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Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2023 23:0:00 GMT
Anchored in Georgia
Good Day Great Dinner!This morning we left Brunswick at 06:30am local and started motoring up the ICW in light rain. We saw more boats that last time. We passed a passenger ferry, a Catamaran, a 1930's river boat, a Swedish cargo ship and the coast guard. After we got organized we started live streaming to youtube as Sam repacked the lazzeretts. That took about a hour and a half. The day was cloudy, pleasently cool and, it was smooth motoring. We anchored in Wahoo creek and Hannah made roasted vegies, salad, and salmon patties and brownies. The anchorage has good depth, plenty of room and is calm and not rolly. Now it's time for the brownies. It's so peaceful here. Tomorrow we leave at 06:30 again.
Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2023 12:02:00 GMT
Savannah
Repairs underway , of courseYesterday we motored till just south of Savannah and anachored on the Herb river. It was a beautiful community lined with nice homes. Of course around 10:30 the throttle lever sheered off the cheep screw that held it on to the shaft on the binacle. So I gave the wheel to Hannah and I had to drill out the 1/2 of the sheered bolt and put another bolt in it temporaraly. I'll ha ve to re-tap it later. It was completely coroded in there and would not come out so I had to drill the entire thing. We had a wonderful day on the rivers and then upon anchoring the anchor foot switch failed. So we spent the evening building a new system that will work till we get to the yard. It is a hand switch with a cable. During that process I dropped hot solder between my toes so I have three blisters between my third and fourth toes on my left foot. This morning we got up at 05:30 and were underway at first light. We are going through Savannah now en-route to Beaufort SC. We passed Thunderbolt marine and the Hinckley boat yard as well. Once again lots of beautiful homes along the river bank.
Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2023 23:00:00 GMT
Beaufort
More Repairs and a quiet anchorageWe made really good time today and made Beaufort, SC by 15:30 local. We bought 30 gal of fuel at Hilton Head Marina on the ICW. They were under staffed and the dock hands were very inexperienced. The dock was wood with no rubber and they wouldn't even lift a foot to push us off the dock when we arrived. They did have a few lame bumpers on the dock but two of them were completely deflated. We ended up with some dock rash worse than from the Hurricane. They will only give you water if you buy more than 50Gal of fuel and otherwise charge $10 flat fee. We only needed 25 gal or so that was a little too much. They also wanted $10 to put one small kitchen bag of trash. We will not be going back.
The anchorage we are at now is Factory Creek. It is very quiet but very narrow. The holding is not particulary good and the approach is shallow and I wouldn't attempt it at low tide. After you get in a ways it deepens up to 14 feet or so beyond the marina. There is a bridge to go through before the creek. As soon as you get through the bridge (channel 9) you turn starboard and follow the bridge till you see the creek.
When we anchored we tightened up the stuffing box. It was dripping about 2 times a second and we were emptying the bilge every hour or so. We also put on the chain to the centerboard that broke last week so that when we go off shore we will have our centerboard. Now it's about 6:38 local pm and Hannah is off to Publix for food. The boat is quiet and it's a beautiful evening.
The ICW from Savannah To here is easy and has plenty of depth. It was a beautiful trip with tons of seenery. We made a loop around an Aligator that we found swimming in the river. He was pretty cool! There were so many boats on the water today with the holiday and everyone waved and said kind things about our boat! It was a lot of fun. Sam spent a lot of time on the wheel and we also did a lot of testing and comparing C-Maps vs Navionics. We also played with setting up routes and let the auto pilot run them. It worked great. With the engine running the batteries were well charged when we arrived and we did not need to run the generator to charge anything. Oh... the handheld Cobra vhf radio decided to die. it's only a year and a half old but the battery simply died. So we are using the Baofeng's as backup programmed for marine frequencies. I need to get a remote hand set for the icom installed.
Oh, we are planning off shore from here. The winds will be good tomorrow and the seas easy so the plan is to go offshore to Charleston and perhaps beyond.
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2023 22:55:00 GMT
Church Creek
Another beautiful day on the waterThis morning we got up once again and left at sunrise. We motored till 15:30 and anchored in Church Creek just south of Charleston. It was a clear blue sky day with no clouds and hot. The water was calm. We say more dolphins, white birds, 2 bald eagles, and lots of marsh grass. It's yellow green marsh grass, green trees blue sky and a reflection of blue sky on the brown water.
