Not Again! :-(

My goal today was to reach an anchorage right off of Fort Matanzas about 30 miles north of Daytona along the ICW. It looked like a cool place, and I could paddleboard over to the fort to take a tour if I got there before it closed. It would be around a 6-hour motor, so I woke up, did some yoga, had a light breakfast, and weighed anchor at 9:18.

Because I was still very wary of this engine (after all, we never did figure out what made it quit in the first place), I had started it very early in the departure process so it would run for about 30 minutes before I actually committed to it by pulling up the anchor. But, it seemed to be running fine, so after weighing anchor, I turned into the channel, set the autopilot, went to the bow to secure most of the ground tackle. Although this time I left the anchor dangling–ready to drop–and the power to the windlass turned on with the remote ready in the cockpit–so in case something happened I could quickly anchor. Then I slowly increased to a fast cruise RPM (2300) and headed north. I planned to keep everything this way for a couple of hours, after which I would feel confident in the engine and would secure things properly. It turned out that I didn’t have to wait that long. 🙁

As we proceeded north in the ICW, I was constantly reviewing what my immediate actions would be should the engine quit. I felt like a pilot of a single-engine aircraft, always keeping in mind possible forced-landing areas. The problem was that this area of the ICW was basically a 150-foot-wide ditch which had been dug out by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE). The depth in the “ditch” was guaranteed to be deep enough, but immediately to either side the water was very shallow–generally 3-4 feet. With Serendipity having an almost 6′ draft, this meant that I had two choices if the engine quit: anchor in the middle of the channel (which was illegal and dangerous) or go aground outside the channel. As I continued to scan the GPS as we motored north, I was becoming resigned to the fact that unless the engine quit at one of the very rare occurrences where the deeper water spread out past the confines of the ICW (like my last anchorage), I was going to go aground. I couldn’t think of any way to avoid it. Assuming I would be able to get the engine restarted afterwards, I would have to be towed off.

But, the engine seemed to be running normally. Until suddenly, about two and half miles north of the anchorage we had departed from,

it suddenly surged up to about 2600 rpm for about 15 seconds, then died–a repeat act of what had happened the first time! I quickly checked the GPS, but it only confirmed what I had already deduced: there was nowhere to anchor. So, I let the boat slow to a stop as I gradually approached the downwind side of the ICW, then dropped the anchor right at the edge. I only let out about 25 feet of chain since there was barely any wind. At this point, both depth sounder shallow-water alarms started going off (I have one set at 8′ and the other at 7′), as I watched the depth decrease from 8 feet to 7 feet to 6.5 feet as we drifted downwind out of the channel. But then it stopped right at 6.5 feet. The GPS map (“chartplotter”) indicated that we should be in 4′ of water, but luckily, we were still afloat. I confirmed we were clear of the channel, then went below to deal with the engine.

I initially called Nicholay, mainly to clear my head and get settled. We discussed that it seemed the engine was likely sucking air. I ran through the bleeding process yet again, and sure enough, as soon as I cracked the nut on top of the secondary filter, a bunch of air bubbles came out. It was obvious air was what had caused the engine to quit–air being sucked into the system from somewhere before that filter. And, since I had run it for a long time yesterday without issues (but only for a short while at high RPM under load), it seemed to be a function of higher power demand (which sucks more fuel). If, for example, the original, 44-year-old copper gas line that runs from the tank to the primary filter had a small crack in it, at low power demand the crack might not cause an issue, but at higher demand and fuel flow, it might start allowing air into the system. Considering everything else I had just modified or replaced, that seemed the likely culprit.

It would be much easier to work on that at a marina than on the hook, so I got back on the chart to see if there were any marinas north of me. Unfortunately, there were not for miles and miles, which meant that I would have to turn around and go back to a marina in Daytona Beach. At least this time I felt confident, since the engine hadn’t failed for 40 minutes, that with careful management I would eventually be able to motor into a marina. Looking at all the possibilities, it seemed like the marina run by the city of Daytona Beach (Halifax Harbor Marina) was probably the best bet. This had also been recommended by a few people, so that was the tentative plan.

In the meantime, I wanted to get back out into the channel as soon as possible as I felt extremely lucky to have not yet gone aground. So I bled the rest of the fuel system and the engine started up quickly this time. (I was getting pretty good at that by now!) I quickly weighed anchor and keeping the RPM low (around 1300), pulled into the channel and headed back south. The winds at this point were out of the west at about five knots, so I decided to unroll the Genoa, kill the engine, and just sail back to my favorite anchorage and re-evauate from there. This gave me a speed of only about 2 knots, but I was in no hurry and felt relieved that 1) I had not gone aground; and 2) I had been able to restart the engine.

Since I had an hour at that speed to get back to the anchorage, I decided before I planned around it, to confirm that Halifax Harbor Marina had space for me. So I pulled out my phone, and using the Dockwa app (universal app used by marinas to make and manage reservations), I put in a request for three days. (I eventually changed that to seven days.)

