Shake down cruise

What's a Shake Down Cruise?

Several buddies (not the sailing type) asked me what I meant when told that we were taking Eximius on a Shake Down Cruise.

It's pretty simple really. Over the past few months we have been fixing things on the boat: Some new instrumentation, a couple of engine issues, new Radio, new wind instrument (on top of the mast) it seemed like a lot of work, but the list is pretty small. But all of it was with the purpose of getting the boat ready for us to take her over to the Bahamas early next year.

We needed to know how things worked out for us when we were on the boat for more than just a night on the lake. By planning a shake down cruise, we would get to use every system on the boat, water, electronics, sails, lines, anchors, instruments, charts, bedding, cooking, relaxing, the many things that we would do if we were sailing to the Bahamas or elsewhere.

So the plan was to sail Eximius down to Biscayne Bay, spend a couple of days down there and sail back, roughly 40 miles each way.

The Friday before we left, a circuit breaker at home in the interior sub distribution box, blew, I picked up a new breaker at the local hardware store, pulled out the old and inserted the new. All looked good until Peggy flashed up the laundry dryer - the hot terminal in the sub distribution box was glowing yellow hot! Time to call an electrician. My go to guy is at EWI, Ben is a professional and is fair. He had a guy out to our house by mid afternoon. They had to re-route the interior electrics so that most of the house had power, but it needed a new distribution box, that would take time. They knew we were headed on vacation and I trusted them enough to grant them access to the house while we were away, if they could fit us in their schedule - good professionals get busy all the time.

We headed down the to the boat, after the electricians left, to load up - trip 1. Then off to the store to get the perishables before an early night at home. Crack of dawn and we were loading the truck ready to go. We stopped at McDonalds for a drive through breakfast en-route to Eximius.

Shawn, owner of the home where we keep the boat, met us in the driveway and we parked the truck where it would stay for the week. Quickly loaded the boat, ran the engine for 5 minutes while we unlocked all of the topside lockers and stowed everything. Not long and we were ready to cast off.

Normally we leave a few lines at the dock but this trip we wanted them all with us - turns out that was a good idea.

We motored down the New River, easily passed through the bridges and into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) it was a really nice day. Our destination was Bahia Mar. We had figured out the tides at the various points on the trip and we needed to leave Fort Lauderdale pretty early to get the tide right as we crossed from the Ocean into Biscayne Bay the next day.

Our arrival at Bahia Mar was awesome, we're getting much better at docking. Our latest technique is to get the boat kinda lined up with the slip and moving really slow to pass lines to the crew ashore. That was an easy docking.

It was hot at Bahia Mar, really hot, humid and very sweaty! Did not sleep well.

Up early for a quick breakfast and that oh so important coffee, we cast off and headed out from Bahia Mar and back into the ICW for the motor out of Port Everglades.

As we motored out, I took this short video. The deck is cluttered as it's not yet made ready for our trip outside (in the Ocean) and the ICW is not too busy.

The Universal Diesel engine can be heard in the background and the new wind instrument is working great.

I put the sails up while we were still sheltered inside Port Everglades, so we actually was able to motor sail out of the port. The sea state was pretty calm and there was enough wind that we could sail out towards the transit line we had selected for the trip South.

That didn't last long, we were doing well, sailing at about 5 knots but the wind was veering towards the South and even though we could still sail without the engine, tacking for the next 33 miles would take too long if we wanted to get into Biscayne Bay during daylight. So we motor sailed down the coast.

After passing Key Biscayne and turning west to follow the channel markers into the Bay, it was getting late in the day, but we had this beautiful view of the Miami Skyline. Time to get busy so that we could get into Dinner Key where we had reserved a slip for the night.

Getting into the slip at Dinner key was a bit of a challenge, our first where there were pylons on each side of the narrow slip. But following our plan, we were able to get the boat turned stern in and tied up with the grateful help of a couple of guys on the dock.

Dinner key is a City Marina and is getting a lot of upgrades. The new marina building is a modern 3 story design that looks like it was built to withstand hurricanes. The middle floor has the main office, bathrooms, showers, and laundry. There are quite a few live-a-boards at the marina.