We had home made bread and sandwiches for lunch and Hannah is making seasoned mexican rice for dinner with corn and other stuff that smells good, not sure what...
The bilge had only a small amount of water in it so we arn't dripping 2 drips per second any more. There is a little coming out of the breather I think but not much. We are running the engine hard 10 hours a day. We made it through 2 shallow areas at high tide and only bumped lightly one time. So we are preparing for off shore tomorrow or the next day for a run from Charleston to Beaufort, NC. We did this run for the first time 22 years and 11 months ago. Tomorrow we are going past buzzards roost where we started our boating adventures! I wanted to bring my Buzzards roost hat but I couldn't find it. It will be fun to see.
Date:Tues, 5 Sep 2023 17:13:00 GMT
Charleston
Anchored across from City MarinaWe departed the anchorage at Church Creek at 06:30 and arrived and anchored across from City Marina about 11:00. It was a short run and an easy morning. We were against the current most of the way but we made the 10:30 Bridge opening at Wapo Creek. Sam live streamed on youtube about 25% of our sail and the bridge crossing to anchoring.
We are looking at the weather for the next few days to make a 48 hour run to Beaufort. It looks like waves are 3 feet or less and winds are 10-15 knots on either a run or a broad reach. It might be a little longer to get there as winds will not really pick up till Friday. Still there are no storms and it should be a pretty easy sail.
The rest of the day today will be spent preparing the boat for off shore. It should not be much work as we are mostly ready. There was just something stuck on my left shift key on the computer. I just got it out with a knife... not sure what it was but it's gone now. Anyway, the next post should be off shore!
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2023 23:00:00 GMT
Leaving Charleston
Deja Vu23 years ago we were leaving Charleston heading North for our first off shore sail. We left at night heading for Beaufort and ran into a storm. After the storm we got caught in the surf around Myrtle Beach and nearly ran aground. Then we got in another storm around Frying pan shoals, so by the time we got to Beaufort we were really beat. And what was going to be just 48 hours turned out to be 72 hours. But today we left at sunrise and headed out with the tide.
Winds were 14g20 out of the SE so we were on a broad reach. Sam and I decided to try the spinnaker pole to pole out the Genoa. We tried this on the journey south but the lifting harness for the pole broke so we never got it going. That was one of the things we fixed. So This was the best opportunity to try it. So we put the wire halyard on the lifting harness and the spare halyard on the jaw end. We lifted it up on the rocking deck and got it on the Genoa much easier than we thought. It does want to swing around however, and I'm sure it would have made a good video if there had been a way to film our escapade. Every time the boat heels or rocks the pole which is pretty heavy swings around and hits anything in it's path. Once we got the jaws on the line (jaw down) we put other end in the cup and we were off and running! Wing and wing poled out is amazing. We stayed on this rig all the way to Cape Fear. One time during the night I needed to jibe so I made sure that I put the wind off the port side instead of the starboard and jibed the main but left the Genoa poled out to the starboard. It worked fine. Then when I jibed back we were back on wing and wing again.
When we got to Cape fear in the morning the winds died and unable to keep the sails filled in only 5 knots of wind we took everything down and motored the last hour to the inlet.
at about 2116Z with clear skies we heard a huge boom. We think it was a sonic boom and there are black biting flies out here even miles and miles off shore.
Date: Fri, 7-8 Sep 2023 10:09:00 GMT
Blackbeards
We made it!Well we survived Idalia but the trip north was long on the ICW...
So today we spent the day trying to get the truck started and ended up needing to buy two new batteries. We did manage to start our car with a jump but I'm pretty sure the battery is toasted as well. It's good to be back at Blackbeards but at the same time we miss the blue water.
Ha ha I guess I successfully predicted the future! I didn't manage to get the car started yet but I am going to try to jump it tomorrow.
