After our arrival at Cape Marina, Cape Canaveral, we moved from our temporary spot on the fuel dock to the T-Head of Dock C. From here, we had a full view of the surprisingly small and busy port. Two tug boats busied themselves about a mass of large pipes suspended between small steel barges as they assembled and moved the equipment to an area of the port where bottom dredging was underway. On the day we arrived, a large number of cruise ships left the port and headed for other spots to moor and dock as they awaited an end to the pandemic. They’re traveling only with a bare complement of crew and move around to spread out the incredibly high costs of docking, which for an average sized cruise ship can approach $15,000 per day, or so we were told.
At Cape Marina, Port Canaveral, awaiting repairs…
Prior to moving from the fuel dock, I began calling local mechanics and electricians, as well as a refrigeration repair service. One advantage to stopping in a busy port is there are an array of services available to service the needs of the port. It was Friday morning and while we were under no illusion of finding anyone available for that day, we were pleasantly surprised when we were able to speak to a mechanic who scheduled us for a Tuesday appointment, and the same with a refrigeration technician. Once I described the issue with the refrigerator to the service office, and gave the fault code sequence I had observed, (along with a cell phone picture of the manufacturer’s information plate), they ordered the replacement part that same morning.
With those things accomplished and JO BETH secured in her new temporary spot on C-Dock, we headed out to meet our friends Janet and Chris from the yacht AFRICA for lunch. We walked for about a mile to a local waterfront restaurant called ‘The Grill.’ Massive cheeseburgers, fresh salads, and cold beer were the order of day. The burgers were so big that Lisa and I declared that having had ‘linner,’ lunch and dinner, there would be no dinner that evening. So be it!
Have I mentioned we had found another small issue aboard? Sometime during our trip, we noticed the fresh water system pump was running intermittently, approximately once every five minutes or so for a few seconds. We carry fresh water for drinking, cooking, etc., in two 40 gallon tanks. A single electric pump operates on demand to pump water from either the forward or aft tank to the galley, head, etc. We can also use a manual operated foot pump to pull water from the aft tank for the galley sink. The system holds approximately one gallon of water in an accumulator tank under pressure so that the pump need not run continuously when in operation. Water lines also run from the engine to the electric water heater tank so that we can use heat from the engine to have hot water available when we’re away from the dock and not plugged into shore power.
Somewhere in this system, there was a leak. It was a small leak, but enough of a leak so that the accumulator tank could not hold enough water at sufficient pressure.
Saturday would be the day we would spend searching out and repairing the fresh water system leak, wherever it was. I didn’t have to look far. I went to the starboard cockpit locker, which is where the tools we carry are stowed. It’s also where the water heater is located. When I opened the locker lid, I was greeted with a rush of very warm, humid air. Just like that I had found the source of the leak.
One of the containers of tools, which is quite heavy, had slid into the water heater outlet line and cracked the fitting connecting it to the water heater tank. Very hot water had been dripping from this crack and into the locker, soaking just about everything stowed and secured in the locker. It was quite a mess.
Mostly, it was our spare lines (rope) which had gotten waterlogged – and we carry a lot of line, but the bottom of the bag storing our power tools had also gotten wet. The first thing to do was to shut off the water system and then empty the locker and lay everything out in the warm Florida sunshine and spring breezes to dry. Fortunately, nothing was damaged. With the locker emptied, we clipped an oscillating twelve volt fan to the locker frame and turned it on, leaving the lid open, to dry the interior of the locker. It took nearly a full roll of paper towels and several rags to mop up all of the leaked water.
In the middle of all of this, our friends Ed and Nancy, whom we knew from our earlier days at Brunswick Landing Marina in Brunswick, GA, showed up Cape Marina! Nancy had seen our posts on FaceBook and decided to make an appearance. This was quite fortuitous as we needed to get to a hardware store to purchase a replacement fitting for the water heater. Ed and Nancy happily volunteered to drive us around wherever we needed to go. After changing from my smelly, sweaty T-shirt into a cleaner one, we piled into their car and headed to the local West Marine store.
West Marine has generally become known for maintaining woefully inadequate inventories of materials. The situation with COVID hasn’t helped. I needed a 90° elbow, ½” female thread to ½” male barb. Nope, not there. I was not comfortable taking advantage of Ed and Nancy’s generosity by having them chauffeur us hither and yon to look for plumbing fittings. Time to ‘MacGyver-Stein’ something together using what I found: a ½” female straight coupling with ½” male barb, a 90° elbow, with dual male barbs, and a straight ½” male barb coupling. That, plus four inches of ½” reinforced nylon hose and a handful of hose clamps, did the job. We also re-stowed the gear differently in the locker once everything had dried, so that the connections to the water heater and other components in the locker are better protected from any shifting gear. Of course, we thought we had done that already. It only took a couple thousand miles of sailing to find a flaw in the system.
