Now It's A Delivery Trip!

Greetings All:

On May 30, Anna Marie and I departed West Creek, NJ in the wee hours of the morning. Our destination: Osprey Marina and SUNSHINE. Along the way, we picked up Gary, who would be crew for the trip home. After a long 14 hour drive, we made it to SUNSHINE, where we off loaded a few items and hit the sack.

On the 31st, Anna Marie did the provisioning while Gary attended to servicing the generator. I replaced spark plugs and the fuel filter on the port engine. Anna Marie departed at 1400 hours for the long drive home. She'll stop along the way and should arrive back home tomorrow afternoon.

Gary and I attended to all of the other chores necessary to get SUNSHINE cruise ready. We finished our tasks just after dark.

We met a couple (Jack and Lois) aboard "Adventurous." They're heading home to Washington, DC after their first cruise on the waterway, to the Keys and the Bahamas.

We departed Osprey Marina on June 1 and motored up the waterway on a warm (hot?), sultry day. We made it to our anchorage just after noon. Being way too early to stop, we continued on. We missed the 1200 opening of the Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge by 15 minutes, so we threw out the hook and waited for the 1400 hour opening.

Not too long after passing through, the port engine began to act up, eventually stalling. I fed it some oil and it started up and ran fine for the next three hours, when it stopped running again. This time, we couldn't get it started. We spent the next five hours motor sailing to the St. James Marina. We traveled alomost 59 miles on the day.

On June 2, a mechanic came to check out the motor. The marina is not convenient to his shop, so he asked us to move to a closer one. We agreed and moved the boat five miles north to the South Harbor Village Marina. Mechanic Kurt arrived in the afternoon to check out the situation and, after sever tests with a multimeter, determined the problem to be a pulsifer coil (I think it is commonly known as a stator).

He ordered the part. If it can be overnighted, he'll install it tomorrow, if not, he'll be back on Thursday, June 4 to install it. We should be underway again on Thursday afternoon.

UPDATE: THe part arrived in the early afternoon. Mechanic Kurt arrived to install it. We were hoping for a late afternoon departure as the tides would be favorable in the Cape Fear River, but that was not to be. The engine wouldn't start. Kurt ran the same tests with the multimeter that he performed yesterday, then he performed them again. Finally, he called the shop for more diagnostic equipment. It turns out the equipment didn't match the motor on SUNSHINE, so it was useless. Kurt then asked the guy who brought the equipment to run several of the trouble shooting tests that Kurt had run (I think these tests were performed for the fourth time). Yep, it sounds like I'm going to be paying for on the job training!

I'll be talking to the owner of the shop tomorrow!

Stay tuned!