In the Morning we motored into the Cape Fear inlet and took the ICW to wrightsville beach. Our Friends, Annamaashi pealed off to a marina for a rest and to do some repairs. We continued to Wrightsville beach and anchored to get our heads together and get ready for the next leg. We stayed there for an our around 1600 and had a sandwich. Wrightsville beach is a wonderful anchorage and I'd recommend it highly for a quick stop off heading either direction. This route was recommended to us by some friends as a way to avoid Frying Pan Shoals. It is a viable alternative. In our case the wind died and didn't pick up again until about 17:00 so motoring through the ICW at 6 knots saved us a lot of time that we would have lost becalmed around the shoals.
As we pulled out of the anchorage the winds had picked up to 20knots and we were able to get 5-6 knots Jib and Jigger so we did that. It was a quiet with seas about 1-2 feet and later in the night the winds dropped down to 9-10 knots. It maintained out to the starboard the entire way to Beaufort. Sam took the first shift at 20:00 to midnight and I did midnight to morning. I asked him to do 5 and give me another hour but I could not sleep so I came out anyway. Sam spent the rest of the night sleeping on deck beside me. The stars were really beautiful and we could see the milky way so clearly that we could see the black dust clouds that block the galactic center. I got out the Sextant and took a sighting of the north star. My reading was about 1.2 minutes off. It was so hard to distinguish exactly the horizon, but also by the time I got downstairs and got a reading from the GPS we had moved farther north. Between the two I had us about a mile off. Let me tell you if you're offshore 1 mile is not significant unless you miss the island! I used a sextant 23 years ago becuase we didn't have GPS and I can't tell you how amazed and happy I was when we found Puerto Rico! After over 10 days at sea and 600 miles off shore. But it's been a long time since I had to take a sighting from a rocking boat!
At about 2-3 am I started seeing lightning on the horizon and it was moving along with us at about 20 miles out. It was not visible unless the lightning was striking so I kept looking at the darkness building an image in my head from each lightning srike. I was getting worried becuase it was moving along with us but growing towards us. Finally at about 5am it passed far enough in front that it could expand into the area ahead of us and by the time we got there is had moved.
We came to the Beaufort inlet at about 06:00 just at first light so we struck the sails and started the engine. We left the mizzen up to buffer the rolling because we had also taken up the centerboard. The tide was coming in and the wind was at our back as we entered the inlet. The breakers started forming. We had 6-7 foot swells with some breakers and about a 5 second period. It was very spicy. When the power boats would come by jumping from wave to wave it left a terrible wake crosswise to the swells and it was pretty, well, frankly, dangerous. We had to fight this for about an hour.
We didn't stop for much but did a little video tour through Tayler Creek anchorage and then went along the ICW to the Neuse river. In the Neuse we found tons of dead fish floating and stinking. It's terrible. I guess there's too much nitrogen or not enough O2 for them or something. We motored to Blackbeards and Connie was there to help us dock. It is good to see old friends again for happy hour here and tomorrow I'll start working on the car.
The first thing we did when we arrived was to take showers and now I'm writing this blog from the Blackbeards club house while Connie and Hannah are cooking something good for everyone. We are here at the dock for a week before hauling out and Zimmerman's next week.
We are worried about hurricane Lee that is out in the Atlantic building to a cat 4-5. And just like 23 years ago we are running north from a Hurricane. last time the outer bands were chasing us all the way to the Chesapeake and we had to weather a couple severe thunderstorms in the rivers of the ICW heading out from Beaufort, but we made it to Soloman's island where my youngest daughter was born there. We dragged twice on the way north, once in Beaufort with 40-50 mph winds and again in the Neuse with even more. We stayed in the outer bands just on the edge of the storm till it finally moved off shore. I am not not not hoping for a repeat of 23 years ago. They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat! Peace everyone! The videos are coming! please like and subscribe to our youtube, and our patreon channels! The links are on the front page of the web site on the left hand side or on the links page. Cao for now folks!
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2023 12:21:00 GMT
Blackbeards 2
Getting organized and re-aquainted with old friendsWe've been here for almost a week now. We spent the first couple days getting re-aquainted with old friends and so the weekend was packed with story telling and shared meals at the club house. It's good to be back home and we love it here. It's the most amazing yacht club. Quiet mornings almost as good as being at anchor with birds and dew and fog in the mornings. Our friends were all interested in our stories and where we'd been for so long. It was a weekend of good wine, good friends and good food!