For some reason, they opted to not have a dinghy dock at the marina, instead they rely upon the dinghy dock that is adjacent to the boat ramp between the marina and Coconut Grove sailing club. Even the marina staff take a golf cart ride to get to the dinghy dock.

At least were at the dock for the SuperMoon. The sky was clear enough that we could easily see the Moon moving into a full Lunar Eclipse.

We dined out on the Patio (the cockpit table). Our first Seal-a-Meal dinner this trip. They work great. Beef Stew, one of my favorite hot dinners on the boat. A glass of wine for Peggy and a Jack and Ginger for me.

The cockpit table works out great, the light is from the dock, so if we were at anchor, it would probably be dark. Add to my list - need cockpit lighting - this list is going to grow, but that's the whole point of the shake down cruise.


Dinner key was HOT, HUMID, and SWEATY - that's two nights of not a lot of sleep. The downside of being in a slip is that the boats heading is fixed but the wind is not. So, unlike being at anchor, the boat doesn't swing into wind. It was really hot and humid!


Then, just before midnight, a squall hit! Lesson learned! in the future I'll double up on all the lines at a dock before turning in.

While at the Marina, I asked about mooring ball availability for later in the week as we had planned on returning to Dinner Key before leaving Biscayne Bay.

I took this picture of the marina's mooring field, the same pic is online, but having it handy in my phone might be handy - it was!

Still pretty tired from a lack of sleep for two nights, we opted to stay at the marina for a 2nd night. We slept a bit better, but it was still very hot, very humid and very sweaty.

Add Air Conditioning to the list.

Leaving Dinner key on Tuesday morning, we first visited the fuel dock. Their fuel nozzle was too big to fit into our tank fill. So we had to use a funnel to slooowly fill the tank to 3/4 full. We've used a little less than a quarter tank of diesel for the trip so far.

We headed south along the route of the ICW, keeping the red markers to starboard - Red Right Returning - and the ICW goes to Texas!

The North and South parts of Biscayne Bay are separated by the Feather Banks, no wind, we're motoring down to the Feather Banks Channel (the yellow line on the deck is my safety Jack Line, I clip my harness to it with a tether and can securely move from the cockpit to the bow knowing I'll not fall over board, it works really well, although I've not actually had too rely on it to keep me on board the boat.

As we approached Elliott Key we had a little excitement! The US Customs & Immigration Service boat approached us and we put the engine in neutral as they came along side. They stayed a few feet away from the boat, and they were very well armed! After a few questions, to which we obviously gave the right answers, they declined to come aboard and they motored off to visit the only other boat we had seen that afternoon.

We anchored off Elliott key for the night. Not so Hot, Not so Humid and Not so sweaty!

I was able to take a swim with a 100' line tied to a float, just as well as there was quite a current. Sure felt good to get in the water!

The next morning, we Sailed back towards the Feather Banks and motored through the channel, our destination was a small deeper area just west of Boca Chita Cay, we planned to stay there over night before heading back to dinner key Thursday morning.

Overnight a storm passed through, but our anchor held firm and the anchor alarm didn't go off at all - Not so Hot, Not so Humid and not so Sweaty! it's nice being at anchor.

 A quick look outside prompted us to prepare for a squall 

 It was approaching quickly

 Excess canvas stowed

 It's rolling through - going to be a train ride!

 Last pic before hunkering down below

 Handheld GPS shows a very quick move when the wind hit.

 All the ports are closed, it's pretty loud, and water is streaming down the glass.

 The horizon is much closer, sea is not so bad, but the wind is whipping up

Looking up at the cabin top hatch, it's wet out there!

My shake down cruise 'list' is growing, but nothing major.

Thursday morning we motored out of the anchorage, and just as we passed the channel markers that are the outer most for the channel to Boca Chita Cay, the engine temperature gauge started to read higher.

Oh, oh! I have been trying to get that gauge working for several weeks, checked the electrics, installed new temperature senders, and finally figured, with the help of buddies on the C34 forum, that the problem was the engine thermostat. So the engine runs cool. Now seeing that gauge read higher was not good. Checking over the stern of the boat, I could see white steam coming out of the exhaust and very little water with it.

