Marathon - Not only great sunsets

 

    I never tired of the sunrises and sunsets in the Keys

I took Hoolie in to land for his morning constitutional and noticed the sunrise. Being so close to the Gulf Stream, we get a lot of clouds at the horizon towards the south, east, and west. The clouds result in great color. 

I started snapping and I think Ann wants the photos to for pastels. Later that morning, we visited Advanced Urgent Care in Marathon. We had been to the one in Key West and we didn’t want the one in Marathon to feel slighted. We are still recovering from bad colds, the worse we’ve had in over five years, not your common cold - but not COVID since we tested negative several times. All is well now for our trip north but we’ll have a lot of catching up to do with our doctors. If you ever have the need, I would recommend the Advanced Urgent Care clinics highly. There are three: Key West, Marathon, and Key Largo. 

The sunset was not as good as the sunrise - it’s very calm here. 

The Sunday forecast remains for light winds of less than 5 kts so we’re off at first light for Key Largo for just an overnight stay before moving on to Miami on Monday. It’s past time to move north!

Marathon - Genset battle goes on and a crowd on Friday night at Marathon

 

A great perk of Marathon is the nearby Home Depot almost next door

My relationship with my Genset has not been a happy one. It seems to find creative ways to refuse to work. The first time it was the oil pressure sensor. The oil pressure was fine, the sensor was bad (it turned off the Genset automatically when the sensor showed no oil pressure) but at least that was fixed under warrantee. The technician complained all the way that Kohler only paid for the defective part and not for the diagnostic time to find it. 

Quite the crowd on a Friday night at the Marathon cabana

The second event was non-starting. There was a swaged connection to the starter motor that had come apart from the motor vibrations. That was found with a call to the local Kohler troubleshooter that said it was a common failure mode. I cut off the old connector and swaged a new one and then complained to Kohler on the stupid failure mode.

The third fail was lack of coolant water leading to overheating and another auto shutoff. That was traced to a heat exchanger that had growth inside the tubes resulting in blocked water flow and thereby no cooling. Several thousands of dollars later, that was removed, cleaned, and reinstalled. 

The fourth fail was another sensor, the water pressure sensor that’s supposed to detect a lack of coolant water incoming. It was turning off the Genset after 5 minutes of run time since the Kohler chip thought there was no coolant flowing. I got tired of replacing sensors so I just unplugged it.

The fifth fail occurred multiple times. When the Kohler was installed, it replaced a much smaller unit with start motor wire from the battery that was fine for the smaller unit (100 amps) but was not fine for the Kohler (200 amps). The installer thought he wanted to balance the weight so he put the starter battery on the other side of the boat which resulted in about 20 feet of starter cable. The excessive length of cable combined with the undersized gauge meant that every connection had to be perfect to flow 200 amps. If any of the connections were less than perfect, the Genset would not start. I’ve battled this one for years by recleaning all the connections (multiple times) and replacing starter batteries. Eventually I got tired of that and today I mounted a new battery about one foot from the Genset. Hopefully, that will fix the starting problem. 

There is no way a Genset can ever be costed out to be cost effective as opposed to staying in marinas but sometimes you just want to anchor out and have the convenience of 120v. Oh well.

I think I spoke too soon about there not being much action here at Marathon. There was a huge crowd at the marina tonight with food, drinks and corn hole competitions. I guess we just haven’t been a round long enough to meet everyone. 

One Saturday, we’ll take on fuel and water and generally get Fleetwing ready to move again on Sunday, a calm day for travel.

Marathon - Marking time, waiting for the weather window

 

The gardens are still producing, nicely kept

The Sunday weather winds looks pretty good still for getting to Key Largo but there are high winds before and after that date. I walked to West Marine to get another gallon of antifreeze since I used my supply on refilling the engine after the fan belt failure - what a mess that was. 

The sunsets are just spectacular 

We will provision using Winn Dixie’s delivery service that should last us until we reach Titusville. After all the activity by our slip in Key West, the mooring field feels dead here. Not much traffic in or out. The main area by the marina is mostly barren. There are get togethers I saw with some playing a game where you throw a small sack, hoping to land in a hole. Other than that, nothing else was happening (which is mostly our faults since we haven’t met with anyone - just back and forth to shore). 

However, they do have beautiful sunsets! We enjoy them every night

Marathon - recuperating

 

Mostly empty

The strategy of getting to Marathon was to find a place to rest up and get over this three week cold we both have. To that end, the resting part succeeded, it’s very quiet here. With highs in the low 80’s and winds of 10 to 15 kts, it’s not too hot since the boat always points into the wind. With the hatches open, the winds sweep through Fleetwing. That’s a good thing since our air conditioner is on the fritz. 

