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Mika the wonder dog and Captain Ed on our sailing adventure
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Mika the wonder dog and I left Newburyport this past Sunday October 5 for destinations unknown. ( most likely New Burn North Carolina). We had left the previous week but was towed in by Towboat US with a fuel problem that I worked on and thought that I fixed.
Well any way we left Amesbury for the 2pm bridge opening at the Hines bridge Amesbury. By 5:45 while rounding Thachers Island the motor quit once again with a dirty fuel filter. I can change filters pretty fast these days, so I changed the filter while under sail. My auto pilot is working awesome. The wind picked up from the west witch gave me a beam reach all of the way down to the cape cod canal. I was making such good time that I had to reef my sails to slow the boat down, since the tide would be favorable at 8am October 6 and my speed was getting us there at 5am. I ran the motor for a couple more hours to charge the batteries then changed the Racor filter one more time to get through the canal. To drag out an even longer story the engine died once more and I only had one more filter. My best hope was to change fuel tanks and see if I would make out better with the other tank.
I made it through the canal at a pretty good clip, and was on my way to Padanaram with a favorable tide and engine running ( light winds on the nose). The engine cut out one more time just before New Bedford, so I called BoatUS towing service for the third time in one week, to tow me in. The woman on the phone questioned that I was on a sailboat but I had to get through a bridge and at this point I had been up for two days.
Southern Cross member, friend Steve Bliven met us at his mooring took Mika ashore for me, and made sure I was settled In for the night, before I crashed for the night.
The next day I emptied all of my fuel in to buckets, filtered the buckets refilled the tanks emptied the tanks filtered the fuel, refill termed the fuel emptied the tanks filtered the fuel over and over, taking fuel samples to check my progress. There was growth in the tanks that had to come out.
Steve picked me up around 3pm on October 7 and brought me to do some errands which included a case of Racor filters and dog food. I had a great super at Steve and Carol Blivens house before coming back for a very pleasant night on the Sarah Maria.
Mika and I are on Steveand Carols mooring until most likely Sunday morning when the winds will be favorable to get to Point Judith, we are beside a beautiful litte island for me to take Mika for his walks on.
Steve has been letting me use his dingy which was a good thing because mine became untied and was blown across the little bay that we are in and I had to first find it then shag it back. We did have another meal with Steve, Carol, Jack Walsh, and his girl friend, and I will be probably be heading over there one more time before we head out.
Captain Ed
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Here is the link to find me on SPOT
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=02NramsRN9MJgcNRcXYgzchvylgoMpbUR
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