We shut off the engine and I dropped the anchor so I could check out what was causing the overheating. The engine got up to 175 degrees (with the faulty thermostat, it normally runs at around 110 degrees)

1st check - look at the engine raw water inlet filter - it's full of grass, that could be the issue. Clean it out and restart the engine. Still no water pumping out the exhaust.

2nd check - look at the engine raw water pump impeller - it's new, but was it damaged when the water was blocked by the filter? It only took a few minutes to check out the impeller, it looked fine. Put it back together.

3rd check - is the raw water inlet blocked? I removed the hose from the through hull shut off valve and ah ha! I was pretty sure the top of the shut off valve was below the water line, and so water should rush out pretty quick, it barely dribbled out! I pushed a long plastic tie wrap down the open shut off valve and it would barely pass through! It's blocked!

I closed the shower sump pump-out valve and removed the host from that, opened the valve and water poured in! Ok, I have a source for engine raw water. Within ten minutes I was able to rework the hoses and connect the engine raw water to the other through hull. I replaced the water filter with a new one that had arrived in the mail just before we left home. Started the engine, good strong pumping water out the exhaust, no white steam and the engine was running at it's normal 110 degrees. Phew!

With the wind on the nose, we motored back North to Dinner key, now checking the heartbeat every few minutes, the engine was running fine.

It's a long channel into Dinner Key, and as we were taking to a mooring ball, we called in to the Marina for directions. As the photo of their mooring chart shows, the dark blue areas are the deeper points, so knowing where we were heading was a plus.

The Marina has a shuttle service that runs each hour if called on Channel 68, so I was able to catch the 4pm shuttle (to the dinghy dock) take a brisk walk up to the office, pay our mooring fee, then a fast walk out to the main road and head north to the Fresh Market store to grab dinner (spinach & blue cheese salad), some coffee creamer (I used the last we had on board that morning) and some bread (the bagels we had onboard had gone moldy) then I high tailed it back to the Marina building for a shower and dash back to the dinghy dock for the 5pm shuttle.

Except for the noise of a bad generator in a vessel not far from our mooring, we slept better that night and climbed out of the bunk before dawn for a coffee & cereal breakfast before the long trip back to Fort Lauderdale.

We had decided to head up the inside on the ICW. Peggy had researched the route and the bridges using a chart and the waterway guide, so we felt confident we could stay inside rather than outside on the ocean. Hurricane Joaquin was building the sea conditions off shore and we felt the inside was the more comfortable route.

The trip out to the ICW from Dinner Key was really peaceful, and as we passed outside of the mooring field I took this pic, it really was that good.

Then, after clearing the outside marker of the Marina channel, we headed up towards the Rickenbaker Causeway bridge, not a boat in sight!

We were treated to this view of Miami, city in the clouds. It would take a while for the sun to burn off the haze and low cloud that morning.










Plenty of clearance under that bridge, and the route is well marked. As we approached the Dodge Island railway bridge, it started to close! So time for a few cicles. It gave us time to check out the landscape around Bayfront Marina. When the train did show, about 10 minutes later, it was crawling! Not a surprise, the bridge is not far from the railhead on Dodge Island.

Once the bridge opened, we cruised through.

The trip up the ICW was not so bad. We tried to time our arrival at bridges that had preset opening times, Hollywood Beach Blvd Bridge was one. We were there at high tide, water was on both sides of the sea wall on the East side of the ICW. A tall trawler was having issued because of the strong current on the north side of the bridge, so we called them on VHF and agreed we would wait till they passed.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, but I have to mention the bridge tenders. It seems that the men and women manning the bridges come from all over, but the guy on the Dania Beach Blvd Bridge has a radio voice that is the best. His rolling banter as he welcomes each arrival at the bridge and his wishes for the passing boat captains to have a great day, just made it worth passing his bridge to hear his down home chatter. He would get my vote for Bridge Tender of the Year!

Once we were at the turn to the West opposite the Port Everglades entrance by the Nova SouthEastern Oceanographic Institute, we headed up to the 17th Street Causeway bridge. It was close to high tide, and we reach up around 53 feet to the top of the VHF antenna at the mast head. The bridge had clearance of 55 feet according to the fender boards on the starboard side of the bridge. So we passed under easily.

