June in North Palm Beach

 Blossom snugged up between some big girls

South marina down the way

We had hoped to only be here for a couple weeks and then explore Savannah and Hilton Head on our way to Charleston. So why are we still here?  Well, first we were waiting for the engine to get fixed, but the guys had her up and running in just a couple weeks. (Thanks Rob, Chris & Fernando!) In the meantime, our satellite phone died. Our next trip will be 48 hours offshore, and after all that’s happened, we’re not comfortable leaving without a functioning satellite phone. (We may get an Iridium Go as a back-up for the satellite phone after this experience.) 

We’ve had a really nice month at Old Port Cove Marina. There are two marinas at Old Part Cove and this is our first time staying in the north marina. When we originally made arrangements to come here (before the ER fire) the marina said they didn’t think they could get us in. We gave James Knight a call and he immediately got us a slip. Thank you, James! We’ve rented a car and have been enjoying having access to so much! After being on the hook for almost three months in the Bahamas, mostly in the Exumas, it was a bit overwhelming when we first got back. So many stores and access to everything and anything you could want (including Amazon Prime).

When not working on Blossom activities, we’ve been enjoying hanging out with friends and meeting some new folks. It’s fairly quiet here now as everyone has left Florida for hurricane season. Sean & Louise were here for a week before heading north and we checked out a couple of restaurants with them. We also met a great couple, Joe & Renee who just finished commissioning their Nordhavn, and enjoyed getting to know them. They’ve taken off on their adventure now as well. There’s a captain of larger Nordhavn here, Geoff, who we met at the Ft. Lauderdale show and we enjoyed having dinner with him and catching up.

Our friends Margie and CJ live in Delray so we’ve been able to get together with them a few times. They’ve helped us break in our new game - Molkky. We learned about Molkky in Georgetown from the folks on s/v Saltine. We’d never heard of it before - it’s like a Finnish version of Bocce ball played with wood pieces called skittles. It’s best played in sand but it works on grass as well.  I need to work on my Molkky skills, Martin wins way too often!

Martin explaining his technique

Martin in action

Enjoying a game on CJ & Margie’s gorgeous lawn

before the mosquitoes tried to eat me alive

My new favorite drink – a Moscow Mule. With a few twists I’d like to make it the new Blossom Bomber J

Margie & Martin who has obviously had enough to drink!

The weather had been hot (not as hot as up in the Carolinas, but hot!) So we’ve been staying indoors most of the day and coming out in the evening for cocktails on the fly bridge and dinner in the cockpit.

I’ve been trying out a bunch of new recipes with several successes – Sweet Corn & Crab Soup, Chicken Pad Thai, and Watermelon and Cucumber Salad.  I’ll add links to the recipes because they were all so amazing. The quilt bug bit me too and I’ve finished 5 quilt tops & their backs ranging from a table topper to a large lap quilt. I started the larger quilt in November 2013 so it felt good to finally get it pieced! I’ll post pictures once they’re quilted.

We’re heading to my home town up by Rochester, NY for the 4^th of July. One of my high school friends is having a “Yay, we’re turning 50 this year” party and I’m really excited to catch up with everyone. We’re also going to celebrate the holiday with two barbeques, one at my Dad's and one at my Aunt & Uncle's summer lake house. It’ll be a high school and family reunion weekend! 

We’ll return to the boat after the holiday and will head to Charleston as soon as our sat phone is back in service and we get a good 2 day weather window. We’re looking forward to visiting Charleston and meeting up with Martin’s Mom and her partner Michael who are coming to visit us from England. We have a great month ahead!

Wishing our American friends a safe and happy 4^th of July!

Boat Business:

We’ve gotten quite a bit done on the boat over the last few weeks. We talked about the wing engine in our last post, but we’ve gotten a lot of other work done as well.  Rob, Chris & Fernando have been great. They’ve been aboard helping us with some warranty items as well as with the engine repairs.

Repairs:

Break Band on the Windlass. It was bent during the free fall in the harbor. We discovered that this piece of metal costs almost $1000 but we were able to negotiate of significant discount if we take some pictures and let them use it for advertising - score!

