Except for a very brief run out to get fuel on Nov 1st I had been essentially grounded for over a month. I've had a diesel mechanic working on the cooling systems on my engines. During the course of his work, we had to order more parts, some of which came from Yanmar's main office in Georgia, and so it took him a long time to get this work completed.
Diesel burns at about 1200 F degrees and one of the main issues with diesel engines is handling all that heat. The engines have multiple cooling subsystems that require regular maintenance.
I had 3 primary goals for the trip today:
First, run the engines up to a relatively high RPM and check to see if they overheat.
Second, pump the sewer tank, which due to the fact that I was dock bound for over a month sorely needed it.
Third, get out on the water on a clear, cold winter day.
The temperatures for the past week or so had been hovering just below 30 during the days and dropping to around 20 or so at night. The weather forecast for this day was cold and clear, but most importantly, calm.
I pulled away from my slip in Bar Harbor North at about 7:15 AM, just as it was starting to get light. I had my nav lights on for the first 30 - 45 minutes of the trip just to be sure.
There was a very light NW breeze blowing in the harbor and the temperature was about 21 F degrees. Brisk!
For the past year or so I have been running the engines at only about 1800 RPM because I knew they were in need of maintenance on the cooling systems. Today, once they were properly warmed up, I ran them up to 2000 RPM and watched the temperature gauges closely. Both engines came up to 180 F and stayed there. After an hour or so I bumped them up to 2200 RPM and once again they did not overheat.
I arrived at the Naha dock at about 10 AM, and just as I expected, there was no one else around. Not many people want to come out on the water on such a cold day.
I set up the tripod and took a "selfie."
You can see the shadow of the tripod on the dock. Looks like a skinny alien creature.
I am a firm believer that a man cannot have too many photos of his boat.
As I approached the dock area there was a bit of very light skim ice on the surface, but not thick enough to damage the boat. There was also a lot of ice built up in between the dock and the shoreline.
I put on my ice cleats and bundled up for a short hike partway up the trail. Long johns required.
When it gets really cold like this the ice sometimes forms little crystals that shoot up from the ground almost as if they grew like a grass.
The picnic shelter partway up the trail. Strange, no one having a picnic today.
Even though I had my ice cleats on I tried to avoid sections of the trail that looked like this.
Roosevelt Lagoon is a "lagoon" rather than a "lake" because there is a tidal rapids between the lagoon and the bay, and so when the tide is rising towards a high tide there is salt water rushing into the lagoon, making the water a mixture of fresh and salt water.
The lagoon is mostly fresh water which makes it more likely to freeze when the temperatures get down as low as they have been. Here are several shots of the lagoon from various angles that show the skim ice on the surface with thicker areas around the shorelines.
When there is a very light skim ice on the surface of the lagoon there is another phenomenon that occurs which, I will try to describe. I did not have my phone with me so I could not record the audio, but from time to time the ice starts to vibrate and it sets off a sound I can only describe as a howling banshee. It is quite eerie. I don't know if it is triggered by a puff of wind, or a bird walking on the ice, or perhaps it is just random.
I had a good lunch on the boat and headed back to town about 1 PM. I timed it perfectly, getting into my slip at about 3:40 PM, just as it was getting dark. And oh yes, I did stop briefly on the way back in and pumped that sewer tank.
41.2 nm for this trip.
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