A week at Jekyll Island. And a bit of Captain's pride lost.... June 20-28

So on Monday morning, the technician showed up as planned to change the transmission oil.  All went well and we got underway to Daytona Beach before 11 AM.  We arrived at Halifax Marina and fueled up and picked up the spare part DeVere had left for us.  He had borrowed the spare part from us in the Bahamas and due to our delay and inability to catch up with them, he left the replacement in the care of the marina. We do miss you both Carole and DeVere!  Safe travels to you.  A great stop given our shortened travel day.

On Tuesday morning we left at 6:30 AM to make Jacksonville Beach where we could walk 1-1/2 miles (each way) to a Publix to stock up on some fresh fruits and veggies.
Ok, I am sure you may have heard the old saying "it is not if you go aground, it is when."  Hmm, can't happen to us right?  Wrong.  It happened at roughly marker Red 36 on the Tolomato River.  OK, I was not on the magenta line, but the 3 foot shoal/sand/mud  bar was much further to the SE than charted. The blue dot on the lower third of this screen shot shows where we were aground.

Here is Red 36 in the distance as we are stuck on the bar.

We were just past low tide and I caught the edge of the bar.  We tried to back off but the tidal current pushed us sideways and we were being pushed further onto the bar.  Here I am referring to three separate charts noting we were not on the charted bar....it had grown.

So we dropped the anchor, killed the engines and genset and called TowBoatUS.  They told us it would be an hour for them to respond.  Shortly thereafter, we received a call form the tow boat and he said he was out on a training run and only 15 minutes from us.  We told him we were being pushed further on to the bar and were going to deploy a stern anchor as well.  He said, don't bother, I will be there shortly, my boat has twin diesels and we'll have you off the bar in a jiffy.  While he was enroute, I went below to the engine room to check sea strainers for sand and mud.  And yes, the starboard engine strainer was about 3/4 full of mud.  So here is again where an inverter is a good thing.  Having the AC power without having to run the genset allowed me to run the shop vac to pull the mud out of the strainer.  However, when I opened the sea cock, it was dry....clogged with mud, or perhaps we were just sitting on the bottom.
Then the tow boat showed up and we began to get hooked up for the tow.  He hooked to our stern and pulled gently so we would not damage rudders, etc. 

As he was pulling us off, I was raising the anchor.  Once out of the mud, I tried again to get water into the sea cock.  By opening and closing multiple times is started to trickle.  So I cracked open the top of the sea cock and then it filled with muddy water.  I trusted it would clear once we started the engine.  So that is what we did.  We put each engine into forward and reverse at idle to test for vibration, etc.  All good.  We turned the wheel lock to lock to feel for any binding or some different feel than normal.  All good.  So Julie handled the tow line and I put Sum Escape in gear to produce slack in the tow line and she cast it off.
We then followed the tow boat through the curving channel with Julie at the helm.  I went below to check strainers, vibration and rudder posts for integrity.  After I returned to the helm after my check of engine room and lazarette proved to all look good, we then ran the boat up to speed to test for vibration, etc.  None noted!  So a "soft grounding" is what we will term our experience.  Here they are leaving...note the clock, only a one hour delay.  Thanks Tow Boat US.

It is interesting to note that the unlimited towing policy we buy each year (about $150) covered the entire $1200 bill!  One of the things AGLCA forum members had suggested was to have the policy for "when you go aground, not if".  Worked for us...  Only my Captain's pride is hurt.
We made it to Jacksonville Beach, Beach Marine around 4:30.  Not what the website depicted.  This is what we thought we would see.  We would have been right by the pool...had it existed.

It turns out the website is an artists rendering of the future state with the marina lined with condos and a pool...none of which was there today.  It was expensive with nothing special and did not even have potable water on the docks, only at the fuel dock. I guess when the website said "Since 1948" we should have taken a hint.  But we were able to walk to Publix and get some great fruits and veggies.  So we planned a first light departure for Jekyll Island.
We got underway on Wed by 6:30 AM.  We had a nice run on the ICW to Jekyll, arriving around 1:30PM right at slack tide.  Nice as the currents are pretty stiff here.  Oh, and the new moon will be creating a ten foot tidal shift here on Saturday. We are not in Michigan any more...
Here is the dock at high tide.