Satellite Phone. Our sat phone died right after we arrived in North Palm Beach. It’s a fairly new unit so we were a bit surprised. We’re waiting for it to arrive.

Galley sink sealant. The sealant around the sink and between the tiles and granite began to mold. It was inside the sealant – very nasty. Fernando scraped it out and replaced sealant. It looks so much better!

SUP. Both of our inflatable SUPs developed pin hole leaks. We’re in the process of patching and testing them.

Ventilation system under the helm. We run hot under the helm. In fact, that’s other time a smoke alarm has gone off – when the fan in the inverter died and it overheated. (That was a much less dramatic situation.) Martin replaced the broken fan in the inverter and then installed 8 more fans under the helm.

Speaker amplifier replaced. We have an audio system that allows us to play satellite radio throughout the boat. The unit in the salon broke so we have a replacement coming in next week.

Ooo oh that smell… (to quote a song and date myself.) We’ve posted a few times about a strange smell coming from our forward basement area and then being spread around by the air handlers when the ac is on. I hesitate to post, dare I temp fate or an evil stink demon, but I think we have at last resolved this. In the past, we’ve added exhaust fans, replaced several black hoses and spent hours searching. After each intervention we’d think that we had it solved, but then it would return. I actually think that having the basement hatch open for so long, the smell would dissipate and then take a couple days to accumulate again. Well, this time we think Chris nailed it! He thought the smell was coming from the manual black tank overboard pump. Fernando rebuild/cleaned it and changed out the O-ring and voila. Interestingly, the smell was never “obviously” a black tank smell. So we waited a week to make an assessment and the verdict is in - Blossom has never smelled so sweet!  Of all our fixes (other than the wing engine), this makes me the happiest J

Additions/maintenance:

DVD & DVR. We added the tv last November to the guest stateroom. Now it’s a fully functioning unit with a DVR and blue ray player.

Smoke detector. We added one to the stairs/salon area.

Under the hanging cabinet

Fire extinguishers. We bought two extinguishers designed specifically for electrical fires. We replaced the one in the pilot house (that we used in the ER) with one and installed the other in the utility room just outside the ER door.

New flag. I repaired our poor flag in the Bahamas but it was no match for the wind and it shredded again. Now we have a lovely new flag flying proud for the 4th.

SIM card for Maretron system. Our AT&T sim stopped working so Martin had to go to an AT&T store and get it sorted out. We want to have our alarm system working while we’re off the boat this fall of course and thought we’d get it up and going before our trip to Rochester. This system will send a text if an alarm sounds – for example if we lose shore power or the bilge pump goes off.

Deep Clean. This was the first time we’ve hired someone to clean the inside of the boat. Wow!  It was so nice to have a professional come through and do it right. Maureen did a fabulous job and Blossom is sparkly now.  And we even have fancy towels in the guest head J

B’s Bottom. She got a good clean and a zinc check. No need for zincs but she was pretty barnacled up. I think we’ll redo her bottom paint before we splash her next January.

Repairs in North Palm Beach

We’ve been in North Palm Beach now for over 2 weeks, time flies!

To start where I left off in our last blog post… Jim came to Nassau three days after the fire and we arrived back in Florida on a Thursday morning. It was great to see him again and have him on board. The trip was uneventful and calm and took a little over 24 hours. It was a strange feeling to be heading “home”. We’ve spent so much time in south Florida over the years, especially the 7 months in Stuart, that it’s beginning to feel like a second home.

This blog entry is going to be exclusively about the boat and the engine room fire. I know a lot of people are interested in that and not our day to day life. I’ll resume my usual blogging in the next entry, coming soon!

Martin here. We've been asked several questions about the fire and how our boat is equipped that I’ll address here.

What caused the fire?

The fire was caused by a wiring issue at the starter motor that caused the wiring harness to catch fire. This is why the fire seemed so extensive when viewed from the ER door – there were flames encircling the engine. The smoke and flame was caused by wire sheaths and insulation burning. It was a surprising amount of smoke/flame to be coming from this alone. Luckily, the fire did not burn long or hot enough to catch anything else on fire.

Has it been repaired, what did this involve?

