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.
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