After a fantastic summer on the Big Rideau Lake, and a grueling haul-out season, we crave our annual southern Florida cruising excursions. What we find is that the experience reminds us why we do what we do, and gives us valuable insight for taking care of our boaters back home. We last detailed a boating trip through the Erie Canal and a cruise up the coast in British Columbia. Here are four tips we observed this time in sunny Florida.
Our first trip in November was started about mid month. I had decided to seriously attack my starboard engine hot running condition which had been annoying me since last spring. Although it ran fine at my cruising mate's speed of 7.5 knots the temperature would climb when I pushed our 31' Mainship up onto a plane. I had to solve the mystery. I had changed the thermostat last season without success so figured, after running in salt water for 7-8 winters, maybe the exhaust risers where clogged up with corrosion as they are the only part of the engines not closed cooled. My buddy, Dean and I picked up the parts required and I bought a decent set of combination wrenches and a 1/4 drive socket set to effect the swap.
Lesson Number One: The right tools save money, time, and damage.
Fortunately, all the bolts came free without incident and after a suitable amount of blood letting on various hose clamps and sharp objects around the engines I got them installed on both motors and decided we were ready to travel. The socket set was a godsend for all
the hose clamps to be removed and re-installed on the cooling system and exhaust pipes. There was significant rust in the water passages of the risers and I was hopeful that I had fixed my problem.
Later that week, we pushed off from our slip on the New River, North Fork, in Ft Lauderdale and headed toward the intracoastal waterway to begin our trip to Marathon in the Keys. The weather was perfect, sunny with a light breeze and about 72* F when we headed for the first swing bridge, traffic was light and we ran in slow mode as it is all "low speed, minimum wake" area until we cleared Port Everglades which had several monster cruise ships loading passengers for their next excursion. We passed through 2 more lift bridges and ran through
Hollywood, Hallendale Beach, Golden Beach, Sunny Isles and into the north end of Biscayne Bay, through Miami finally clearing Rickenbacker Causeway and heading to Dinner Key Marina for our first night's mooring in Coral Gables. After registering in and getting our pass card for the dock we walked next door to a waterside pub for happy hour. Our cruising mates, Dean and Liz, had their friends, Andy and Marrielle on board and her son lives in Miami so he joined us at a nice restaurant for dinner.
The next morning we cast off about 9:00 to a clear sky and a light chop from the north west, wind at 10-15 knots. We both ran our GPS units and made the entrance to Featherbed Shoal straight on. Joan was reading her Kindle in the sun and we cruised at 7.5 knots in displacement mode without incident crossing Cutter Bank, Barnes Sound and transiting Jew Fish Creek to enter Anchorage Resort for stop two. This marina is across the creek from a popular lunch stop off called Gilbert's which is frequented by go-fast offshore boats and bikers
allike. We like the quieter attmosphere of Anchorage with it's heated pool, Jacuzzi and Steamer's restaurant with a $1.00 beer or wine happy hour. Both businesses are owned by the same people so they trade serving staff back and forth as business demands. Bernadette, the
manager at Anchorage, always welcomes us back for our visits and makes our stay special. We did a potluck grilling for dinner and shared food and wine while discussing tomorrows run.
Lesson Number Two: Find marine owners that care. They make all the difference in the world when it come to your experience.
Morning three saw another perfect day with slightly more wind forecast but we were confined to short open runs and curving channels through mangrove stands and cuts through sand banks for the morning. By mid day we had cleared the sheltered areas and were heading more west across Florida Bay dodging crab trap floats and trying to differentiate between the triangular red spars and the flat top greens. Most channel markers inside in the Keys are on steel or wooden pilings with some temporary floaters to replace damaged ones. Some are
lighted for night time navigating but local knowledge would be essential for me to attempt that feat. I'll stick to daytime running! Here, the markers stretch out and you have to rely on your GPS and use the compass as back up. Being from a canal background, I am comfortable as a line of sight navigator and need my first mate beside me to help me through these wide open areas. Of course the increased chop was hitting our starboard bow making staying on course more
difficult.
Lesson Number Three: Cross train with your cruising partner so that you can rely on each other for breaks, or in emergencies.
As Dean's trawler needs more bridge height than I do, they continued on toward Mosher Channel bridge, part of the Seven Mile Bridge, to make the turn into Boot Key Harbour at Marathon. Joan and I turned earlier at Knight Key Channel and entered the harbour at
Marathon Marina to find our slips and meet up with friends at the pub. These people are great folks that are partners with our Florida friends, Larry and Sandi, in a trailer in Marathon and being from Michigan, spend their winters here. About one hour later, Dean and Liz pulled into the slip beside us and we settled in for a stay of several days. While I was running ahead I bumped up our speed to check the starboard engine and found that my hot running condition was continuing so it was back to the drawing board on that problem. Something was still restricting the water flow on that engine. Fortunately, my local friend, Al is a boat mechanic both in the Keys in winter and in Michigan in summer so I knew I would have all the
help I needed to solve the mystery another day.
Day four dawned perfect again. I was committed to solving my overheating mystery but everyone else decided to take the local bus ($1.50) to Key West for the day. I removed the starboard water pump and replaced the impeller. Also, I disconnected the thru-hull intake
hose and found zebra mussels clogging the elbow and gate valve. Finally, something conclusive was evident. After opening the gate valve and pumping all the obstructions from the system, I re-connected everything and started both engines, cast off the lines and went out for a test run. Success!!! Some times it takes persistance to solve those nagging problems.
Lesson Number Four: Never give up on mechanical issues. It often takes a few attempts to find the real issue.
Check back here in a few weeks when we detail a pesky leak that caused us problems in the bow!
Doug Horsfall
doug@lenscove.com