On Monday we got a battery for the car and on tuesday after multiple attempts to revive the old truck batteries we had to buy two new truck batteries as well. The Air-conditioning obviously had a leak because the truck wouldn't cool so we took it to Diversified and they fixed it over night.
Tuesday and Wednesday Sam worked a lot on video's from the 4 legs of our journey north and filled the water and fuel tanks. We also tightened up the alternator belts and cleaned out the bilge. I think I'm burning a little oil because after 80-90 hours I'm about a quart low. I'm not saying I'm surprised but it's not excessive. The next rebuild will be the bottom half. I also need to wrap the top of the exhaust elbow in heat shielding so the floor does not get as hot.
Today we will be movning the boat down river a bit to be ready for Friday morning. The winds are supposed to pick up as Hurricane Lee approaches but all forecasts have it moving north off shore and just clipping the outter banks with 30-40 knots on the outer edge. We are moving the boat to oriental for the weekend so I can prep the boat and then Monday we will haul it and get to work. I think I'm going to shorten the to do list so that we can get everything done in a week as the hotel is booked solid for fisherman next weekend. For now we're getting ready to go into the yard and have a few things looked at and get some bottom paint done.
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2023 02:01:00 GMT
Zimmermans
Back in Oriental!!!Hi everyone, We're back in oriental at Zimmermans to get bottom paint, check the cutlass bearing and shaft alignment, and perhaps the centerboard. We have a large list but we might cut it short to only the most important stuff.
We left Blackbeards after coffee at about 7:30 and motored about 4 1/2 hours into the wind to Zimmermans in oriental. We ate breakfast of oats and apples underway. It was a windy day with NE winds at 20g25 and 2 foot chop on the Neuse river. We made about 4 1/2 to 5 knots most of the way. Alone the way we re-calibrated the compass. When we docked they put us on what they call the crash dock which is the outermost dock at Zimmermans. Docking went uneventful! ( Gosh I hate docking !!!)
After we got settled in Hannah and I drove to blackbeards to pick up the truck (we moved the car to zimmermans yesterday) and washed the truck along the way.
When we got back to Oriental we took Sam and Wanda with us and went to the Bean for icecream but while we were there we met Brad who we knew from before, and a couple new friends that came over from Blackbeards and docked at the marina across the street so we stayed out till about 16:30 when we hurried back to work on the boat.
Sam and I took out everything from the starboard lazzerette and then I tightened up the stuffing box on the Rudder post (about 1/2 turn) cleaned off the corosion and freed up the aft cockpit drains. I was very supprised to find that they moved smoothly. They are in a very difficult place to reach because of the rudder arm and hydraulics etc. The Stuffing box was equally difficult because it is surrounded by 300 feet of aft chain. But we got it done. Then Sam poured in 10 more gallons of diesel that we brought back.
We are trying to film more and tell more stories so we filmed most of the evening. So tonight we are having hot dogs and sourkraut with chili. It's ready no so it's time to sign off! It was a good day and we got a lot accomplished! We want to do as much as we can while we are in the yard. nite nite
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2023 01:45:00 GMT
Farmers Market
And the work beginsSam and I spent most of the afternoon working on two through hull sea cocks. There's a very large seacock under the galley sink on the port hull just above the water line that we have tried before to loosen up. We had to literally crawl into the locker feet first crouch under the counter and work on the seacock there. The back side of the fitting is against a bulkhead and is not accessable for using a pully puller. So we loosened everything we could and put Kroil penetrating oil on it and let it sit for about 5 hours. We took the little oil plug out and filled it with oil 3 or 4 times then put a big wrench on it and hit it with a rubber mallet and it came free! I was so excited. That was the one I though I was going to have to cut out to free up. I don't think there are any others I won't be able to free up now. Then we can just remove and grease them all and put them back together. Man, I love bronze! it's an amazing metal! I like things that are built to last. I don't care if it's old. It's better!
in the morning we went to the farmers market with Annimaashi and the little french bakery in Beaufort. We talked to the Park service stand at the farmers market about the horses and they told us they were being kicked out of the old post office and will not be able to give tours of the island or Cape Lookout any more. Thats really quite sad. For various reasons of similar ilk I'm not sure that Beaufort will continue to be such a wonderful place for cruisers to visit. None the less we had fun at the market. Mom had and Apple Turnover, I had an orange cranberry scone and then we ate burritoes. It was fun to spend some time off the boat with our friends and re-acquainted with the area.