The bright spot of that day was being able to spend time with Ed and Nancy. They’re a semi-retired couple, though Nancy is still actively working in nursing, spliting their time between their home in Ohio on the Great Lakes and Cocoa Beach, FL. They knew of a delightful local spot where we enjoyed some fabulous fish n’ chips with cold beer for lunch. Once cruisers, they’re now ‘boat-free,’ though Ed continues to work summers as harbormaster for their small marina in Ohio as he has for many years.
On Monday, the investigation of the battery charging issues began in earnest. The mechanic we had found, Sean of Coral Reef Diesel, called and said that he had an afternoon appointment cancel and that he would be by JO BETH shortly after lunch. The refrigeration repair shop also called, said they had received the replacement fan and motor, and that they would try to be out that afternoon as well. Things were looking up.
As it happened, the refrigerator tech couldn’t make it until Tuesday morning, but just as well – once Sean arrived, JO BETH became quite crowded. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for him to find the source of our charging woes – the batteries themselves. I had already mentioned this to Lisa as we headed towards Cape Canaveral. She said, “don’t mention that to anyone we call about it. We don’t want to give them any bias towards selling us batteries we may not need.”
Sean began methodically testing the batteries with the largest battery testing device I’d ever seen. It was easily eighteen inches long, and had two thick cables, one red and one black, emerging from what looked like a cheese grater. At the end of each cable were two large spring clips, also red and black. A small metered scale and a digital readout were at the bottom of the tester housing. After I unpacked the locker where the engine starting battery and one of the banks of house batteries were located, Sean began his work.
Experience has taught me that, when a mechanic is huddled over whatever thing it is being examined, hearing them mutter a quiet “oh wow” is not generally a good sign. After the second “oh wow,” I thought maybe I should ask.
“What is it?” I said.
Sean pulled his head out from the locker and peered at me through breath fogged glasses, caused by the face mask he wore. (Sean explained he always wore a mask, as his wife was due any day with their first child. He had requested Lisa and I be masked when he was aboard.)
“How old are these batteries?” he asked.
I thought for a moment. “Three, three and a half years. They were replaced in 2018. Part of Hurricane Irma repairs.”
He stood up, the battery tester dangling from the cables and gestured into the locker.
“These three, all of them, are only holding 12 volts, and just barely.”
He glanced around. “Where’s the second bank?”
I pointed to his feet, at the deck hatch he was standing on.
“Under here, in the engine compartment. All the way aft.”
Once we had the hatch removed, Sean folded himself into the space and handed me the battery tester.
“Hang on to this, and tell me what the readings are when I clip on the terminals. It may get a little warm, but that’s normal.”
Have I mentioned that, to me, electricity is dark magic? I hesitantly accepted the cheese grater device, noting it was presently cool to the touch.
This time, I could see the news wasn’t good. Whichever battery he was clipped to was reading a measly six volts.
“This time, it was me who muttered, “oh wow.”
“What’s it reading?” Sean asked.
“Six volts. Maybe even 5.9.”
“Oh wow,” came the muffled reply.
He clipped to the other battery.
“What’s this one?”
It wasn’t much better.
“Between 11.8 and 11.9.” I sighed. “So, basically, dead, right?”
Sean unfolded himself from the engine space, and stood sweating in the cockpit. He fluttered his shirt to catch a bit of the cooling breeze.
“Yeah, your batteries are shot. Those three,” he said, gesturing to the first bank in the cockpit locker, “might go another little bit, but…they all really need to be replaced before I can check for any other issues.”
He wiped his forehead and then pulled his glasses off and wiped them across his shirt.
“But I’m thinking this is likely the problem, based on what you described. The alternator regulator is getting all sorts of bad data from the batteries and is kind of freaking out. That’s why you’re seeing crazy charging voltages. After the batteries are swapped out, I’ll check the rest of the system, but I’m pretty sure this is what’s causing it. These AGM’s generally make it three to five years, especially when used heavily like they are on a boat.”
Lisa offered Sean water. Sean gladly accepted. He looked at both of us.
“Do you want me to find you new batteries?”
There’s an axiom in boating, that ‘boat’ stands for ‘break out another thousand.’ Lisa’s adopted it to ‘Bill owes another thousand.’ Just like that, we were in a couple thousand for new batteries.
On the left are four of the five new batteries, ready for installation; the battery on the far right is one of the recently deceased…
Remarkably, Sean was able to return the following afternoon with the new batteries, literally fresh off the truck from the factory, having been delivered to his shop that morning. After three or so hours’ worth of grunting and sweating from both of us, the new batteries were in. Testing of the charging systems showed everything to be fine. Yay! The refrigeration tech had also showed up earlier the same morning and swapped out the compressor fan. We were making ice once again. Another yay!
