It was so cold this morning that it took a reading of our Westebeke diesel engine Owner’s Manual and six tries to get the cold engine of our Gemini catamaran to fire up and run.
We pulled out from Southport Marina just before 9AM. It was 24 degrees cold when we first awoke and began departure preparations. It wasn’t much above freezing when we left.
I decided to run the engine at 2,400 rpms today to see the effect on fuel burn vs. the 2,800 rpms used on Thursday. The savings in fuel was significant. We were much closer to the .75 gallons per hour rate than we had been at the higher rpms. Once I have more data from additional records, I’ll post the results.
One of a number of fish houses at Holden Beach
Anchoring at Bird Island had been recommended by a couple of knowledgeable people. But the outgoing tide would have slowed us down in the morning so we chose the Calabash Creek anchorage near the intersection of the ICW and Little River. Our first attempt to anchor was above Marker 3 and it failed. Our 35 lb Delta skipped on the bottom. We picked up and moved closer to the entrance and tried again. SUCCESS!
The trawler came in and anchored where we had failed to catch a hold
More boats arrived and filled the recommended anchorage area. A trawler dropped anchor where we had trouble. Let’s hope his set vs. being simply dropped.
By the evening we had eleven of us at anchor
Sunday morning we head through Myrtle Beach to Bucksport.
Comments 1
That diesel needs starting fluid in this cold weather.