Passing the 15th street marina and leaving Sand Bar Park on our port side, we turned as if headed to Bahia Mar, but instead we turned into Lake Sylvia, hoping to meet up with Diversion, an Out Island 33 owned by Bob & Joy Tigar. They were anchored in the lake and we had our first raft up, fittingly with Bob & Joy as they were the ones that told us about the lake in the first place during a regular HISC club meeting a few months ago.

A few drinks and dinner on board, some late chatting with Bob & Joy where I started to build my mental picture of our first trip to the Bahamas next year.

We slept really well that night. Nice breeze, we even had to break out the blanket to keep us cozy in the V-berth.

Saturday morning, after breakfast and coffee, I passed our frozen ice cube trays, and we said farewell to Diversion, looking forward to the club meeting next week.

After stopping at a pump out on sailboat bend, we headed back to our slip.

Great week, my shake down cruise list is pretty long, but getting that stuff done will make us more prepared for our longer trips in the spring.

See you on the Water.

Weighing down Eximius

With all of our 'gotta do' projects complete, it's time to prep Eximius for our first real trip.

Sure, we have taken her out onto the Ocean a few times, at least out to the 3 mile limit to empty the holding tank, and we've joined up with other members of the HISC at Bahia Mar and Lake Sylvia, but it's time for a shake down cruise and to get comfortable with our boat. We need to get some water under the keel!

So the plan is to load up the boat on Friday afternoon/evening and return home. Then Saturday morning, head down to the boat, final loading and head away from the slip around high tide, about 8am.

We'll stay at Bahia Mar Saturday night, it's only an hour from our slip to the Marina, but it'll give us a chance to make the tides for the next part of the trip.

Bahia Mar is a great marina, right next to the beach and all the facilities. I expect to setup our temporary Air Conditioner to keep us cool overnight ready for an early start Sunday. Our goal is to get to Dinner Key around High Tide Sunday Afternoon. That way, our passage through the keys into Biscayne Bay will be on a rising tide, gives us a bit of leeway with our deep draft boat.

I hope to be able to post some videos of each leg of our trip, both to allow us to reflect on how things went and to practice blog videos.
See you on the Water!

Getting dirty with the Diesel engine

Having completed the installation of the new electronics (wind system) I wanted to check out some of the engine system to make sure it's ready for our trip next weekend.

1st was the Heat Exchanger. It has a Zinc that corrodes faster than the heat exchanger metal, it's a 'sacrificial zinc' and has to be replaced as it corrodes away.

Here's what I removed, probably doesn't mean much unless you have had to replace one yourself, but it has a major problem. That little bit in the lower right of the photo, it should be about 3" long! The rest has corroded away, as it should, but it's not doing it's job any longer.

There was a spare on board (thanks Deke!) but I went to get another before I used the spare. So now I have two spare (found another one, thanks Deke!)

Before putting it back together, I cleaned up the zinc holder so that there would be a good electrical connection between the zinc and the base and the heat exchanger.

That was easy.





Then I checked the raw water filter for the engine. Not blocked, but quite a bit of flotsam, so I cleaned it out, need to get a spare.

Next, check the water pump, pretty important part of the engine cooling system.

That cover should look polished, it's pretty worn. The good news was that Deke had left a new pump on board, so I figured I would replace it and recondition the old pump.

That's when it started to get dirty!

I keep a pretty good tool kit on board, so it only took about an hour to change out the pump, much of that was figuring out the 'how', if I had to change it again, probably take about 15 minutes.

With the pump replaced, we ran the engine and I'm very pleased with the flow of raw water through the engine. It now spurts out about a cup of water about every second. Cool (pun intended :)

We spent the rest of the time on the boat today checking the engine temperature sensors, drying up the small amount of water that was spilled during the work, and putting everything back together, basically starting to make the boat habitable for the up coming trip.

This should mean that we can spend some time taking Eximius to new places. Ok, so we're heading to Biscayne Bay, old sailing grounds when we owned JD. The deep keel of Eximius will keep us on our toes as the bay has a lot of shallow areas. I'll take lots of pics.

