An Unplanned Vacation from Cruising...April 25 to ???

We took some nice walks around Fort Pierce before we moved over to Harbortown Marina. Here is the City Marina from the bridge. All these "islands" in the ICW are the result of rebuilding and re-engineering the marina after it was destroyed in 2004-05 by hurricanes.  And all the floating docks are new in the expanded marina.  Yes it was a cloudy day with rain until around 4 PM on Sunday April 23.

 Some artwork/sculpture on our walk.

After we moved to Harbortown, the marine technicians showed up on time on Monday April 24.  That's the good news.  The bad news is the weeping of seawater I noticed on the exhaust system while doing engine room checks in the Bahamas all need repairing.  Yes, we could wait and just let them get worse before repairing.  But the 8" diameter, stainless steel exhaust from the turbochargers to the water cooled fiberglass portion of the exhaust system are definitely corroded and leaking.  And given this is where the cooling raw sea water is mixed into the system, one does not want it to get worse and have any risk of sea water finding its way back into the engine.  And 1000+ degree exhaust leaks prior to the cooling water is not a great thing either.  So best to get repaired.
The black at the top of the picture below is insulation around the SS pipe coming from the turbocharger.  You can see the rust stains and corrosion on the outside of the stainless steel here.

Here is the entire assembly coming from the turbo all the way to the fiberglass water cooled exhaust.

So after the boat was pulled from the water, (some of the repairs are below water line necessitating this) our diesel mechanic pulled off the riser/mixers and yes they are definitely corroded on the insides and will continue to deteriorate.  They cannot be repaired, they need replacement.  I am told it is not unusual to have to replace these at around 10 years of service as the combination of hot diesel exhaust and sea water is highly corrosive.  Yet another advantage you Michigan boaters have in that fresh water! 
So I investigate with Grand Banks.  Moki Marine in Singapore manufactured the original exhaust riser/ mixer assembly.  Yep, you guessed it, out of business so no chance of finding a replacement through GB.
The marine diesel mechanic and the boatyard both contacted individual fabricators and they are both out 3 weeks.  So Monday May 1, a fabricator in Stuart FL will start the process ordering raw materials, etc.
The inline fiberglass mufflers manufactured by Centek in Georgia also have some leaks.  Not sure if they can be repaired or will also need replacement, but hopefully those will be easier given an American OEM is involved.  You can see the pin holes on the left and the other diesel exhaust and sea water stains here...this is below the water line part that is necessitating the pulling of the boat.

The rest of the stuff is normal 2000 hour maintenance stuff....valve lash adjustment, cooler cleaning/pressure testing, genset 2000 hour maintenance, detailing the vessel, some canvas repairs from the windy Bahamas, etc.  All this will be completed while we await the exhaust fabrication so all we will have to do is put it together and sea trial and we can be on our way north.
Here we are awaiting the lift to become available to pull out Sum Escape.  We were on time but the marina staff was running an hour late due to a power failure in the morning.

 Signing the work order to be hauled.

So on Wednesday after they pulled the boat and we became homeless, we moved to a condo on Hutchinson Island.  We will stay here a week or so to be sure all the work on the boat is satisfactorily underway, and then we will take a road trip for a couple weeks.  Not sure where...it will depend on the length of the repair downtime.  Don't be surprised if we show up near you though...we can cover a lot of ground at 70 MPH versus our normal 10 MPH!!!

It is a great walking beach here.  On our first two morning walks we found sea turtle tracks and new nests both days.  The next day each of the nests were marked and "fenced off" for protection of the eggs.  Pretty cool!
Here are the tracks to the nest and the turtle patrol making notes and staking out the nest. The tracks were about three feet wide.  The next day's turtle tracks (sorry no picture) was even wider! The tracks you see on the left is where the turtle came ashore and the right is where she returned to the sea after laying her eggs up in the dunes where the person is standing.

Note how many hurricane shutters are already deployed...busy season is over and people have migrated north already.  We see more being closed each morning we walk.

We got haircuts, did some shopping, I went to a dentist to get my chipped tooth repaired (thanks Mom for sharing your dentist here!) and I received my replacement glasses lenses from my Michigan optometrist and had them put in my current frames by a local optometrist office.  Nice change from the defective lenses I had (crazed from heat and scratched from salt spray I guess....anyway it was a warranty claim)
We also attended the America concert, a 70's band from our era, at Sunrise Theatre in Ft. Pierce on Friday night. Great instrumentals but the vocals were a bit rough.   Age has a tendency to do that to musicians...  A very nice venue.  And they get some pretty good entertainers having reviewed some of the past performance information.  Completely refurbished theater built in the 1920's.  Here it is back in the day.

April statistics:

Miles travelled:  Month: 267 / Trip to Date: 8043
Travel days:   6/ 176
Engine hours: 26 / 913
Locks:   0/ 47
Bridges opened:   0 /66
Days on hook or free wall:   7 /77
Gallons of diesel:  250 / 6513


More later....