Finally underway on our shakedown cruise

At anchor with full moon

We had a rocky start leaving Key Largo – as soon as we got out of the harbor our engine overheated. We dropped anchor right at the jetty and called our good friends from SeaTow. They arrived almost immediately, and towed us back to our slip, and we were able to maneuver ourselves back in without overheating again.

A day of trying to find the problem with much testing followed. Take out the thermostat and test it (boil it in water on the stove to see if it opens) – it worked. Replace the impeller, but oh my, where is it? Kim, our whisperer in all things sailing came over and helped (again), and the impeller was replaced, however the old one was fine, so that wasn’t the problem either. And then – we found the leak in the saltwater cooling system!

The engine having been fixed, we decided to leave the next morning after a new provisioning run, as we had used up most of the fresh produce provisions by then.

Tuesday at noon we finally headed out again, and started sailing southwest along the Keys with a perfect 12 knot southeast wind, giving us 6 knots of speed with both mainsail and genoa up.

Needless to say, there were more challenges. We had a bad vibration on the starboard stern, and nothing was running, so that needed to be taken care of. And a water leak at the water pump, so we could not use the sinks without our freshwater leaking into the bilge. A decision as made to pull in behind Tavernier Key and anchor there – after all this is a shakedown cruise and we are in no hurry to to anything except fix up Ronya and make her perfect!

After a nice evening with some cold frosty beverages (the fridge works) and a really good night’s sleep in 90 degrees with the fan on, Rob the Plumber fixed the water leak while Chef Anya made a huge breakfast. With our bellies full and in a very relaxed mood, we decided to spend another day at this perfect anchorage and work on some more projects (as well as relax and snorkel). Tomorrow we will get up early and head to Boot Key south of Marathon, which should be a trip of about 8 hours.

We are extremely happy with our solar system, and have been able to test it a bit now. With our Engel freezer, the fridge, the fans, the pumps and even a running inverter, the power in our house batteries remains consistently high, even climbing.

Things are coming together very nicely! 🙂

One Reply to “Finally underway on our shakedown cruise”

  1. Am so excited to see and read about the “Rob and Anya Excellent Vacation”…….

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