"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
After spending a week in Key West helping to officiate a major
sailing regatta, we decided to head out into the boondocks for some
real cruising. Last year that meant a trip to the Dry Tortugas and
Fort Jefferson, passing a place called the Marquesas Keys on the
return trip, 20 miles west of Key West. The Marquesas look
interesting on the charts, almost like a Pacific atoll with small
islands surrounding a lagoon in the middle called Mooney Harbor.
Unfortunately the charts aren't very encouraging for entering the
harbor with lots of skinny water much in evidence, some as shallow as
3 feet which would leave our trawler high and dry. Google Earth
looked more interesting. Where the charts showed 3 feet, GE pictured
what appeared to be a deep water cut into Mooney Harbor with some
shoaling in evidence at the entrance. Talking to locals at our final
party in Key West, we met someone who claimed that our 5 1/2 feet of
draft should be doable at mid-tide if we were careful.

Since the charts were of no help, and there are no aids to navigation,
I decided to try and derive some way points from Google Earth similar
to the following:

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3...pproachbu7.jpg

My original position for "Marquesa 2" was about 300 feet to the east
from where it ended up. Arriving there we immediately started running
out of water, almost running aground. We decided to back off,
anchor, and survey the entrance with the dinghy. While anchoring we
observed several good sized crab boats attempt the entrance, some
successfully, some not. After carefully watching the boats that made
it in on the first try, it looked like the best water was further
left, later confirmed by the dinghy's depth sounder. We adjusted way
points and followed that track with our Grand Banks 49, making it in
on the first attempt without bumping the keel. We proceeded north in
deep water and anchored for the night uneventfully, miles from the
nearest civilization and with a dark star filled sky.

Sunday we set out in the dinghy to explore the sand flats surrounding
Mooney harbor and do a little beach combing on the outer keys. The
flats abounded with small minnows being chased by good sized bone
fish. No fishing tackle with us unfortunately. Heading back from
the beaches that afternoon the dinghy engine sputtered and died about
2 miles from the mother ship. Switching fuel tanks and the usual
incantations to the god of dead engines all failed resulting in a 3
hour row against wind and current - good exercise but not much fun.
Several attempts to walk the dinghy along the shallows resulted in the
discovery of something resembling quick sand. It looked like a
normal sand bottom but within seconds I'd be up to my knees in soft
mud that didn't want to let go. Rowing looked good after a couple of
experiences with that.

Monday, back at Key West, I tackled the dinghy engine. Unfortunately
Honda in their infinite wisdom makes it necessary to disassemble the
starboard side engine cowling in order to access the fuel filter and
carburetor, requiring about 15 minutes of extra work before you can
start trouble shooting. It quickly became clear that the engine had
sucked in some dirty fuel and water. I cleared the filter,
disconnected the fuel intake at the carburetor and pumped the primer
bulb until nothing but clean fuel was visible. I also removed the
drain screw from the bottom of the carburetor bowl but nothing came
out which was a puzzlement. Re-assembling everything and popping the
dinghy back in the water revealed that nothing had changed - the Honda
was still no go. I pulled it out again, repeated the entire
procedure, found a bit more water, re-assembled and relaunched one
more time. It was still no go and I came to the unfortunate
conclusion that I would have to tackle the carburetor and find out why
the bowl was not draining. Not having a shop manual, and not being
experienced with Honda outboards, I proceeded slowly and carefully,
removing what had to be removed to free up the carb. I finally got it
off and carefully removed the bowl. The float seemed to be operating
freely so I hooked up the fuel intake and pressurized the primer bulb.
Working the float by hand, everything seemed normal with fuel flowing
when the float was down, and stopping with the float up. Looking at
the drain in the bottom of the bowl it looked like crud had formed so
I cleaned that out and re-assembled everything one more time and
relaunched the dinghy. Something had worked and it started right up
and ran fine. It's still not entirely clear to me what did the trick
but alls well that ends well.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy and install a good sized external fuel
filter and mount it on the inside of the transom next to the engine.

Sounds like a great trip. I spent a couple days in Dry Tortugas in '95 or
'96 working a shrimp boat that had busted her garboards coming in wrong and
had to be run up on Bush Key to keep it from sinking. Park Rangers didn't
trust the boats and thier own pumps to keep it from sinking. Boat crew had
left before we got there.
I went with CSA diving and onboard one of Mobey Marines work boats out of
the Miami River.
We pumped the tanks, burped the oil out of the engines and removed all the
floating debris to keep the env impact down. Parks Service and USCG were
fighting over who had to pay to have removed when we left.
Fun, if too short, job.