Here is low.

This was only a seven foot range, the big 10 foot range was Saturday night.
Here we are rounding some more shoals (carefully) along the sand dunes lining the barrier islands along the Georgia shores.

The restaurant on site has been reopened, they are remodeling the rest rooms/showers and there are plenty of bike trails and a nice pool.  So we took advantage of their pay for 5 and get 7 days and signed up for a week.  And we gave the boat a much needed bath to get rid of all the salt. Here we ae safely tied up at Jekyll Island.

On Thursday night, we rode our bikes 4.5 miles each way to the Driftwood Bistro.  Very good food, and reasonably priced too.  Our friends John and Becky from St Simons Island had recommended it.  Thanks so much for the recommendation, we will be back.
We took early morning walks to beat the heat almost every day.  The heat index reaches the high 90's if not 100 degrees in mid afternoon.
Friday, we had a nice afternoon at the pool and were able to listen to the live music at the restaurant as well.
Saturday was a work around the boat day.  Julie organized and cleaned inside, I went into the engine room to clean up all the grime from all the work done.  Mechanics did a good job, but greasy hand prints, sand from shoes, scraps of cable ties, gasket material etc were left behind.  Cleaned up pretty well now.
Here are some pictures from this morning's walk.
Dropped off wedding invitation RSVP at post office

 Such nice old cottages...

We will leave here later morning on Wednesday (need to wait for some tidal help) and head north...
Note the small channel and sailboats sitting in the mud....we'll wait an hour or so.

Thanks for following our cruising blog.

Finally on the Move North!! It is so nice to be back home on board. June 14 to 18, 2017

Here we are approaching the Vero Beach bridge we drove over almost everyday.  We like this perspective much better. Need to swap out our AGLCA burgee for a new one after two years on the water...

We continued to do daily early morning  neighborhood walks around Vero Beach as we awaited the boat repairs to be completed.

Our view from one of the five rooms we rented over our 27 days here.

Our last room was an efficiency instead of a studio. We liked the studio better.

It even had a ground level patio.

Our home for 27 days.

Our hotel was at the end of Acacia Road on the map.  We walked all these neighborhood roads and some more south of here as well over our 27 days here.

 One of the "canopy" roads in town...gravel road too. The tree lined roads made the walking temperature much more bearable.  Many mornings the "feels like" temperatures were in the 80's by
7 AM so the shade was great.

We attended Mass 4 weeks in a row at the same Church...it's been almost two years since we did that.  And we enjoyed the priest at Holy Cross Catholic Church.  We certainly could have been "stranded" in a worse spot than Vero Beach!
Well, the marine gears, (transmissions) are finally complete and reinstalled in Sum Escape on Monday June 12.  The technicians have determined that problem must have been the original installation in 2005 that somehow stressed or maybe even broke those pieces out of the pressure plates. The pieces were all "rounded off" from bouncing around between the flywheel and pressure plate over the years.  They are still at a loss to explain why we did not have a catastrophic failure.  Enough on that....God had His hand in that for sure.

Harmon Marine had already done the 2000 hour maintenance on the Caterpillars and now installed the new risers, put the mufflers back into the boat, etc on Tuesday. Whiticar took care of some last minute things on sea strainers, genset, etc. Here we are still on the hard.  Note all the other boats strapped down for hurricane season.

So we got back in the water on Wednesday the 14th. Engine and marine gear technicians were on board for start up.  Engines were started one at a time just long enough to clear old gear oil from coolers.  Then gears were topped off so we could run Sum Escape to a nearby slip at idle only speed until alignment can be performed (boat has to be in the water 24+ hours first so it settles back into in water shape after being on the hard so long).   We cleaned, organized, sanitized the fresh water system, bought groceries etc to be ready to go in a couple days. On the 15th, final adjustments on alignment were performed along with some other "touch up" items.  Friday the 16th was sea trial day...all would be told by this run.  We had 5 technicians on board for the sea trial at 9 AM.  Marine gear, engine, genset, shaft seals, sea strainers, etc all had to be tested at speed.