Stay safe, see you on the water.

Getting some Wind Part 2

Now that the Garmin gWind Transducer is securely installed on top of the Mast, time to work on the helm wiring.

First step is to extend the existing electronic's wiring in order to relocate the GPS & the Garmin Echo 300 echo sounder to their new home. That involves removing the existing silicone plug where the wires pass through the cockpit deck and below in the aft berth.

The existing wires are taped to the pedestal guard and pass through the deck which is sealed with a substantial blob of Silicone Caulk.

When the new cables are run through those holes, I'll install BlueSea Cable Clamps to waterproof the deck join.

I'll replace the tape with plastic tie wraps and clean up the deck when it's all done.

Helm Instrument Platform

The GPS is currently mounted on an Aluminium Bracket which has a 27" bar secured underneath that acts as a really good hand hold when climbing past the wheel.

The new GPS mount will also be the home for the Echo Sounder and the new Garmin Wind Instrument (GMI20)  So the bracket and handle bar have to come off first, I'll need them as the template for the new instrument mount.

I need to remove the legacy equipment wires that are fed through a hole in the pedestal.

Having a tough time figuring out how to remove the Compass so that I can get to the wires that are fed down into the Pedestal.

The existing wires seem to be secured inside the pedestal, and I don't want to just cut them off and leave them hanging inside, there's a chance that they could get entangled with the pedestal steering chain. I really want to avoid that issue!

Guys on the C34 Forum advise that I need to remove the compass light fitting (the black piece on the top leading edge of the compass) and that will allow me to twist off the stainless steel cover.

I'll find out this weekend.

We're still gearing up for our shake down cruise in late September, and getting the electronics projects out of the way is a big part of that.

It'll be interesting to see how this project works out. And working on a boat is at worst fun! at beast, great fun!

And, as I have stated often, when you work on your boat, you learn a lot about it, it's systems, and yourself.

Making Progress

Here's the sketch of my idea:

 On Saturday, I built the new instrument platform in my garage, well, out front of the garage, at this time of year, the front of the house is in shadow throughout the day, much cooler.

Here's the old GPS Mount and grab bar (Peggy claims it had her name on it, like it's gonna get her!)

The bar is too long and the angle bracket has a good bit of surface corrosion, what you would expect of about 25 year old aluminium. The bar is going away and I'll clean up the angle bracket.

In the background is the Starboard that will be formed into the new Instrument Platform.

 After removing the GPS mount from the bracket, I could see how wide the new platform needed to be in order to have the Echo Sounder, GPS and the new Wind Instrument neatly setup.

So I should have some Starboard left over for a few other small projects.

The platform should have enough room on the ends to form handholds in place of the killer bar.

The angle bracket cleaned up nicely just using my multi-tool sander. No mods needed to the bracket at all.

The round cut out is shaped to match the top of the Pedestal Guard tubing. 

Of course, I got carried away with the construction process and so didn't take any more pics until I got everything setup on the boat.

One of the 'smaller' projects is to install the VHF Remote at the helm. As I was already working on the wiring that passed through the deck in the cockpit, this was an easy addition.

Complete!

 Well, almost! The entire system is installed, all the instruments are working and the VHF radio remote mike is installed and works great.

In this picture, it's easy to see the instruments, and the mike on the right. The handholds are easily strong enough and easy to grip when getting behind the wheel.

There's enough room on the instrument shelf to put a note pad or chart printout.

The Garmin Wind instrument is awesome, and when we install the Depth/Speed/Temperature transducer (during our next haul out) the data from the transducer will be available for the GPS and the GMI20 (that's the instrument on the right :) )

The Wireless Server interface is mounted on the V-Berth aft bulkhead, It connects to the GND 10 which provides the interface to the Gamin NEMA 2000 network.

The GND 10 is screwed to the liner at the outside of the Port Cabin Center Cabinet. That's where I keep our Flags.

That completes the installation until our next haul out. Then I'll install the new thru-hull and transducer.

