Saturday, October 27th (Day 21) - Broad Creek to Dowry Creek Marina
64 degrees this morning. Water temp still high 60s. Winds 10 from the SW
63 Nautical miles today (630.5 total trip miles)
It was very calm at our anchorage and there were about 12 boats anchored along this shore - a couple at least a mile from shore. Many had left before we pulled our anchor at 7:30am when the Sun was just starting to rise in the east. We were up earlier but we needed daylight to see the multitude of crab pot floats between us and the ICW channel. I would not want to go through here at night.
But first, Yesterday, I forgot to post the beautiful sunset here last last night.
I thought the Albemarle Sound was going to be very flat because the winds at our anchorage were less than 5 knots. But, as we motored back to the ICW and our position became more open to the sound, the winds increased to over 10. Not a big deal (in terms of high wind speeds) but enough to throw a 2-3 foot, short chop across the sound right on the bow.
It was a bumpy ride for an hour or so before the winds died a little and the seas calmed because we were closer to the lee shore (winds were coming from that shore). But, in terms of the 30+ times we've crossed here, it was definitely one of the calmest.
Laura took a short video of our motoring into the small chop.
A couple hours later we had crossed the 12 mile sound and headed down the Alligator River. After only a short wait, the Alligator River Bridge opened for us and we motored down the almost smooth river.
Another couple hours and we entered the 22 mile Alligator-Pungo Canal. This is one of my least favorite sections of the ICW as we are in a narrow channel for 3-4 hours where I need to keep a close watch on our autopilot.
The usable channel is only about 1/2 as wide as this picture shows because of tree stumps on the sides. It was a nice ride on a sunny, warm day through the long canal. For some reason, we only saw 2-3 boats today and we were only passed by 1 powerboat in the whole 22 mile canal. I think that was a first. What happened to everybody?
Just after 5pm we exited the canal and were back in the ICW. I decided to anchor along the south shore of the Pungo River (before Belhaven) because of light south winds tonight. That anchorage was only 45 minutes away so we could easily make that before dinner.
About 15 minutes from the anchorage, we heard a loud tapping from the engine that changed in frequency with the engine RPM. Oh boy. Our poor 42 year old Perkins engine was having a problem. I changed RPM from idle to cruise speed and the tapping came back each time the RPMs were increased. I also opened doors to the engine room and verified the tapping was coming from the engine and not maybe something on the propeller. This was not good.
I could see Dowry Creek Marina from where we were so called them to see if they had a mechanic that could look at the engine. They gave me the number of a local mechanic who agreed to come down to the boat tomorrow after church. Oops. I didn't even think about this being a weekend but finding someone was awesome.
I called Dowry back and booked a slip for the next two nights starting tonight. I didn't want to take the chance of anchoring and the engine being worse or not running at all in the morning.
We slowly motored into the marina which was only 1 mile from where we had the problem. Pretty lucky, right? Approaching the assigned slip I used reverse to slow the boat. When I went back to forward, the tapping stopped. ARRRRGH! You might think that this is a good thing. "It fixed itself!". Nope. That was not good for many reasons including now I have no way to verify a fix unless it starts tapping again.
We tied up, walked to the office and paid for 2 nights dockage - very reasonable at $168. This was our first time here and everything seemed very clean and nice. Laura and I took a little walk around the marina and saw the small store, pool, boaters lounge and showers.
The boat was pretty warm so we turned on our air-conditioner for the first time in 3 weeks. We had a nice dinner aboard and watched TV for a few hours.
Thanks for questions about my arm. It does feel a little better today and I'm able to do just about everything on the boat (and for myself like dress, poop, etc.) except for things that require raising my elbow more than a couple inches. Hot packs and Ibuprofen help. No flute yet.
Sunday, October 28th (Day 22) - Start of week3
Light winds and sunny
Didn't move the boat today.
We both slept great with the A/C off and windows open. I slept over 10 hours. Wow!
After a slow morning, "Big Mike" showed up just after noon. We both agreed that the place to start was checking valve adjustments. He went right to work pulling off the valve cover and checking the rocker arm adjustments which were were all much higher than the .012" spec. I've never adjusted them for the past 17 years. It's something that is supposed to be done every 2,000 hours (per the manual) but I guess I've just treated it as "if it's not broken, don't fix it." Not in the future....
Mike spent a little over 2 hours adjusting the valve clearance which would have been much longer if he had to run for gaskets or other parts. One of the boaters I know changed from this same engine to a Beta last year. I purchased all the spare parts from his old Perkins which included a full gasket kit for the engine so I had everything Big Mike needed.
Big Mike working on Gertrude...
The engine started right up and sounded fine. Why shouldn't it? It sounded fine when we tied up (GRRRRR).
Plans are to head to Oriental tomorrow which will be our first test of the "fixed" engine tapping. If we can make it 7-8 hours of normal running, I'll feel much better. If not, Big Mike said he could travel to Oriental too and dig a little deeper.
Total bill was $500 which I was OK with for a knowledgeable mechanic on a Sunday afternoon. I also included a tip.
Arm is a little better again today and I'm able to do things I couldn't do yesterday so progress is in the positive direction. Still can't hold my arm our straight or to the side but getting closer. Tried playing flute today. Nope. Still can't hold it up but closer....
While I was working on the blog, Laura was carving her annual pumpkin. Here she is starting the work. You'll have to wait for the next blog to see the finished product. It's gonna be awesome!
No comments:
Post a Comment