The engine has been repaired and tested and it’s working great. The guys from Nordhavn SE did a great job. The starter, alternator and wiring harness were replaced. Touchups were made to the engine paint and gelcoat on the engine mount.

Do you have a Seafire system? Why didn't the Seafire system activate?

Yes we do have Seafire. These systems rely on heat to activate. Despite all the smoke, there really wasn't much heat given off. Certainly not enough to raise the temperature up to the 175 degrees F required. This system can also be manually activated. We would have done this had we not been able to put the fire out with an extinguisher. This is a last resort as it also shuts down the main, leaving the boat without any form of propulsion.

What about a smoke alarm?

We do have one in the engine room. It's attached to our Maretron system and when it goes off everyone knows! We were getting so many false positives that I disabled it. I think the causes of the false positives have been resolved (leaky exhaust gasket, shedding exhaust blanket, overheated engine room) and it’s time to get it back on line.

We also have a smoke alarm in the salon (we have them in all rooms on the boat). The smoke was moving quickly through the salon (all windows, doors and hatches were open) and the smoke did not reach the alarm which is on the port side of the room. After seeing how the smoke moved through the boat, we’re installing another alarm above the stairs to the utility room/ER this week. 

Was there smoke damage?

None at all!  The smoke moved quickly through the salon and within a day there was no lingering smell. There’s nothing in the engine room to hold the smell (no soft goods) so that is back to normal as well.

Steph here again. There have been some important observations and lessons learned from our experience. We thought we'd share them with hopes that they could be useful for other boaters... 

• It was easier to grab a fire extinguisher from elsewhere on the boat rather than the one in the ER because it was so smoky in the ER. We used the extinguisher from the pilot house. We have several on board now and we’re adding another one to the utility room on the other side of the ER door.
• Know how to use a fire extinguisher. Even though it's "easy", you don’t want to be trying this for the first time when dealing with an actual fire – I've never used one and now I have a half used one to practiced with.
• We have smoke detectors in every room on the boat and are now adding another. Placement is critical as well as working out the kinks with "false alarms". We'll be testing the ER alarm on our way north. We don't want a "cry wolf" situation in the future.
• Having a window in the ER door is the best thing ever.
• We're getting at least one smoke/fire hood. It was amazing how much smoke filled the ER so quickly.

So that's the scoop. We're all repaired and no worse for wear. We have a few other maintenance issues we're attending to and we'll be heading to Charleston in early July.

Heading Back to Florida

 

Blossom at Hurricane Hole

Well, it took a couple days for Mart and me to calm down and bring our adrenaline levels back to normal. All is well now except when a faint smell of smoke drifts in from somewhere in the harbor and we both feel a bit anxious (Nassau’s a working harbor with lots of noise and smells). I’m sure that's a temporary reaction!

We’ve had time now to do a preliminary assessment of the apparent damage. It appears that the fire was contained to just the wing engine and that the damage is fairly minimal, especially given the display of flames and smoke that we had. No fiberglass or fuel burned during the fire. What a relief! The extinguisher dust has been cleaned up and Martin changed out the air filter on the main engine just in case in got fouled.

PAE has been very helpful and responsive and after consulting with them, we’ve decided that we’ll head back to Florida to have her fixed up. We’ll be going to North Palm Beach where their commissioning and service office is located. Lucky for us, we’re still under warranty!  

We don’t like that we’ll be running without a get-home engine (minimal thrusters and a weak windlass too) so we’re thrilled that we’ll have Jim Mobley aboard with us. Jim is a seasoned training and delivery captain who worked with us in both capacities this past fall. As an added bonus, he’s a great guy and we enjoy his company J  We should be back by the end of this week.

It looks like our blog readership has really spiked with our last post.  I normally write with our family & friends in mind but I know that there are lots of boat-curious people and we’ve been asked a lot of questions. I’ll answer what I can once we’re back home and I have a bit more time to organize my thoughts and a better understanding of what took place.

For now, we’re enjoying our last couple of days in the Bahamas and are looking forward to an uneventful passage back to the States!

Best seat in the house (Green Parrot in the background)

Nothing can relax you like spending an afternoon on an innertube built for two at Atlantis