This NEMA 2000 network is cool. Basically, everything we add to the network provides data to anything else on the network. So the GPS can show the info from the Wind & Depth Transducer, and the GMI20 can show the wind, depth and temperature data.

Eventually, we may add capacity sensors to the tanks on Eximius, then the data will show how full they are, how much fuel, water and waste we have on board.

If we add an instrument to the Nav Table, then all that data will be available for display there too.

Good days work.

Getting some Wind Part 1

High on our list is adding a wind instrument. So this Labor Day Weekend, that's the project.

The installation process goes something like this (things change despite the best planning)

•  Test the system at home. 

I have several 12v converters left over from old computers/monitors/DVD drives etc, So I can use one of them as the power source. It only took a few minutes to connect all the pieces of the system to get it working.

Of course, there's was very little wind, but the system works great. With the Wireless wind transducer mounted on a pole in the yard and the electronics sitting on the kitchen island, it ran for 7 hours without an problems. So testing is done.

• Mount the transducer on the masthead.

Bill Zimmer, a member of the HISC, has a Mast climber from ATN, and offered to loan it if needed. So I picked that up last night and Bill offered to assist at the boat today, assuming that he doesn't get the urge to go sailing. Hmmmm which would I chose?

So we're heading down to the boat this morning to basically get the transducer installed.

Learnt a couple of lessons about using the mast climber.

#1: Wear Gloves!

Get Prepared (what you need to have with you - put it in the bag)

Takes a little getting used to the method 

Don't lean back too far!

Check the Mast out as you go.

Don't get your knickers in a twist.

Take a breather.

Nearly There.

Phew! made it.

Cross that off the list!

Next, install the network, and the first part is extending the existing instrument cables so that they will reach the new Instrument platform in front of the helm. Stay tuned.

Here's the RatsNest of wire below the helm pedestal.

.

Trip to the Toy Store

With the impending visit by Erika this weekend, and online orders delivered to store, I needed to get down to the toy store (West Marine in Fort Lauderdale - if you've never been there, then take an hour to browse around some time.)

 In my online Order was the new Air Conditioning Unit for Eximius, Marine Air 10,000 BTU Reverse Cycle and the Garmin Instrument Kit.

 Now that probably doesn't mean much if you're not into sailing, but in South Florida, AC is a must (at least for a Brit In USA!) and knowing the wind speed and angle is pretty important. Moving towards our goal of cruising on Eximius for a month or so next year, we need to get AC up and running. This is my biggest DIY project on the boat so far.

The other part of the online order is an instrument kit.  We have the low tech wind indicators on the boat, little flags (tell tales) on the shrouds that point away from the wind, and a Windex (wind vane) at the mast head that shows us which way the apparent wind is flowing all the way up there and telltales on the Sails to show how the air is flowing over the sails.

So why spend the money on the electronic version of the wind indicator? Like most sailors, I feel the wind and look at the tell tales on the shrouds and on the sails and adjust the sails to match the conditions, but having a display show where the apparent wind is coming from and how strong, that helps stay aware of changes in the wind. If it's dropping off, then should I let more sail out, or if it's rising, should I reef (yes!) and is it changing direction? Keeping track of the wind changes helps anticipate changes we need to make to stay safe and to get the most out of our sails. So the instrument is great tool.

Included in the kit are:

•  The wind transducer. That's the bit that goes up on top of the mast and collects the data on wind speed and direction. 
• The wireless server interface (WSI) that allows me to have the transducer on the mast without having to run another wire down the inside of the mast. 
• GND 10 box that allows the WSI to talk to our boat's network. 

Oh! We don't have a network! The Kit includes the start up network that allows everything to talk to each other and to show the data on the display at the wheel. Very cool.

But there's more! The kit includes a Water Speed, Depth and Temperature Transducer that connects to the network. So now the Instrument at the wheel will be able to display the wind direction and speed, our speed through the water, the current depth and the current water temperature. I just have to install it all. This is where I give thanks to the 25 years of Navy experience in electronics! Argggggh!

West Marine has a new boat owners program where we can get an extra % discount, so I took advantage of that by getting a few more things for future projects.

