This is famous Ponce Inlet Lighthouse as seen from the deck of the sailing vessel Yume…
It’s getting harder to blog. The newness of the boat and the adventure are probably not as strong a motivator as before. Forgive us?
We left you last in South Miami Beach, after taking two non working motors up to Ft Lauderdale for repairs.
First the motors. The windlass motor (used to pull up the heavy anchor and chain from the bottom) is dead. Shorted to the frame they tell me and cannot be rewound due to flat windings vs round. Who knew? New motors are only $900… The autopilot motor was not repaired either when we finally sailed to Ft Lauderdale and I called them. He was behind – a lot.
So I took the motor back to the boat, tore it apart and epoxied the magnets in the housing myself. Well, I did it twice actually as the first time didn’t work.
During the tests, the motor worked great and I was pleased with myself.
Then I tested it underway. When activated “Otto” as our very valuable automatic steerer is called, immediately turned the boat all the way around – hard.
Oops.
It took two days of playing, pondering and tinkering to figure it out. I asked the supervisor at the motor shop if it made any difference how the magnets go in and he said no. Well he was wrong. I ended up switching the positive and and negative leads to the motor and it works perfectly. The magnets were installed backwards! I am losing faith in “experts.”
We sailed from Miami to Ft Lauderdale on a glorious day, anchored in a nice little cove right off the beach and waited two days for Ryan to get back from Atlanta. This is the Miami skyline as we head out the shipping channel.
Of course since we had nothing to do, the refrigeration quit. I was trying to tweak the box with more insulation when I heard a hissing sound and all the freon came out from a crack in the evaporator line. I will not repeat the words used but you can imagine. Sometimes I think it is all a test to see how badly I really want this.
We could turn around and sail 125 miles back to the guy who helped put it in and broke it, then sail 125 miles back – or deal with it.
I fiberglassed it.
That is the the freezer box, and the fiberglass repair is where the line goes into the box. It seems to be holding. We are still tweaking trying to get a balance between freezer temps, refrigeration temps, and run time to conserve power. It is a long on the job learning process. If you are curious, you can see the computer fan I installed in the divider on the right. What you see is a piece of 2 inch insulation sandwiched between two pieces of starboard to act as a divider between the fridge and freezer. The fan is hooked to a thermostat with a relay to keep the temps where we want them. Remember – cold milk!
Did I mention we pulled off the genoa and resewed it? Our 30 year old sewing machine gave us fits, but we got her done…
While the machine was out, Shelly finally finished her cool dinghy cover made from leftover materials. This canvas will protect the dinghy from Goose’s nails, sun, and wear and tear. It looks very nice. She is so talented!
We went out one night for a pitcher and dolphin fingers, asked the waitress to take apic and this is what we got.
One night was spent up the New River in Ft Lauderdale so I could get close enough to bicycle over to pick up the motors. It is kinda cool staying in downtown like that. Goose really wanted to get off and chase all the foo foo dogs…
Headed out of town the next day we were held up by a little private yacht turning around in the channel. Where do these people get the money for those things?
Summer in South Florida means thunderstorms. Really big, strong, scary, fast moving, high wind, torrential downpour type thunderstorms. We have watched, run through, and dodged them for the last three days. This one in Vero Beach caught us but we were already on a mooring so no harm done.
So tonight we sit in Daytona beach after another long day. The fun thing here is that Shelly got Goose’s quick when trimming his nails and he is bleeding all over everything. He is not a happy camper. Neither are we.
But what’s a little blood between family right?
Tomorrow we should be in St Augustine. Maybe Hilton Head Island by the weekend? Don’t know. We will see what life (and Yume) bring us…
