A New Season

I thought that I would be making this season’s first entry from Fernandina Beach, Fl. A day’s sail from our home marina in Brunswick, GA. Alas, it was not meant to be. As we were leaving the dock, the Captain noticed right off that something wasn’t right; black smoke at anything over 2000 RPMs and not as much power as usual. He said maybe it was the fact that the diesel was old. We were chugging out the St. Simons channel, approaching a green buoy which was to our south with a north wind and not a lot of power AGGGG! That close up they are huge!!!! Fortunately we got past it with a split second to spare. Then the warning on the engine went off – we were overheating!! Peter turned it off. We put up some more sail and somehow I got a hold of myself and was able to call SeaTow! Boy was he good. It was amazing to see how gently he put us up against the dock. So here we are at Golden Isles /St Simons. We had a guy dive the bottom and prop and sure enough he said that the prop was completely encrusted with barnacles. He cleaned it. (he also said the bottom was great!) So we’ll try again tomorrow.