Weather forecast for June 5, 2018:
Fisherman's Village Marina, Punta Gorda, Florida
Low 83 high 95, High humidity
Southwest winds, 5 to 7 kts
Captain’s Log: May 24, 2018 thru June 4, 2018
We have done a limited amount entertaining onboard since leaving Mobile; day sails and dock-side dinners mostly. Hosting visitors for an extended period while underway would be a new experience for us and we were very excited when my brother Denny and sister-in-law Terri expressed an interest in joining us for a week.
We agree to rendezvous with Denny & Terri at the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina on May 29th. Our plan is to spend two days and nights exploring downtown St. Pete, we will then set sail across Tampa Bay and then motor down the ICW, heading for Punta Gorda. Denny and Terri have tickets to fly out of Punta Gorda on June 4th.
Wanting to reach St. Pete well in advance of our guest’s arrival, we depart our anchorage at Gulf Port on the morning of May 26th under a dark and moody sky. Our first challenge of the day is to pass under the 64ft-high Pinellas Bayway Northern C Span Bridge at the southern end of Boca Ciega Bay. I estimate that our main mast, with antenna, is roughly 63ft off of the water. We have already passed under three 65ft bridges during our journey south but 12 inches of clearance (at mean high water) has me quite nervous.
Moving forward at 1.5 knots, 50 yards out from the bridge, I put the engine in neutral and coast to almost a dead stop at about 25 yards out. Shirley is now perched on the bow pulpit concentrating her gaze on the mast head and holding her left arm high in the air with the ‘thumbs up’ signal. I inch ahead moving from neutral to forward and then quickly back to neutral. I repeat this neutral-forward-neutral creep several times, bringing the bridge closer and closer.
To my complete surprise I suddenly noticed that there is a 25ft power-boat pacing us at about 30ft off to starboard. The four occupants begin to share with us their opinions regarding our chances of success; two were yelling ‘NO WAY’ while the other two kept saying “YOU ARE GOOD”. This input does nothing for my confidence.
We inch closer and closer to the first steel I-beam; Shirley’s thumb waivers but is still pointing upward (more or less). My heart is in my throat; no chance to turn back now; we may lose the antenna. Suddenly the power-boaters start to clap loudly, shouting “you made it”. I am breathing again; if we can clear the first beam we should clear the other beams without incident. We slowly pass under the final I-beam and emerge unscathed.
The “Stucture E” bridge, a bascule, is next, about 1 mile south of the Bayway Bridge. We get lucky as our arrival is perfectly timed for the opening; we pass through with no delay. As storm clouds gathering we turn the bow east; on to St. Pete!
Tampa Bay is very shallow near Point Pinellas so we pay close attention to the markers and stay dead center within the narrow channel. We pass under the 65-foot Dick Misener Bridge and then, at channel marker Red-4, we turn north. At 14:00, with the wind blowing from the southeast at 20 knots and rain pouring down, the Green-3 channel marker is on our port side and the entrance to the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina is approximately 1.5 miles off of the port bow.
Suddenly the engine starts to sputter. I scramble down the companionway steps to the engine room and quickly switch from the starboard to the port Racor fuel filter, thinking that there must be impurities in the fuel. The sputtering stops for a moment and then resumes. I turn the engine off and then restart it; the sputtering stops for a moment and them resumes, more pronounced by this time. The engine coughs, shutters and dies; it will not restart.
The waves are now 4 to 5 feet high and pushing us in a north-westerly direction. We are in 30ft of water for the time being but the chart is telling me that we have about 1/3 of a mile, given the direction that we are drifting, before the depth quickly decreases to less than 7ft and then 3ft. The only obstruction nearby is channel marker Green-1 that looks to be about 100 yards away, but it appears that we are drifting straight for it. I prepare to drop the anchor and climb out on the bow sprit to pull the anchor pin (which is secured with a wing nut). The bow is bucking like a bronco as the waves roll under us. We are being pushed towards the marker at about 3.5 knots and I have no control of the boat. On my knees, I am hanging onto the bow pulpit with white knuckles as I try to unscrew the nut from the pin.
Sure enough, we drift into the marker before I can get the anchor down. I grab the boat hook to try to fend us off but the momentum of the boat and the weight of the marker are just too much; the boat hook snaps in two. Like fingernails slowly dragging across a chalkboard, the marker scrapes down the port side. Later, at dockside, I discover three large scratches on the hull just forward of the forward-most port light.
I finally get our big Rocna 80-pound anchor down. The anchor grabs and the stern swings around; we are now bow first into the oncoming waves. Shirley calls TowBoatUS and we try to catch our breath while the rain pours down.
The TowBoatUS captain is very skillful and together we manage to navigate the marina entrance (tricky for a 47ft, 50,000-pound dead weight being towed by a 22ft run-about). At approximately 17:00 he gently nudges us up against the transient dock and another crisis/adventure comes to an end. As he prepares to depart, the towboat captain confesses that ours was the largest boat, in the roughest conditions, that he has ever dealt with.
