Off Panama City

Last night passed uneventfully. The winds remained light and southerly and the autopilot guided Alana easily toward the east at about 3 knots while I enjoyed a series of approximately 36 22-minute naps. The winds have continued light this morning, but are forecast to pick up after lunch.

Once Jessica found out that Mike would not be coming along, she decided that I needed some sort of simian chaperone to keep me on the straight and narrow. Barry seems more interested in doing his own thing than protecting my virtue, so I’m not sure of his value as a chaperone, but at least he should be good for a few laughs. He didn’t seem to take my safety brief very seriously, and this, combined with The Head’s obvious jealousy make me think that he may not make it all the way to Savannah. He has already hit the beer kind of hard and seems way too curious for his own good. The bottom line is this; Barry’s in way over his head!

I had a brief scare this morning while charging batteries with the generator. I noticed white smoke/steam spewing from the exhaust and quickly shut the generator down. I experience a very brief bout of depression as I considered a variety of expensive, time-consuming explanations, but was ultimately relieved to find that the raw water strainer was simply clogged with grass...or so I thought.

This afternoon I decided to give the batteries another quick charge (AGM batteries don’t really care how often they are charged and a partial charge is OK). Upon starting the generator I immediately noticed a louder, throatier than normal exhaust note which indicates raw water is not being properly pumped into the mixing elbow to cool the exhaust. I again pulled out all the food and gear I keep stowed in front of the generator compartment, crawled back to once again confront my nemesis and discovered that the raw water pump impeller had indeed been destroyed. I carry several spares, so this was not a disaster, just a pain in the butt. The pump is located on the rear of what was a pretty hot engine, jammed into a pretty tight little spot, making what should be a rather simple fix painful and difficult. Somehow I managed to avoid dropping any of the tiny wing-nuts or washers and completed the repair successfully in time to enjoy Mark Levin on the Sirius radio.

The rest of the day passed smoothly enough, though I do now regret not having steered a little further offshore last night. I now have to tack south to clear the shoals which extend south of St. Joseph Point (SE of Panama City) which is a little aggravating. I’m hoping to pick up a cell signal as I pass St. Joseph Point tonight (Friday the 7th) otherwise it may be a couple days before I again have a signal off Tampa.