A Really Bad Day

 Tuesday, November3 we left the anchorage at Dupont Bridge at first light, with the plan being to go to Carabelle and fuel up and wait for a weather window to cross the gulf. I monitored weather as I do every day, and assumed we may have a long wait. Another storm was brewing, this time Eta, down in the northwest Caribbean was looking like it would impact the northern gulf over the next week. But watching the forecasts, it looked like we might be able to cross tonight and tomorrow, Wednesday. As the day progressed, things continued to look good, monitoring websites NOAA, Windy, PredictWind and Marvs weather service which specifically looks at conditions for crossing the gulf. It would mean pushing on through the night and the next day, it's 150 miles plus across and would be a 20 hour crossing at our speed. We decided to go for it, fueled up at Carrabelle and headed out in the dark at 7 PM into the gulf. This would put us in Tarpon Springs early afternoon. The forecast was for 1-2 foot seas on our port beam, which the boat handles well. The forecast said things might build to 3 footers by afternoon, not a big deal, and  we should be across by then anyway. We departed in pitch black but around 8:30 the moon rose in the east and gave us good light. It was beautiful. I napped for an hour, Cindy drove, then I took over around 10. Shortly after that, it started to kick up. The seas gradually built to 4's the 5's and some 6's. The boat did well, rolling a bit but the stabilizers did their job. Cindy was queasy and laid on the couch in the salon where the ride was better. The sun coming up at 6:30 was a welcome sight. At about 8 in the morning, things continued to get worse, and I smelled something funny. I was going down into the engine room to check on things when all hell broke loose. The smoke alarms went off and the engine room was full of smoke. The engine temp was fine, but burnt rubber was everywhere. Keep in mind we are 2/3 of the way across the gulf, but still 50 miles offshore. There is no cell phone coverage and marginal VHF radio. I wrongly assumed it was the rubber coupler off the drive shaft to the stabilizer hydraulic pump, because they were being stress, so I turned off the stabilizers and pointed the bow into the waves, lots of bucking, but we were at least safe. Things settled down a bit but there had to be a change in plans. Beam seas without stabilizers is not do-able in this boat. Heading towards the Florida coast would add at least 40 miles to the crossing but we didn't have a choice at this point. We progressed towards shore slowly, and everytime I increased speed, I would smell more burning rubber and the engine temp would climb, so I just kept the throttle at 1500 RPM instead of 1800. after 10-15 miles, the sea state improved a bit, waves were now 4-5 footers and I tried to edge the helm into a more southerly direction. This was working ok, but then the shit really hit the fan. The engine temp climbed to 215, normal is 185, so I had to shut her down. We were in 35 feet of water, 35-40 miles offshore at this point, so we dropped the anchor to re assess. Our serpentine drive belt had failed. It was in fragments under the engine. So while bucking the waves, I had to change the drive belt. In doing so, I found the cause of all of this, a seized pulley for the belt, with the bearings toasted. There were ball bearings in the bilge. At this point I didn't think I had a spare pulley, so I installed the new belt without it. There is a belt tensioner that picked up the slack in the belt enough for us to get underway again, and amazingly we were able to use the stabilizers again. The engine temp was now normal and we resumed our cruise to Tarpon Springs with no more difficulties. I did call the Coast Guard letting them know of our compromised situation. They could hear me but my reception of them was pretty garbled. They did follow us on the radio over the afternoon checking on our progress, and they let Eric know we would be 6 hours late from the float plan we had filed with him. We arrived at the anchorage in Tarpon Springs in the dark Wednesday night at around 7 PM and tequila never tasted so good. We are still anchored today, Friday, but will be going into the Turtle Cove Marina this afternoon, where we will leave the boat over the next couple of months. Eric and Shawn are about 25 minutes away, and will get to see them a ton over the next week, and Eric will help me install the new bow thruster batteries. I just had a call from Tampa Bay Batteries, and they have what I need much cheaper than West Marine. Finally, as an addendum, while cleaning up the engine room from all the rubber debris, I went through my spares box, and there was a new drive pulley that I had forgotten I had, so it's installed and the boat is back to normal.

Moonrise over the gulf November 3

Sunrise over the gulf on the day from hell

Negligent Blogger

 I have been really quite negligent in updating the blog this trip. The past 3 weeks we have come back down river from Chattanooga all the way to the gulf, stopping at Florence where we met and made friends with two boats, absolutely delightful people. Phil and Marita are a couple on a Heritage East 36, and Mark is single handing his Great Harbor 37, both boats comparable to ours. We went out to dinner with them a couple of times and had several happy hours, and Mark cooked dinner for us on his boat one night. We pulled over at Bay Spring Lake for a couple of days in northern Mississippi, then continued downriver to Demopolis, staying there several days waiting out hurricane Zeta. As soon as the storm passed we went down the Tombigbee with 8 other boats, locking through together. They were all faster than we were but at the end of the day ended up at the same place. The river had good current, making the trip quick, but a little hazardous with all the flotsam from the runoff due to the hurricane. We were going to stop at Dog River Boatyard at Mobile and put in new bowthruster batteries. One of our paired thruster batteries is failing, and my resources say to replace them both. The current batteries are West Marine brand and I was going to get them at the West Marine at Dog River. It was just across the parking lot. However, the manager there failed to get them in a timely manner despite ten days of lead time, so we just continued on across Mobile Bay and down the gulf intercoastal waterway, anchoring along the way. We were entertained at the Dupont Bridge anchorage by F16s from Tyndall AFB doing maneuvers overhead. We anchored at Destin, Florida and dinghied to shore for a meal of wonderful smoked oysters with bacon and cheese, and shrimp ceviche, and a couple of good beers. This part of the trip was all pretty low key. We were headed to Carrabelle to wait for a weather window to cross the gulf.

A refrigerator was part of the flotsam floating down the river

evening on Bay Spring Lake

These houses along the gulf ICW all have plastic on their roofs as a result of damage from hurricane Zeta

Beer and oysters at Tail Fins, Destin harbor

Moonrise over our neighbors boat in Destin harbor