Seen and Unseen

Carolina Beach State Park

 

We are planning on leaving Wednesday. In the meantime, we are enjoying where we are. This park is a jewel.

We are only 60 yards from the ICW. We see cruising boats heading south all the time.

I mentioned that this place has the best pine needles anyplace. Perhaps the reason is that the park has regular controlled burns. Thus the small pine trees growing up are young and well fertilized. Below you see Libby hiking on one of the trails. A small tree with luscious needles can be seen at the left.

Also interesting is what we don't see. At least don't see very much. This park is host to numerous carnivorous plants. Pitcher plants, bladderworts, sundews,butterworts, and Venus flytraps. Of course we are curious to see such exotic plants. But hiking the trails, we were unable to spot any. I think the problem is that our eyes aren't trained. We see forest, and swamp, and lots of plants. We tend to see the plants collectively. Unless they have bright flowers or something distinctive, we don't see the individuals. Finally, I found the pitcher plant below, but only because the park built a boardwalk side trail leading to a dead end with the pitcher plant at the end.

 

 

Morning Report

Carolina Beach State Park
34 03.025 N 077 55.136 W

Things continue looking good.  I changed the oil and filter again this morning. The inventory was correct, no water pumped out, no milky oil.  I added 1/2 ounce of WD40 to the fresh oil and I'll leave it there.  Some people, notably my friend Jay, had chronic engine trouble as a long term consequence of getting salt water in the engine.  I hope to escape that fate.

The weather forecast deteriorated.  Monday and Tuesday look less appealing.  On the other hand, Wed/Thu/Fri seems like a perfect window to head to Florida.  We'll stay here today.  Who knows where tomorrow?

A-OK All Green

Carolina Beach State Park
34 03.025 N 077 55.136 W

The boat and the engine performed just fine today.  No problems.  The oil level at the dipstick is the same as it was this morning.  I'll sample the oil in the morning.  I'll also do an oil change.
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After that we have a choice.  We can leave tomorrow around 11 AM and go to sea out the Cape Fear River.  Or we can stay another day and leave Tuesday.   We'll see in the morning.

In case you don't know.  This park is ground zero for pine needles.  The longest and finest needles we ever saw grow here.   Libby already has a good supply, but I'm sure she'll want to forage while we are here.

Progress Report

En Route, ICW
34 30.531 N 077 24.077 W

We have a lot of people concerned about us, so I'll post progress reports.

We ran the engine for three hours yesterday.  I tied it to the dock, put it in gear and reved up to 2000 RPM.  That created a huge white water wake behind us, and soon brought the temperature up to 200 F.   At first there was lots of steam coming from the exhaust.  That was a sign that the engine was still wet.   After an hour, the steam went away.  That was a sign that the engine was dry.  I let it idle another two hours.

I also put two ounces of WD-40 into the motor oil.  WD-40 absorbs water.  My friend Jay expressed concern about the springs in the injector pump, if they touched water.  Perhaps the WD-40 might absorb any water in that pump.

I also sampled the oil from the bottom of the sump last night. It showed no signs of water and the oil was black, not milky.   Good signs.

We will head for Carolina Beach State Park tonight.  I'll change the oil once again down there, tomorrow (Monday).  If the sump still shows good oil by Tuesday morning, I'll say that we are OK.  That should add another 8 hours of engine time to further dry the engine.

The other good news is that the most recent weather report is better.  Every day between now and Friday shows favorable winds to head for Florida.

We are on our way :-)

Who's Fault? The Captain's Of Course

Sneads Ferry, NC, Swan Point Marina
34 32.703 077 21.644

First the good news. The engine is running fine once again and we don't think there was any real damage.

Next the explanation. The problem was a loop in the raw water cooling line without a working siphon break at the top. It allowed the cooling engine to suck water and to start a siphon. I remember now installing a new hose on that loop a few years ago, but I didn't have the parts for the siphon break. Then, I must have forgotten about it and put everything back together and departed without the break. My stupidity.

We got away with it for 1? 2? 3? years (I can't remember how long ago I did that.) What happened different the other night. We had raced to catch a draw bridge and soon after shut the engine down with the block hotter than normal.

So still good news. The remedy to prevent this from happening again was simple and much cheaper than a cracked block or other nightmare scenarios.

The bad news? $500 out today, plus $450 at Sailcraft in Oriental (I bought new engine mounts there for $300 that I won't install until we get to Vero.) That's $950 on the engine this week. Add to that $3800 in September 2012 and $1500 in May 2012, and $650 in January 2012. We use the engine a lot. About 1000 hours per year. It is becoming very expensive. The worst thing is that every one of those repairs could have been avoided if I were smarter.

But last the excellent news: We resume our trip south tomorrow. I won't go out to sea until we see the engine work OK Sunday morning, and Monday morning. That's hard to say because there is a weather window exactly those two days. But it would not be prudent with such a major thing unproven. (Suppose our theory about the siphon break is all wrong and the real cause remains undiscovered. That's the risk.)

For the technically minded, see the pictures below.  The first picture shows the top of the loop with the new siphon break installed.  That is the part that was missing.  The second picture shows the engine; the loop is the black hose that disappears up at the top left of the picture and reappears coming down at the top right of the picture.  It carries salt water from the engine to the injection port of the exhaust header.  The red hose goes from the siphon break to the cockpit drain hose.   A thin stream of water runs through that hose when the engine is running, and air can flow back up (breaking the siphon) when the engine is shut down.

A story for another day.  I have a high rise exhaust header that I bought from Bud Taplin but I have not been able to install it.