long a wait. While we waited, we rented a car and went up to St. Pauls, NC to visit some long lost friends we hadn't see in over ten years for Thanksgiving. Had a great time and a great dinner. Many thanks to Terry and Aaron, it was really great to see you guys again!

Getting Close to Getting Underway

     Here we sit, still waiting for my alternator. It was supposed to be done today but now they say maybe tomorrow. We can't even get very good TV reception here in this little town of Oriental, NC it's really out in the sticks I guess. We have at least had time to finish up a few odds and ends on the boat. I thought about my VHF radio being only a few months old so I called West Marine where I bought it and they said bring it in and they would exchange it. So, I got a new radio and have it all installed. I also removed my fuel transfer pump because it wasn't working and have another one on order which should be here tomorrow. So, I should be able to get that fixed before we leave. Then, if my alternator does in fact arrive tomorrow we just might be underway by Wednesday. That would of course depend on the weather. It's supposed to be Cold and rough for the next few days so we may just have to sit out the weather before we can get underway. Anyway, we are getting close to getting underway. It's going on two weeks and I'm really ready to go!

Repairs in Oriental, NC

     We've been here at Sailcraft Services in Oriental, NC since Friday, getting some things fixed. We got here late Friday, so the yard didn't get anything done before the weekend. On Monday the electrician came aboard and after doing some trouble shooting, determined my problems stemmed from a failed regulator on the port alternator. He removed it and sent it to the repair shop. I had my new anchor spliced onto the anchor rode I had left so that's taken care of. I also had a tech fix the water leak in my new generator. Hopefully now I won't get my bilges filled with water anymore. This is Tuesday, and we are still waiting for my alternator, and I'm also having some problems with my new VHF radio. The speaker keeps cutting out so they tell me there must be a loose connection inside the radio. That will have to be removed and sent to the repair shop as well. I sure hope we can get underway before the end of the week, as it's supposed to really turn cold here. Lows in the 20's by next weekend. The yard said they couldn't find anyone locally that would be able to fix my leaking steering system so I will have to wait until we get farther south to a larger city or something to try to get that repaired. The hoses I had made in Frostproof are leaking at the cylinder and the swivel fittings on the ends of the hoses have to be replaced.

Underway Once Again

     Our stay at the Wormley Creek Marina in Yorktown, VA was great. We got to see all our kids and almost all our grandkids. We got underway on the 31st of October and headed south. It really turned cold by Saturday evening when  we arrived at out anchorage in the north river just south of Coinjock, NC. The winds were really kicking up and we were swinging hard on the anchor. We were getting gusts to around 50 knots and the anchor was holding when as a result of the bow swinging back and forth, we parted our anchor rode and started to drift around 5:00 in the morning. We headed back north to Coinjock and tied up at the Midway Marina there. We stayed there until Tuesday morning waiting for the seas to calm down before attempting to cross Albemarle Sound. The crossing was a little rough, but not bad at all. We lost the AC from  our inverter about a fourth of the way across and I had to start our generator to finished our run to Alligator Creek Marina. I got someone to trouble shoot the problem and he couldn't figure it out so we are waiting here until he gets in touch with the manufacturer to see if there is anything he can do to fix the problem. I'm probably going to have to replace the inverter and that isn't going to be an inexpensive fix. I have a marine service yard in Oriental, NC standing by to splice a new anchor onto what's left of my line so I had to call them and tell them we wouldn't be arriving when I had anticipated we would. Now it's just a waiting game until we can get underway again. Otherwise, we are having a great time and are looking forward to our arrival in the nice warm waters of Florida.

New Props

     Still in Yorktown, VA at least for another couple weeks. I decided to put new props on the Molly B because the ones we had were way over pitched. I could only get 1900 RPM out of the engines and then they would start overheating. Now I get 2650 RPM and they don't overheat at all. As far as speed is concerned the new props only added a few knots over the ground but now the engines aren't working so hard so I think I might gain a little fuel economy. It's amazing how much better the boat handles now with the different props. She's much more forgiving and really quite easy to put into the slip now.

   We had to haul the boat to change the props so I decided to raise the waterline while she was out of the water. I think we have too much "Stuff" in the boat because we were riding just a bit into the boot top which collected a few barnacles since we put her in the water. Now I have a couple inches of bottom paint above the water line so that should solve that problem. Next we're going to put a bimini top on the fly bridge and then we'll be heading south again.

     

A Beautiful Place to Spend the Summer.

     We've really found a great little marina to spend the summer at. It's on the York River in Wormley Creek. It's quiet, secluded and not very busy at all. We have a great slip with plenty of room and a great view of the Colmen Bridge over the York River. We've been able to visit most of our kids, grand-kids, and also our little great grand daughter.

     Linda says it's getting cold here and it's about time to head south again. It has only been down to the mid 60's overnight and warms to the upper 70's and low 80's during the day. I told her we would have to stay a little longer because it's still too hot down south, but fall is in the air so it probably won't be too much longer before we are underway again.

This is a picture of the Colmen bridge from out boat deck.

Sunset on the York