March 20, 2016 Daytona Beach

Kite dropped her mooring line this morning at 07:55 so that she could make it through the Bridge of Lions at the 08:00 opening. Ringle had scheduled a pump out at 09:00 so they slept a little longer. The current was favorable as Kite left St. Augustine, and she motored south at about 6 knots in the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW). Peter was at the helm in the morning and he remarked at how the favorable current continued longer that he had expected it to, as Kite passed through the Matanzas inlet area. In fact, looking back on the entire passage to Daytona Beach from St. Augustine, the current was either favorable or neutral for the whole trip - a first for us!

The weather forecast called for morning showers and gradual clearing with NW winds. It was certainly cloudy for most of the morning, but we encountered no showers. The winds were actually SW most of the day, but occasionally alternated between SE and SW as we neared Daytona. We were motoring all day so the wind direction was only a curiosity, and had no bearing on our trip. Temperatures were in the 70s, but felt colder with SE winds coming from the ocean.

Naturally, we monitored Kite's engine temperature carefully throughout the duration of today's passage, and it was stable at 160º-170ºF. Peter had estimated that today's 50 mile trip to Halifax Harbor Marina would take up to 10 hours to complete. With the favorable currents Kite encountered, she actually completed the trip in under 8 hours, arriving a bit before 16:00! Peter and Lyn actually had time to take their showers before Ringle arrived at 17:30.

After the engine cooled down, Peter checked the coolant level to verify that it was OK, and was disappointed to find that it had gone down quite a lot. Clearly there was a leak somewhere in the cooling system that left no trace of fluid behind. The only two possibilities seemed to be the heat exchanger or the hot water heater. After discussing the situation with Ringle, we decided to find an expert here in Daytona and try to find the leak and fix it before continuing south. Ringle would continue and Kite would keep her apprised of Kite's status. If possible, Kite would continue south after fixing the problem and rejoin Ringle.