That afternoon, with JO BETH functioning more or less normally, we headed out to the grocery store to re-provision. Unfortunately, we had to throw away most of our frozen and refrigerated food, in spite of packing the refrigerator and freezer with bags of ice daily. This included a wide array of frozen meats – chicken, salmon and other fish, a couple of pounds of ground beef, a pork tenderloin, and so on. A lot of refrigerated items got the boot as well. We took a taxi to the local Publix and came back with a cart full. We always try to avoid grocery shopping while hungry, so we pulled the ‘linner’ card at a Mexican restaurant, situated a few stores away from the grocery store.
All of our time in Port Canaveral had cost us our weather window to Brunswick before the next cold front and accompanying northerlies were forecast to arrive. The forecast for our departure was for light and fickle winds, mostly from the south. Getting offshore again would take many hours, as the entrance into Port Canaveral is quite long, and flanked by shoals and Cape Canaveral itself. As we had just replaced the batteries, and the weather forecast wasn’t stellar, we decided to continue our trip north via the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. This would mean dealing with drawbridges, and stopping to anchor at night or to stay in a marina, but it would get us moving again. Not to mention if we had a serious issue with the batteries, which in all truth was highly unlikely, we would be closer to assistance. However, we first had to get out of Port Canaveral, and that meant an east to west transit of the Canaveral Barge Canal and the Canaveral Locks. I had wanted to leave as early as possible, as our planned stop for the night, New Smyrna Beach, lay some 55 miles north, but the first drawbridge on the Barge Canal was locked down for morning traffic from 6am to 8am. We motored to the fuel dock to top off our main diesel tank and fill the one deck jug we had used on the trip up from Marathon to make use of the delay. Once that was done, we got underway just after 8am.
Our passage through the Barge Canal and Lock was uneventful and at approximately 9:30am, we turned our bow north into the Indian River. We slipped past the towns of Cocoa Beach and Titusville under graying skies and increasing westerly and then southwesterly winds. By the time we transited the Haulover Canal and passed through its lonely drawbridge and turned into the Banana River, we were being pushed along a lumpy sea and squared waves by 20+ knot winds from the southwest-west. Soon, a brief but fast moving rain squall overtook us, and after it had passed, the skies began to clear again. The cold front was approaching as predicted. By the time we arrived in New Smyrna Beach, the winds were solidly from the West-Northwest.
Daylight was fading as we passed under the fixed 65’ South Causeway Bridge at the southern end of the New Smyrna Beach harbor area and began looking for an anchorage. Due to the incoming weather, most of the already crowded anchorage areas were full, but we motored slowly around and through the most protected of them looking for a spot. After a few minutes, we noticed a dinghy speeding towards us with two men aboard. They came alongside, but maintained a respectful distance.
At the Free Dock, New Smyrna Beach, FL
“Are you looking for a place to anchor?” the older of the two called out.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“It’s kind of tight here,” he said, gesturing at the small off channel basin we were scouting. The younger man sat in the bow of the dinghy, not making eye contact, and not saying anything.
“Why don’t you go to the free dock?” the older asked. He thumbed over his shoulder to the mainland. “There’s no one there and it’s totally open.”
We had passed the free dock on our way in, but saw signs indicating docking was restricted to four hours within any 24 hour period. Plus, there were bigger yellow signs posted which read, “Dock Closed for City Event.” I mentioned this.
“Nah,” the older guy said. “They have those up all the time. Keeps people from tying up and not leaving.” He smiled.
“You’re good there for a few nights, probably. Definitely OK for a night or two. No power or water, but secure.”
I looked at Lisa. She shrugged. “Why not?”
Lisa pushed the tiller, making the turn to port and back into the channel.
“What’s your names?” I asked our two new friends.
The older said, “I’m Richard.” He pointed to the young man in the bow of the dinghy. “That’s Miles, my oldest. He’s quiet.” Miles cracked a slight smile. “We both live in the anchorage up there,” he said with a gesture of his chin over his shoulder.
“We’ll meet you at the dock and catch your lines,” he called out. Before I could say ‘thanks,” or make our own introductions, Richard whipped their dinghy around and sped away towards the free dock.
True to his word, Richard and Miles had tied up to the small dinghy dock and were waiting for us along the fixed dock platform. A lot of towns along the Intracoastal Waterway have ‘free’ docks, generally for overnight use. They rarely offer any services other than a place to tie up, and are usually located in an area where sailors can walk to grocery stores, hardware stores, pharmacies, restaurants, and the like. This particular dock was situated behind the small civic center.
Once we were secured, we offered Richard and Miles a couple of warm beers, which they politely declined. “We like helping other sailors. Cruiser Karma. Paying it forward, ya know?”
We thanked them again and introduced ourselves.
“So,” I began, “we’re ok to be here overnight?”
