On Saturday, the sun was just starting to light the sky when we cast our lines, but it was shaded by a big cloud, keeping us in deep darkness (much darker than when the picture was taken) that made it difficult to see the unlit channel markers, let alone discern red from green.

“What is your waterline differential?” is a question you don’t want to hear the captain ask at 5 am in the dark as he tries to find the channel. Galene draws 3 feet and when he asked the question, I immediately looked at the depth sounder, which was showing 2.9 feet.

Fortunately, our depth sounder measures the depth from the keel to the bottom and the keel is 3 feet below the waterline so we were actually in close to 6 feet of water and not running aground. However, the props extend a few feet below the keel, and poking around in the dark trying to find the channel was not smart. In hindsight, Greg and I should have insisted that we wait for better light before departing, and we should have used our spotlight to see the channel markers. Having never had a built-in spotlight before, we didn’t think to use it. Just another of many lessons learned on this trip.

I took the helm after we found the channel and as the daylight grew, I noticed that our bow line had not been removed from the cleat, which is a potentially dangerous situation because the line could easily slide off the deck and run under the boat and snag something, or worse, wash into the prop if it’s long enough. Another reason to wait for adequate light.

Once we were out to sea, the day was uneventful until the engine alarms started blaring about water in the fuel.

We knew this wasn’t a false alarm, because the day before as I was pumping the fuel, Greg was washing down the decks. Suddenly I noticed that the water was running down the deck and into the fuel filler hole. He immediately stopped the washdown, but enough water had gotten in to cause a problem. Fortunately, our hired captain knew how to remove the water from the water separator fuel filters. In the picture below, Greg is handing Captain Rob tools and a cup to collect the water from the filters. Captain Rob is down in the engine room draining the filters. All of this is happening in moderately choppy seas well offshore of land.

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Once the filters were cleared of water (only about 4 ounces), we were back underway and we didn’t have any more issues. Our third learning moment of the day.

We arrived at our home marina at the Oyster Bay Yacht Club in Fernandina Beach, FL at 3:30 pm. Some friends had heard the news of our arrival and met us at the dock with champagne while our niece Nadia and the harbormaster Josh caught some Sheepshead.

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