 

All was good as we idled up the ICW while the engines were warming. 

Once warmed we came up to cruise and then full throttle but unfortunately had a vibration on the starboard side.  Shaft seals were also spitting water and needed adjustment. I won't go into all the details but alignment took until 3 PM or so to get right.  We then went out on sea trial #2.  All was good with starboard engine (vibration gone) but starboard shaft seal was still spitting.  We anchored off the channel, shut down the engines and the technician performed another adjustment.  All was good after that.  Back to the slip by 4:30 or so and adjudged ready to go Saturday morning. 😎
I got up early to top off coolant in engines (they always burp a bit after being drained down and refilled cold...need to be warmed and cooled to top off).  Got that done and noticed sea strainers were full of junk.  It was really shallow when we anchored yesterday and we must have sucked up lots of debris.  So I cleaned starboard, no problem.  Port was missing bottom after I cleaned.  And these were brand new strainer baskets just installed!  Oh no, did it fall out into the harbor when I was spraying it out with the hose?  Already returned car so running to West Marine or Wholesale Marine Liquidators for a replacement would prove difficult.  Then I reviewed the situation and decided to check the bottom of the strainer....and yes it was there.  It had not been crimped on properly during manufacture.  Whew!  What a relief.  A minor repair and re-install and we were on our way around 7:15 AM for our 88 mile trip to Titusville, roughly 9-10 hours away.  Titusville was selected because the gear oil needs to be changed and screens cleaned after 10 hours of operation to keep my warranty of the rebuilt gears in force.  ADR (the gear rebuilder) recommended the repair technician here.

It was an uneventful trip up the ICW on a Saturday which we normally try to avoid.  Lots of small boat traffic but we were only passed by one sport fish and we passed a couple large sailboats.  All were very courteous.  That was a welcome change!

We did meet an oncoming 70+ footer who was heading to the wrong side of the ICW marker and would not give way.  Well, this is where the rule of gross tonnage takes over and we yielded to the far left side of the channel so he would have room between us and the proper side of the marker.  He continued to go around the wrong side and then quickly veered back into the center of the channel....must have then figured out his error.  Stuff happens on the water...
Titusville Marina is quite a big marina and has a lot of liveaboards.  Some of the vessels are obviously just lived in....sailboats without masts, room air conditioners tacked on the deck, refrigerators in the cockpit, even one with a motorcycle aboard.  So Dave and Lisa, maybe you can get your Harley on your new sailboat too!

As we came into Titusville Marina, we noticed a boat whose owners we had met in Islamorada in March 2016.  So after we got settled we walked over to say hello to Bill and Patricia (Travis McGee).  Another small world of cruising meet up.
The view from our slip in Titusville.

In closing, we just have to repeat how pleased we are to be back aboard and moving north.  Our insurance has been extended (for a fee and 10% deductible for windstorms of course) until June 27 to be covered south of 31 degrees N latitude.  So if all goes well, we will have no problem meeting that date.  Jekyll Island, GA is 31.02N, so we may stay there a few days.  Great bike riding, nice harbor master and marina, etc.  We are not going to "go, go, go" given our short season before we come back to Michigan in mid August to early Sept.
We will take each day as they come and decide where to spend our time...that will be nice too.
Thanks for following our blog.

Still in Fort Pierce awaiting repairs to be completed. May 28- June 8

Just a quick post to let everyone know our status.  It is a long ugly story on lead times best told in person.  In short, we continue to rack up hotel fees and delays continue.  We will post again when we finally get moving, looking like late next week at this point.
This has been a trying exercise in patience with the boat coming out of the water on April 26 and the first possible launch date now looking like June 14, roughly 50 days!  And then the boat must sit in the water 24 hours, then engines/transmissions/shafts are re-aligned.  Then we will need to sea trial and hopefully get the green light on everything.  Over 7 weeks to have repairs that should have taken 3 weeks...frustrating to say the least. ☹
More in a week or two....