• A sheet of Starboard - making an additional step on the back of the boat to make it easier to get on and off the boat from the water or dinghy and making a new Instrument panel at the Wheel so the new instruments are easily seen by the person at the helm.
• 100' of new Anchor Chain
• Hand rails for each side of the cabin dodger - give us and guests something to grab hold of as we get on the boat and into the cockpit without having to grab the canvas.
• Safety Jack lines - they will be set on either side of the deck so that I can attach my harness in order to keep safe as I work on deck while off shore.
• Cleaner and water proofing for the boat canvas - it's really not nice when it rains and the rain comes through the cockpit canvas and drips on as while at the wheel.
• Bit and pieces for the AC install, hoses, shut off valves (sea cocks), strainers, etc. 

My boat projects list has grown quite a bit, but that's part of the fun of owning a boat. And I have to admit, when you install the system yourself, you know a lot more about it than when you pay someone to install it for you!

I'm getting to know a lot about this boat!

The Poop Story

Sometimes you have to smile and just go with the flow!

 Plan was to head out to Lake Sylvia this weekend, the day after we completed the sale of our Catalina 250 and handed her over to the new owners on Friday Night. Several other members of the HISC (Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club) were planning to meet up on the lake.

Of course, it's Florida, and Summer, So we had threatening storms scheduled for the whole weekend. But anyone living down here knows, we just have to wait 5 minutes and it will change.

On Saturday morning, after a quick trip to the store for important supplies, like a few bottles of wine, some Jack Daniels (Honey - my favorite) and we headed down to Fort Lauderdale where we keep Eximius behind Shawn & Alan's home.

I took with me a few 'project' items, some engine repairs to complete, and Peggy had packed food for the weekend and we had the usual extra clothes, all of the boat manuals (we keep them at home for evening reading).

It didn't take long to get the boat prepped for casting off. It was high tide around 10am, so timing was on the ball. As Peggy stowed stuff below, after connecting up the GPS (we removed it when alongside), I opened all of the valves: Galley sink drain, Engine Raw Water supply, Head water supply and Head sink drain. Turned on the Nav instruments and the GPS & Radar, Vented the Engine compartment, Checked transmission was in neutral and started the engine.

Peggy was still busy below, so I cast off all lines except the midships line to the dock. Quick glance around to make sure all was well on board, and I cast of the last line. Put Eximius in gear and we gracefully left the dock heading out of the channel.

The thunder clouds were gathering, but we only had to wait those 5 minutes. We smoothly exited the canal and turned onto the North branch of the New River, outbound and ready to call the 1st bridge on our route to the Intracoastal.

Peggy mentioned that the head was filling up! Hmm. Not that long since I replaced the valves in the head, perhaps one had stuck open and the water from the head supply was filling the head. Not to worry, I'll close the valve for now and check it out later. Oh Ohhh! you know that's going to bite me later on!

 We navigate through the 11 Avenue Swing Bridge and headed on down the North Fork, the head was still filling up. Peggy took the helm while I went below to make sure the head pump was being operated correctly, looked ok. I turned off the head's raw water supply, back out to the cockpit and I took the helm as we moved on towards the next bridge.

We quickly and uneventfully passed though each of the bridges, I'm guessing the bridge tenders are getting used to our calls requesting the next bridge opening. And we now know about the outflows by Andrews Avenue Bridge and we keep an eye out so that we don't caught out.

After clearing the last bridge, we headed down the New River and north of Sandbar Park, early in the day, and the threat of storms, so no boats on the sandbar today. With Bahia Mar in sight, we headed past the last marker before turning south to hug the East wall of the channel into Lake Sylvia.

High Tide, no risk of going aground, but we keep an eye out for those tell tale ripples where the shallows wait the newby sailors in the area (that was us a couple of weeks ago). We turned across the lake and, now over to the south west side of the lake,

We picked an anchoring spot between to pretty large power boats (multi story). I let out about 60' of chain rode and Peggy backed down hard to check that the anchor had dug in, we were good!

