2025 April: Arrive Pompano Beach

 2 April 2025
Depart: Pumpkin Key anchorage 8:15
Arrive: Pompano Beach, FL Private Dock 3:45
Distance: ~ 63 nm

When we pull up anchor, Clark is on the bow with the raw-water washdown  giving me hand signals on where to steer the boat to assist with bringing the anchor in. When the anchor is up, I start the boat moving. Today, I struggled to get going. I tried reading the display to get the proper heading for our waypoint target to have the navigation equipment "track" to the waypoint. However, for all the numbers on the display, I could not find one that told me which heading I needed. I finally gave up and just pointed the boat in the general direction of the waypoint. 

When Clark finally came to the upper helm, he told me I was looking for the BTW number as "Bearing to Way". I told him it was like trying to understand a foreign language. So many numbers and none of them what I was looking for! I found SOG and COG and DTW but BTW was well hidden. I knew where to look with the old equipment!

As we started to get underway, Clark noticed two boats on the chart via AIS that he recognized -- "Our Turn" and "Golden Ours". Shortly thereafter, we heard "Our Turn" (Dave, Tina, and dog Maggie) haling us on the VHF radio. They had stayed at a marina last night near where we anchored. They called to say hello and compare traveling speeds to determine who was traveling at the faster speed to decide who should go first through the next cut. We had them beat by just a tad so we went first.

Later, with the helm in Clark's hands, I decided to find something on the radio to listen to. As I sat there looking around, I decided that I needed to do more cleaning of the upper helm. Yesterday, the woodwork covered in pollen motivated me to clean. Today, the grimy vinyl of the full enclosure bugged me, so I got a bucket of water and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and went to work. Clark had too many things in the way for me to complete the job, but the parts I could reach (about 75%)  look a whole lot better now.

After about 3 hours of travel we could see Miami off to our port side. It was a bit hazy.

Miami, FL - coming up

Off to the starboard side we could see what remains of Stiltsville. 

The building on the left in the picture shown below appears to have a new dock with a raised platform.

Although there are still remains of houses here, the place has truly gone to the birds.

As we passed through Biscayne Bay, No Name Harbor and the Cape Florida Lighthouse, Clark got a text from our friends Robin and Dell on "Avalon" saying they were on their bikes riding past Cape Florida Lighthouse and they could see our boat! They left before us from Marlin Bay and decided to spend stop at Noname harbor to bike around the Biscayne Bay area! With boating, we never know where we might encounter someone we know. Fun!

Cape Florida Lighthouse

Clark pushed to get us to the Atlantic Ocean today because he said the forecast for tomorrow did not look good. Well, today was not great either! Once again it was one of those days where we were practically the only ones out on the ocean given the "Small Craft Advisory". I, for one, was not prepared for the wave action we encountered today, and apparently, the stabilizers were not prepared either! 

Even with the stabilizers working hard, we were rolling this way and that. Several times we heard something crash down below and wondered what had fallen over. Getting down the steps to look for the culprits was challenging. Usually when I found something that had fallen over, I left it there so it would not fall again. 

I forgot that I removed the non-skid material from the countertop in our state room. Everything on there (and there is a lot of stuff right now) was sliding from one side to the other and is now a jumbled up mess that needs to be reorganized. Thankfully there was nothing there that could break or spill. I will have to sort that all out later when I put non-skid back in place!

Near shore the waves were breaking causing us to be tossed about. Clark headed further out into the ocean for deeper water. When he got in the Gulfstream, the waves were not as bad and we picked up speed to 11 knots. 

Since we were now more than four miles offshore with water depths of around 500 feet plus or minus, Clark decided he would empty the holding tank. It did not take him long, but when he came back to the helm he said he was feeling "a little green" from being down below. I could sympathize as I am sure I would not be sticking my head in the bilge compartment under rough seas!

Finally, just after 3:00 we turned to head towards the Hillsboro Inlet. Entering that inlet is challenging as we had heavy waves on our stern due to the 20 knot winds. The current was flowing out at the inlet. Wind against sea - yay! (not)  Needless to say we had a wild ride on the inlet.