You can always depend on Marathon having nice sunsets

The marina is practically deserted. There’s lots of boats still but the main building is not bustling as it used to during the high seasons of December through March. That suit us fine, we’re resting. Sunday still looks like a go day for Key Largo where we’ll probably anchor out since the marina there wants you to rent a dock for the entire three day weekend (Easter weekend). With the light winds predicted, that shouldn’t be a problem. 

I wonder how Marine Stadium is doing in Miami. The last I heard, all the boats were moved out to make room for construction work on the arena - that’s covered in graffiti. There’s room to anchor outside the area off the south side so we’ll probably go there for the night, then it’s on to Ft Lauderdale The next day.

Marathon - Cleaning up and buying a new A/C

 

It’s one of the great features of the marina - a place to gather with a breeze

I had delayed cleaning up the mess made when the engine overheated and the coolant boiled over until  today. So with gloves and rags, I went at it and Fleetwing once again has a clean engine bilge.The marina here accepts used antifreeze (that I mopped up) and I’ll take that in tomorrow. 

Extraordinary number of boats packed in here - this is just the view to the east. See the moon?

I needed to replace my A/C unit so I found a later model of the same one I had at Defender Marine. I had looked at the details and price yesterday and saw the 15% off - great price I thought but at that time I had not arranged for anyone to install it. At 64 lbs, it’s a bit heavy for me. 

They still have docks if you don’t favor a mooring

I called Boater’s Edge in Titusville which is in the same harbor as Titusville Marina and they agreed to install the unit if I had it delivered to their shop. Having secured an installer, I called Defender back today and wondered where the 15% discount was that was posted yesterday went? In talking to the clerk, she said the sale ended yesterday. So my delay in buying the A/C (or not noticing the sale was ending yesterday) cost me about $400! It goes back to my motto, “I make all the mistakes first so you don’t have to.” If you see a high priced piece of equipment on sale that you want, be sure to look to see how long it will be on sale! I could have bought the A/C unit yesterday and saved the $400 and figured out where I would get it installed later - live and learn (I just wished it wasn’t such a costly lesson).

Marathon - Great T- Mobile signal

 

Nice tower!!

We’re at L9 in the mooring field and you can see in the photo a cellphone tower. I don’t know if T-Mobile  uses the tower but they probably do since I am getting 257 Mbps speed on downloads and 43.3 Mbps on uploads. I have no idea what the marina uses but it’s a moot point if you have T-Mobile (I have the unlimited data plan at 5G speeds, no throttling no matter how much data you use). Key West had similar speeds. 

A garden for anyone’s use (I think) 

I’m shopping around for someone to replace my kaput air conditioner since it cannot be recharged due to its use of R22 which has been outlawed. So far, no luck. No one wants to come out to a mooring to do the work. 

We have decided to spend the week here and perhaps take the next window to move to Key Largo. The best look now says Monday for a travel day. We are gradually getting better and hopefully, that will continue. We are also keeping an eye on Marine Stadium since that is our preferred anchoring area in Miami but it’s currently off limits due to construction on the stadium, groan.

Marathon - at last!

 

Marathon has reinstalled their dinghy dock, nice

We decided to take advantage of 5 kt winds with smooth seas as predicted by the NOAA coastal forecast. PredictWind and Windy agreed also so we set out. Although the wind was as predicted, it was a little lumpy, nothing to be concerned about but not glass smooth - but then, it’s the ocean. 

Anyone for a slightly used belt?

Everything was going as expected until about an hour out of Marathon. All of a sudden, I noticed the smell of antifreeze and Ann heard the over-temperature alarm go off (we complement each other, she can hear, I can smell). She turned the engine off and we coasted to a stop. We were out in the channel, a mile or so off shore so there were no obstructions nearby. 

It’s always nice to relax at a calm, quiet anchorage (mooring in this case0

The engine was steaming. Much of the antifreeze had boiled over the top of the overflow tank. The problem was immediately obvious, the engine belt had parted ways with the engine, it was a has been. I had a spare and proceeded to loosen the nuts on the alternator to allow slack to put in a new belt. That was easier said then done. To make a long story short - an hour later, I had the belt installed and tightened. 

Next came refilling the coolant tank. It took a gallon of antifreeze mix (50/50 ready to use mix, I carry spare antifreeze) and I got most of it in the the overflow tank (another story). With fingers crossed, Ann restarted the engine with me watching down below and it seemed to run okay - it got us to Marathon, an hour run, and stayed at the proper running temperature. 

Oh well we were doing so well! Remember, as Captain Ron says, “If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there!”