Mosquito Lagoon proved to be a peaceful and safe anchorage in 6-7 ft of water just east of marker 19. Sunny days draws 5 ft, so we had 2 feet under the keel at all times after leaving the ICW. The depth finders confirmed this.
The wind was E at 12-15 kts all night with a little chop on the lagoon, but what a difference compared to the previous night, where we had to take turns for watch and try to get some sleep in those big swells.
The house batteries were down to 50%, so the big genset (16KW) was started to charge them up and to operate the water heater. The little one (8KW) can not handle both charging and heating.
Charging current on 12V house batteries: 125A (Prosine display)
Genset: 240V 50Amps initially, with 12V charger, water heater, 24V charger, lights.
Last night during anchoring the starboard engine showed a warning on the display: complete data loss. It still ran fine, but I know that once it's shut down it won't start with this warning present. Hopefully we will get it back again today.
The plan is to continue on the ICW, past Cape Canaveral harbor and the NASA site to Melbourne for anchorage. 50 miles, 7 hours.
And that's exactly what we did.
After a phone call to CAT specialists in Savannah, the culprit was found. A corroded inline fuse that supplied power to the engine electronic control. A bit of cleaning with sandpaper and a bit of electronic spray, and the engine ran like nothing ever happened.
Unfortunately we missed the landing of the Shuttle "Discovery" by about 1 hour, as we went past the landing strip. We heard the sonic boom and wondered what it was, until we heard by email from the scheduled landing.
The trip was uneventful, although the wind was very strong all day from the southeast. Impossible to spend time on the flybridge, and a shame really, because it was a sunny day.
Anchorage on the north side of Melbourne Causeway was no problem. (south winds)
At 1 a.m. it started to rain heavily and the wind picked up. This time from the north. Time to go upstairs to check what the anchor was doing. The alarm went off right when I arrived up in the flybridge. We had not moved, but swung around 180° and this triggered the alarm, which was set at 100ft.
The remainder of the night was noisy and rocky, since the wind came from the wrong side. (or we were anchored on the wrong side of the causeway).
Early departure planned to go further south.
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