After about an hour, the winds started dying, so I roller-furled the Genoa and restarted the engine, but kept it at low RPM for the remaining 15-minutes back to the anchorage. I figured I’d drop the hook back where I had departed, check the engine to see if there was any air in the secondary filter after now having run the engine for about 1/2 hour at low RPM, and go from there. So, that’s what I did.

It turned out there was no air in the secondary filter, so no bleeding was necessary, and it added credence to the hypothesis that this was an issue that probably only happened at high RPM.

Not having heard anything back from Dockwa or the marina, I called Halifax Harbor to confirm that they had accepted my reservation request, which they did. That was a relief. Now I just had to get there without running aground enroute, or having the engine fail in the middle of the marina while trying to get into my slip and colliding into a bunch of other boats!

The marina was about 2 miles south of my anchorage, which seemed like a long way since that was about how far I’d gone before my engine quit! Hopefully it was a factor of RPM and not distance! I’d also have to go under one drawbridge enroute, the Daytona Main Street Bridge,

but luckly, it was an “on demand” bridge, which means I wouldn’t have to wait for it to open; the bridge tender would open it as I approached. What I didn’t want to do was motor all that way and then turn directly into the marina without checking the engine for air ingestion first. What I needed was to find an anchorage as close as possible to the marina so I could anchor, check the engine for air, bleed it if necessary, then go on in.

I also had a lot of other prep to do on the boat to switch from cruising/anchoring mode to marina mode, such as taking down (folding) my solar panels so they wouldn’t snag on a piling or another boat, and get dock lines and fenders out and set up. This would be my first time going into any place other than my home slip at DIYC single-handed (and I had only one that once!) While normally this would have made me very nervous, after everything that had happened, I was just happy to get into the marina in any way, shape, or form!

Scanning the chart, I could see an anchorage about .6 nm south of the small channel which led to the marina.

While this would make my initial leg about 2.6 nm instead of 2.0, I felt fairly confident at this point that I low RPM I would probably be okay. And there were occasional places enroute where I could jump out of the channel and drop the hook to bleed the engine again if it quit. Of course, I also had to go under four other bridges besides the drawbridge, and if it quit while I was under one of those, I was in big trouble! But, hey, that’s why I was doing this, right? For the adventure?!

Long story short, I made it without incident (although very slowly) to the anchorage, found no air in the system, called the marina to confirm my slip number and which side of the dock I would be against (so I knew which sides to put the dock lines and fenders on), and stowed the solar panels.

Then I weighed anchor and headed at low RPM to the marina, hoping that the engine would hold until I got to my slip. However, as fate would have it, as I approached the marina, two other boats appeared out of nowhere ahead of me and called the marina to request assistance to get into their slips! One, because it was a big yacht, and the other captain said he needed help because he “wasn’t feeling well”, which after seeing him, I realized was a euphemism for being drunk! So, I was forced to orbit out in the main channel for about 20 minutes waiting for the dock hands to be free so they could assist me with getting into my berth. I was tempted a couple of times to just go it alone, worrying that the engine could quit at any time, but held back, realizing that there was probably a greater chance of my boat sustaining damage (or damaging others) if I didn’t have hands on the dock to toss my lines to, then of my engine failing now that low RPM seemed to be safe. So I waited.

By this time there was about a 10-knot wind from the southeast, which meant that it was at the worst possible angle for the slip I was going into. It would be easy for my bow to get blown away from the dock if I didn’t be the bowline secured fast, so I was a bit nervous creeping into the marina. The other thing that made me nervous was the depth. It was high tide, yet I saw depths as low as 6.5 feet coming up the tiny channel into the marina! You’d think (since I had to list the depth of my boat on the reservation request) that when I listed a 6′ draft and the water a low tide was shallower than that, that the marina might have contacted me to let me know. But no. Nothing. Even parking at my slip, the depth read 6.5 feet, which meant that at low tide, I will probably be sitting on the bottom.

Anyway, docking turned out to be a non-event. There was almost no wind inside the marina grounds and I just gently drove the boat into the slip. Two dock hands were there to grab my lines. Easy-Peasy.

Finally, safe in a marina after 16 days on the hook! It was going to be so nice to set up my portable air conditioner, get a shower, groceries, wash the boat, do laundry, and get my batteries quickly charged with shore power! And, of course, making repairs and getting parts would be much easier ashore, and cheaper, because I could break out my bicycle instead of using Uber.

It had been–at times–an adventurous, exciting, scary, stressful, frustrating, challenging, and rewarding first 16 days. But now I realized that I needed a rest. (This is when I decided to change my reservation from 3 days to a week.) No work tonight, though. Just a quick shower, then pizza and a beer, then to bed in a nice, air conditioned cabin!