Captain's Blog: 8-12-16

Cruising is truly an interesting and exciting adventure.....

Another perfect Faro Blanco morning as seen from the stern of Neverland

We started off our morning with a hot breakfast at the attached Hyatt Hotel.  Then, shortly before good byes and casting of lines - in recognition for performance beyond the duties and responsabilities of his rank, Bilge Rat Jonathan was promoted to Mr Buoy Boy Clarke, with the responsibilities and privileges which go with it.....  As Captain of Positive Lattitude, I of course have 3 buoys on my chord vs his newly appointed 1.  Bruce has video somewhere......

We make our way out into the bay and commence our crossing.  1-2' seas from the seas brought them across us broadside, but the big girl took em well and you wouldn't even know they were there....!  Then came the buoy minefield.....  OH MY GOD!!!  These things were freaking every where - you couldn't make a straight heading - constantly zigging, then zagging.....!!  Once we finally cleared the little bastards, I noticed that we were having to run rather hard just to maintain RPM and speed - 22mph @ 4200rpm for 44GPH....  not as efficient as usual....  I also noticed that the seas had switched, and we now had a following sea.  This can cause her to run funny for sure, but not like this.....  I backed her down to check things out.  Dawned a mask and jumped in - sure enough, we had wrapped another damn buoy - but to be honest, given the minefield, I am surprised it was only 1!  I made short work clearing it, only wrapped around the exhaust port, and we were on our way.

About 30 miles into the 90 mile crossing, the seas had laid flat - Jonathan and I figured it was the perfect photo op and time to pull out our anit-piracy tools.....

At about 45 miles, alarms started going off....WTF!!?  We quickly brought her down from plane and opened the engine hatch.  Once determined the stbd engine was throwing the alarm and identified she was overheating, I turned her off.  Unfortunately, at that exact moment, Jonathan saw the exhaust tubes collapse due to some sort of back pressure situation - SHIT!!!  We checked the strainers - yes they were full, but shouldn't have caused any issue.  Attempted to restart, all we got was a single "Clunk".... she won't turn over.  We continue to limp on the port engine only while I break out my manuals and look for signs of anything else to look for.....  I find a few circuit breakers and start to check on them.  I climbed into the engine room to look for the circuit breaker in the front by the alternator - I notice on the floor of my bilge is my serpentine belt.  I look over at my pulleys - they are missing a belt....  for a brief moment I am filled with elation (I have a belt on board).  Then I notice that the idler pulley is COMPLETELY missing.  Must have seized and ripped itself apart, which threw the belt, which caused the overheat.....  we continue to limp to Marco Island on one engine.

Well crap!!!!!  This is all we need with only 1 engine - luckily it was just rain, little if any wind or seas change...

We make our way into Marco Island about 1800hrs - what was supposed to be a 3 hour crossing took 7 hours, but we made it..... well almost....  as we entered the channel, we saw a looming storm just east of Marco Island and heard the CG break Squelch - "Alert - massive thunderstorm along Marco Island, 34 knot winds, high seas, water spouts.  All with only one engine to navigate and dock....!  Luckily for us though, the brunt of it passed just to our north and we only got breezy gusts during docking maneuvers - played a little bumper pylons trying to back her in, but we got her in!!!

A couple of Miami Vice's for the boys of Positive Lattitude.