As we entered the inlet, we could see some folks taking advantage of the winds to do kite surfing. We could see one of the surfers heading straight into our path. Clark groaned!

Fortunately, he decided he did not feel suicidal today and diverted to head in an alternate direction. The other kite surfer I was watching cut it close with another boat coming in the inlet.

We can be sure to see two things when we come into Hillsboro - the first is the Sea Tow boat waiting to be called to someone's aid 

Sea Tow - ready and waiting

and the second is the dredging equipment that is perpetually located there.

We reached the Hillsboro Inlet Bridge about 10 minutes before the next opening so had to "station keep" until the bridge opened. 

Waiting for the bridge ...

We noticed some folks enjoying a small beach here on this sunny day.

When the bridge opened at 3:30, we were waiting on the inbound side and a dive boat was waiting on the outbound side of the bridge. He had the current, so we needed to wait for him to pass first.  All well and good until a small boat that did not even need the bridge to be opened decided he would go first. 

Dive boat far side (red), us inbound side waiting, and small boat clogging up the bridge opening!

Needless to say the dive boat captain was not happy. We heard him mutter over the radio, "you should learn the rules of the road!" The small boat should have waited his turn (he passed us to jump in front) or gone through the opening to the side to be out of the way.

Coming out from under the bridge on the land side, I spied yet another Sea Tow boat at dock. They must get a lot of business from here.

I waited until we were through the bridge to go down and start setting up fenders and lines to tie up at our friend's dock. Luckily, when we arrived, Steve was on his boat and could catch our lines. He was expecting us tomorrow, and we could not tie up easily without his help since we were tying our lines to his boat. 

We got the boat secured and then went up to the house. On the way we spied something we had not seen here before - a water taxi. Steve said this is new to the area. We have seen them in Fort Lauderdale but not here.

We also spied some other activity going on. A jet ski was tied to a boat while his buddy jet skier waited off to the side. I did not realize right away that the boat belonged to the county sheriff. I am not sure why they (2 people on jet ski) got stopped, but we heard them being told they were being let off with a warning.

Jet ski with county sheriff and buddy jet skier standing by

With all the water excitement over for the day, we headed inside to chat. Eventually we decided we needed food and ordered takeout form P.F. Chang's in Boca Raton. By the time we ordered the food, collected the food from the restaurant, and sat down to eat, I was starving!

We eventually called it a night and headed back to the boat where I sat down to do the blog update for the day.

2025 April: Exhaust Hose Smoking

 1 April 2025
Depart: Marlin Bay Marina, Marathon, FL 9:00

Arrive: Pumpkin Key, Card Sound, FL (near Key Largo)  5:00

Distance: ~ 61 nm

As we prepared to leave our winter home at Marlin Bay Marina, we had a hazy view of the horizon given a morning fog. Given the windy conditions in Marathon in the winter and the fact that we were docked there for four months, we had extra lines on the boat that needed to be removed. We had two bow lines, three stern lines, and three lines on the starboard side of the boat. In addition, we had the power cord to pull in. Clark topped up the water tank and brought the hose in last night or that would have added to this morning's departure procedures.

We saw some more staff members to say goodbye to as well as a couple of boaters we know, but the marina in general was awfully quiet. Another boat left just shortly before we pulled out. Other than that, things were quiet. 

As we made our way out of our slip, Clark told me that Jean on "Jean Marie" was out and waving. We yelled goodbyes across the basin. Anyone who was still sleeping as we exited the marina basin was probably very rudely woken as Clark blasted the boat horn as a warning to other boaters that we were coming out. It is a safety necessity as visibility is minimal for boats coming in as others go out. 

After we got going (the fog was not an issue), I went to the cockpit (in the stern of the boat) to clean up the pile of lines we had pulled in. I like everything shipshape and ready to be used when we come into the next port. I had a lot of cleanup to do and a lot of reorganizing of lines. I have favorites depending on the job to be done. 