Now to go look at the head. I came to the conclusion that the problem was the Deck Pump Out cover. I had purchased a new cover and tried to install it the last trip out, but the old one was sealed in hard, I didn't realize it, but during my efforts to remove the old pump out cover, I had made a hole it it. During the week, the heavy rains had flooded the deck, that's normal, but because of the hole in the cover, that water had filled the holding tank to capacity, it was completely full and the Joker valve in the head could not hold back all that poop! Ok, very dilute Poop, but Poop all the same!

Having a full holding tank meant we could not use the head! Think about that just for a few seconds! We drink at least 4 bottles of water a day each, plus coffee, wine, Jack & Lemonade, you get the picture. Our solution was to store our waste in water bottles and plan to visit a pump out station on Sunday Morning before returning to the slip.

Peggy shut off the engine and that's when I realized the pressure water pump was running continuously! It should only run when a faucet is opened, but they were all shut! What the heck! I turned on a faucet and nothing came out! Oh! the water tank is empty! No problem we have a spare 25 gallon tank, that will be plenty for the weekend. Turning the center tank supply off and the aft tank supply on, I open a faucet in the head and nothing comes out! The hot faucet is fine (water's not hot) but cold water is dry. What the heck. Then I hear the bilge pump kick in for a few seconds, water is flowing into the bilge .. .this is not good. Opening up the head cupboard, I can see water pouring UP the back wall of the cabinet (thank goodness it's fiberglass) but cannot see where it's coming from. Pulling the top cabin step off so that I can get access to the engine area but no sight of flow there.

After several minutes of looking and feeling around, I discover the fresh water supply hose to the head faucet is disconnected and with the pump running water is just flowing under pressure into the bilge. An easy fix. loosen the hose clamp, put the hose back on the faucet pipe and reclamp it. By the time I had located the leak, we used up about 20 gallons of the 25 gallong aft tank. Now we had a head we could not use and only 5 gallons of fresh water.

These things happen, not much we can do about it but conserve, that would deal with both issues.

As it has been every trip to the boat so far, I have a list of projects to do onboard, so I then spent the next two hours replacing the engine temperature sensors and the fuel level sensor in the fuel tank. Almost an anti climax, but not with out a few well chosen superlatives. I was able to remove the remnants of the Pump Out waste cap and replace it with a nice shiny new one purchased from Catalina Direct. That should stop future flooding of the holding tank.

Finally, time to relax. By this time, 4 boats were at anchor just off our starboard side, two of them from the HISC. Dale Kern from Shoal Mate paddled his canoe over to us and we discussed the things that sailors talk about, including the state of the Poop. Peggy & I were ready for dinner, Chicken & Stir fry, Wine and Jack on the rocks, all the while listening to WLRN our favorite radio station.

After a fitful night between storms, we were up by 8am and planning to find a pump out. Joyce (Spruce Goose) replied to a facebook post that there was a pumpout at 15th street just to the north of 17th Street Causeway bridge. So after breakfast we headed that way. But that pump out was broken - at a Marina! So we turned around and headed back towards the New River, I was sure there were a few on the banks of the river.

 We found a pump out station on the south bank of the river just east of 3rd Avenue Bridge. We pulled over and tied up to the dockside. Peggy did a great job and fortunately was not looking when I nearly fell overboard - One hand for the boat!

This was our first pump out, and I had no clue about the technique nor the fittings. It turned out that the fitting to connect the hose to our pump out point was missing from the shore pump out station. I called the phone number on the PU station, but had to leave a message, not a surprise, it's Sunday! And then a couple of city employees came along and helped out. They were great, they had the missing fitting, and we were pumping the poop out in minutes. Meanwhile they were explaining how Fort Lauderdale was so Boater Friendly.

They did the city proud. Thanks guys. I'll have to add a pump out fitting to my next shopping list a West Marine. After saying thanks to the guys, we pushed off and headed to the first bridge, then quickly passed the others and were back in the channel to our dock. Peggy took the helm and brought us along side. We quickly turned the boat, swinging her stern around while I held the bow at the dock.

Peggy commented that it was not the best weekend, and noted that on Saturday night I was sat on the side of the boat looking almost wistfully at the other HISC members partying while I was in 'come down' mode from a hard days work. But we got out on the boat, we learnt more about how the boat works and we managed with little water and no poop.

I'll take that.