“Yeah, it won’t be a problem,” Richard replied. “It’s not the weekend, and there’s no events happening, so you’re fine. If there is something planned while you’re here, the security or maintenance guys will tell you. But they’re cool. They’ll give you a day or two notice.”
He and Miles started toward their dinghy, when Richard turned.
“There’s a great pizza place a few blocks up the road. On the left. Panheads Pizza. Something like that. Really good. Goodnight.”
And with that, Richard and Miles were off.
Lisa started on dinner while I adjusted our lines for the rise and fall of the tides. This was our first time taking advantage of a free dock anywhere, and we were a bit unprepared for the experience. The area was surrounded by high rise waterfront condos and apartments. It was a hive of activity. There were people fishing, walking their dogs, riding bicycles, kids on skateboards, and so on. A good number of them stopped to talk, asking us about the boat, where we came from, where were we going, were we scared being out on the ocean, did we get seasick, etc. It was a bit like being on display, and most of my answers to their questions melded into a short presentation on sailing and cruising. Several people who stopped to chat lived aboard their boats in the various anchorages and used the dinghy landing to get to and from jobs, etc. I have to admit, our hearts and pride swelled with all of the compliments we received for JO BETH! One of the more memorable encounters was with a little old lady and her two tiny, shivering, bug-eyed dogs. She saw our hailing port of Savannah and said, “I have a grandson in Savannah. He sails too. His name is David. Do you know him?”
I hesitated for a moment, honestly trying to remember if I knew anyone in Savannah named David who sailed. I decided I didn’t.
“No ma’am, I never met anyone named David in Savannah who was a sailor.”
Her smile faded, and I quickly added, “but we’ve been gone for several years.”
“Well,” she added, “he’s a nice boy. Maybe you two will meet when you get back. Maybe he could take you sailing.”
As we settled in for the night, I mentioned to Lisa that while we were motoring north from the Cape, I had noticed our solar panels weren’t behaving properly. While she uttered her assurances that it was likely something simple, I explained the panels were generating power, which the electronic charge controller for the panels was seeing, but it wasn’t doing anything with the power. As we had been motoring all day, the batteries – our brand new batteries – were fully charged. The solar charge controller should have sensed the full charge and essentially ‘turned off’ the panels, showing 0 volts being generated. It hadn’t. I was confident it was something to do with the new battery installation, but I was too tired to do anything about it that night. We had gotten another weather forecast and the approaching cold front was now forecast to be a bit more intense, although its approach had slowed. With potential solar charging issues, and a stronger front coming, we decided to move to the New Smyrna Beach City Marina the next morning to figure out what was going on and to wait out the coming weather.
The ‘missed’ unconnected cable, now reconnected…
The night passed uneventfully and the morning dawned gray and blustery. Winds had already swung to the northwest and conditions indicated the front had once again picked up speed. We were able to secure a slip at the new Smyrna Beach City Marina, though we couldn’t arrive prior to 11am. Also, and this is a sure indication I’m officially getting old, my right knee was killing me whenever I knelt down or squatted. I had no idea why. I felt fine when we went to bed last night, and I was up once to check docklines. It wasn’t bothering me then. Walking was fine, going up and down the ladder from the cabin to the cockpit and deck was fine, but kneeling down or bending my knee past 90° was excruciating.
At 10:30am, we started the engine and prepared to move to the City Marina slip. The wind was a solid 15 knots now, and more north-northeast, which made getting off of that free dock a less than graceful departure. We made it with only a few scuffs and by 11:15, we were secured at the City Marina. After showers, we walked under gloomy skies and dropping temps to the Panheads Pizza, the spot Richard had told us about. It featured a variety of unique and tasty pan pizzas, all named after classic rock songs – ‘Simple Man,’ ‘Whole Lotta Love,’ etc. In a first for us, we ordered a ‘flight’ of four different pizzas, all of which were quite good.
That afternoon, I started looking into the solar charging issue. My first thought was that we had ‘popped’ a fuse when the new batteries were installed and powered up. It was worth checking before calling in a marine electrician. In spite of my view of electricity as ‘dark magic’, I do have a basic understanding of it. I started with the solar controller installation; all of the fuses were intact and clean, with no corrosion on the terminals, and all of the controller wiring was connected and tight. And so it was for the remainder of the fuse blocks I checked, five in total. However, when I went to check the last block, I notice an unconnected positive cable and terminal on the #1 house battery bank. The cable was buried beneath a bundle of other cables. It clearly had been overlooked when the new batteries were installed. I sent a text and picture to Sean in Port Canaveral, explaining the situation, and asking if this could be the cause. Needless to say, he was embarrassed at having missed the connection, but he agreed emphatically that would cause the issue. After powering down the twelve-volt electrical system and digging out the necessary tools, I had the terminal reconnected. A test of the system showed the issue was fixed. Yay again!