Some lines are extra long. Some are working lines and much much shorter and lighter in weight. I have the lines organized by weight, length, and purpose, so the ones I need are where I expect them to be. As I worked on sorting and hanging my lines, I started to smell a strong odor. 

I thought man something is burning! When I went to hang up one of the lines, I found out that the odor was coming from our boat!! Looking over the stern of the boat, I could see thick, dark gray smoke pouring out of the starboard exhaust. Yikes!

I dropped everything and ran to tell Clark what I was seeing. He gave me the helm with a warning to watch out for crab pots and went to investigate. Over the summer, we put in new instruments. I am not as familiar with them as I was with the older setup. I struggled to find the depth display on the new Simrad display. Then I wanted to have the boat track to the next waypoint and could not remember how to make that happen. It added some stress to the situation. 

First, he checked out the view in the stern and it was definitely excessive smoke and smelled like burning rubber. Then he ran to the engine room to see if there was water flowing out somewhere unexpected instead of cooling the exhaust pipe.

Everything smelled and looked right in the engine room, but he noticed that the starboard engine had the water intake valve in the off position. He had cleaned the strainers last week in preparation for departure and neglected to turn the water back on for that one engine. He immediately turned the water flow to the on position. The water had been off for about 15 minutes or so.

Although the engine overheat alarm did not sound, there is a separate alarm for the exhaust pipe in the event of loss of cooling water. That one started to sound about the same time he exited the engine room. He silenced the alarm, but the indicator light still indicated an overheat situation. 

After that, the temperature alarm for the stabilizer hydraulic fluid sounded - the stabilizer cooling operates off that engine as well.  So he turned off the stabilizers.

Next, he returned to the upper helm and put the starboard engine in neutral, so he could run the engine up to full RPM. This would provide maximum flow of water to cool down the upper surface of the exhaust hose. He let this run for 30 seconds or so. Then, he put it back into gear, so that I could use both engines to continue to steer through the crab pots more efficiently.

Afterwards, he went to the lower helm to view the overheat alarm light and found that the light had gone out indicating a good flow of water had cooled the hose. This exhaust hose alarm is one that Clark installed after taking ownership of the boat. He had one on our prior boat so knew he wanted one on this boat as well. 

Clark had the helm and asked me to go down and check the exhaust. All was clear with no indication there had ever been an issue, so by 9:30 we had everything under control. We later noticed that Clark had failed to turn the stabilizer back on. The water was so calm today that we did not rock at all until a boat went by and caused a wake.

If we had not found this quickly, either with my smelling the issue or the alarm sounding, the exhaust hose could have melted rendering that engine unusable. We have one thing left to do. When this type of incident occurs, it can damage the impellor. Clark will need to examine this when the engine room is cooler for viewing.

After the excitement, I went back to work stowing my lines. Once that was done, we had just over 7 hours of travel to get to our selected anchorage for the night. As we traveled, Clark made the following comment, "I forgot how much fun we have dodging crab traps!" We had to watch out for them the entire trip.

To keep from getting bored, I did some cleaning of the upper helm. I took a rag and wiped all the pollen off the helm and surrounding woodwork and trim. Then I noticed the steering wheel had rust spots, so I took a rag and worked on removing the spots. After I ran out of things to clean, I set up my wireless speaker connected via Bluetooth to my phone and used Spotify to listen to stories on NPR followed by music. 

Finally around 4:30, we could see our destination of Pumpkin Key on the chart! 

Pumpkin Key is a pretty small island, but it makes a good anchorage. We can choose our spot to drop anchor based on the conditions. Today we were looking for a breeze and chose a spot on the south side pointing into the easterly  wind. 

As we were lowering our anchor a boater in a small boat came by to tell us that we had good anchoring all the way up close to the island. We yelled back that we wanted breeze. He said, "Oh yeah! Free air conditioning!" and left with a big smile and a wave.

After dinner, I sent Clark out to get a sunset picture. He said it was not an impressive one but took a picture for me anyway. 

Afterwards, he did something he has not done in four months - he turned on the anchor light!