After adjusting the dock lines and settling in, I have a chance to inspect the damage done by the green marker; it makes me sick to my stomach. Until now, and after over 2,500 miles under our keel, we have only sustained a few very minor scratches to the paint on the hull. This damage will require a profe$$ional fix. I have to figure out why the engine stalled and I also want to solve the generator problem that has plagued us since our arrival at Gulf Port. I have my work cut out for me.
I send a text message to my brother informing him of our engine problem; warning him that we may be staying in St. Pete longer than anticipated. No worries, our guests are flexible and St. Pete is a great place to be stuck.
The next morning we set off to explore the marina and the surrounding area. The St. Petersburg Municipal Marina is located on Bayshore Drive in the heart of downtown St. Pete. It is an absolutely beautiful area; new high-rise condos and office buildings, restaurants, bars, boutique gift shops, museums and beautiful parks produce quite a view from the quarterdeck of Perfect Love. The Canopy, a rooftop bar that features a stunning panorama of the parks and yacht basin, quickly becomes our favorite watering hole.
I freely admit that I am not a mechanic; I can think of at least one thousand other things that I would rather do versus troubleshooting a diesel engine. That said, we are not going anywhere until the engine is once again running reliably, so I dig in.
The engine has been solid as a rock since we left Mobile heading for Cincinnati, eleven months and over 2,500 miles ago. Nothing has changed. However, I did disassemble parts of the generator while we were at anchor in Gulf Port, including the injection system (leaving the fuel return line open to the air).
The generator’s fuel return line ties into the engine’s fuel return line, which then empties into the fuel manifold. The fuel manifold is fed by the fuel tanks and feeds the engine and generator. The behavior of the engine, the sputtering just before it died, suggests that the problem might be air in the fuel line. After talking this idea through with a professional mechanic, we suspect that the generator’s open fuel return line introduced air into the manifold, which subsequently introduced air into the engine’s fuel intake line, stalling the engine. Moving the generator/engine fuel return line from the manifold to the top of the center fuel tank would be a simple fix and should solve the problem. Sure enough, the engine is back on line; first problem solved. On to the generator!
The genny would crank but would not start. Back in Gulf Port I had spent several hours on the phone with a Kubota mechanic, doing various tests and trying several fixes. Nothing worked; the mechanic, who was calling from Ft. Lauderdale, finally suggested that I have a qualified mechanic come to the boat. So, once the boat was secured at the St. Pete Marina, I asked the marina manager if he could suggest a good, local mechanic. He gave me two contacts. The best that I could do was an appointment for May 29th. We were supposed to depart St. Pete on the 30th; delaying our departure by one, or even two days, would still be workable.
Bob, the mechanic, arrives as promised on May 29th and, after several hours of trying this and that, he determines that my single-cylinder Kubota diesel generator has a compression problem; corrosion on one of the valves. Two days later the generator is reassembled and, after a few false starts, the engine comes to life.
Assuming that all is well with both of my power plants, we cut the dock lines at 8:00am on June 2nd and head into Tampa Bay. The cruise across the Bay, into the ICW and down to Sarasota is hot, humid and uneventful but Terri and Denny seem to be enjoying themselves so all is good.
At 3:00pm we drop anchor in a picturesque hideout situated between St. Armand’s Key and Bird Key. The anchorage is well off of the ICW, in the middle of a very up-scale residential area. The homes that surround us are absolutely beautiful and well out of my price range. As my eyes drift from one estate to the next, I feel an odd curiosity rising, and I think, “how strange it is to have just anchored my boat in the middle of a multi-millionaire ghetto”. This cruising life is never boring!
After securing the boat, we hop into the dinghy and head for St. Armand’s Circle. As luck would have it a ‘Seafood and Music Festival’ is underway and we enjoy ourselves immensely. We then meet my cousin Larry and his girlfriend Dee at Cha-Cha Coconut’s for a late dinner on the circle before heading back to the boat for the night.
June 3rd finds us anchored at Englewood Beach on the ICW. The entire crew takes a bath in alligator-infested waters and then we head for karaoke night at the White Elephant. The Captain and XO dance and sing “I Got You Babe”. Denny & Terri have a good laugh at our expense but refuse to participate; cowards!
Our guests fly out of Punta Gorda at 7:00pm the next day so we weigh anchor at daybreak on June 4th and head for Charlotte Harbor where we thoroughly enjoy our best sail of the trip; a beam reach all the way up the Harbor, at times hitting 8.5kts speed over ground. We tie up at Fisherman’s Village Marina in time to hop in the pool for a few minutes before enjoying a farewell dinner at Harpoon Harry’s.
Alone again. After a bit of a rough start, the XO and I feel that our first week with guests onboard was a successful one; we certainly hope that Denny and Terri feel the same. Exhausted but content, we watch the sun sink into the Harbor as a conch shell horn sounds welcoming the sunset.
Until next time, may your tomorrow bring fair winds and following seas.