November 3, 2019
Ft. Pierce, Florida
27.28.029 N
80.19.591 W


Our anchorage was less than comfortable last evening, so between the rocking and rolling, wind howling and worrying about what had happened to the anchor windlass, it was easy to be up and moving at 7:00 this morning.  I say 7, as we had not taken into account that it was the change back to standard time, so we really woke up at 6am.  Doesn’t matter, the sun still comes up when it wants. 


Of course, the first thing Dale did was check to see if the windlass had miraculously healed itself during the night and pushed the button to see if it would work.  Nope!  Still broken. 


As I mentioned yesterday, we learned a few tricks the first time we made this trip, so I laid out a cloth for Dale to drop the chain on as he grabbed another type of snubber to keep the chain from falling back into the water from its own weight.  Then I went back to the cockpit and slowly advanced the engine, so that all the pressure was taken off the chain.  Except for having to flip the anchor around, he hand hoisted it back up without incident and much quicker than either of us expected.  Once again we were heading south and really hadn’t lost any time in the process. 


We made Ft. Pierce by 12:30 and were met by the smiling faces of Gerry (Tinkering Consultant) and Nicky (She Who Must Be Obeyed), on Opal of Queensland, our buddy boat for the remainder of our big adventure.  Gerry met us on the fuel pier and then grabbed our lines when we finally tied up along a pier just across the channel from them.  The guys were soon noodling around the possibilities of what possibly could have gone wrong with the windlass. 


The four of us grabbed a quick bite, we collected the mail they had picked up for us and then the Tinker Twins were in high gear.  Each gathered their multimeters, Dale provided the schematics and diagrams of the offending motor, they donned radio headsets and while Gerry was down below, Dale went above to attack the dang thing from two different directions.  You can imagine their surprise when, for grins and giggles, Dale tried it again, and presto! It worked.  After much discussion, it was decided that as there was some noticeable corrosion on the outside of the motor, so the theory is, that it’s possible one or more of the connections needed to be cleaned on the inside.  Guess what Dale is doing tomorrow!  Just to be on the safe side, he’s going to run the chain up and down a few times just to make sure that it continues to work “under load” and that its not just a trick to get us into some remote spot to die again. 


And so the fun begins; also known as:  fixing your boat in exotic places.