They then moved their boat from Taylor Creek to Oriental and got a slip right next to our friends on Covenant! So we spent the evening at the marina.
After blowing the Conche shell at sunset we came back and Sam and I were able to free up the seacock after it had set for 5 hours or so. And now Hannah is making grilled cheese and Tomato soup after we put her galley back together.
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 23:28:00 GMT
Haul Out
Cutlass BearingToday we hauled the boat out and started working. The first thing we noticed was that the centerboard was a little low. When we put the chain in the adjustment was just a little bit off. So I had to lift it with the manual wrench about 6 inches. We had to loosen the head stay to get it on the travel lift. This required loosening the backstay to relieve pressure and then pulling the pin on the roller furling. We also had to let the Genoa down to relieve weight on the front.
After the boat was put on stands Sam and I started working on taking the shaft and propeller apart so that we can replace the cutless bearing. This took most of the afternoon. First we broke loose the nuts and the propeller on the tapered shaft, then we seperated the halves of the shaft and then finally we removed the stuffing box so that we can press out the shaft tube and bearing. After we get that out then we can pull the shaft. Hopefully we will do that tomorrow.
We also heard from the yard that we will be here more than a week but the hotel is booked solid for the weekend so I'm not sure where we will stay friday and saturday night. Also the hotel is only paid till the end of the week.
Pete also came by to look at our through hulls for the knot log and the depth sounder. Also we are putting in a new hand held mike as an extension for the icom VHF radio.
I was suprised how much ablative paint was left on the boat after 3 years. We will have to either sand it off or blast it off before we can put down new hard paint. We have decided on the dark red trinidad hard paint. I'm back at the hotel now and will start again in the morning. I think we will start with the through hulls tomorrow morning. good night folks
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2023 02:32:00 GMT
Cutlass Bearing
Spent the day in the yard.Hi, Sam and I spent the day in the yard working on the cutlass bearing and the seacocks. We pulled the propeller and pushed out the shaft tube/stern tube. Then we pulled the prop shaft. That was a bear. Putting it back in was harder than getting it out. Sam will do a video of as much of the process as possible. The prop will just barely come off and only if you tip it and twist it the right way. It's like a puzzle. Then the same with the shaft. We had to push out the shaft tube to allow enough tipping of the shaft to pass it below the forward shaft and down through the bilge then up by the grey water tank. We also used the time to bead blast the stuffing box and tube and repack everything. That took most of the day for sam and I, but in between times we managed to free up the forward seacock in the vberth and disassemble the two forward cockpit drains.
A bit about these bronze seacocks. I love them. That being said, especially if they have not been excersized they will freeze up. Getting them free can be a real chore but here are two methods that have worked for me without fail. 1st: Use a pully puller. Put the fingers on the back of the housing and press the center on the narrow end of the barrel. This will press out the stuck barrel without banging and other terrible methods you see on the internet. Loosen the nuts on the end just a little bit then put pressure on it with the pulley puller until it snaps. It makes a terrible sound that will scare you when it pops but it's a super easy way to free them up. However there are times when the nuts on the narrow end are up against a bulkhead and you can't use a puller. In this case BE PATIENT! Use a good penetrating oil like Kroil and tap on the loosened nuts. Put oil in the small holes on the sides. Put pressure on the handle and tap... do this over and over. After 24-48 hours she'll loosen up. Don't smack it with a 5 pound hammer. Don't put a breaker bar on the square nut. It is not necessary. Be patient. The oil will do it's work and the tapping even if swift and strong will eventually push out the tapered barrel. Don't tap on the threads. Make sure you back the nut off till it's flush with the threads. Two of my most severly frozen seacocks that had not been moved probably since the boat was new came free with this method. They were completely green totally frozen and clogged with barnacles and corosion inside. I tried first to turn them with a 12 inch wrench to no avail, They were frozen solid. I didn't want to break them off or pull out the bolts holding them to the hull. I didn't want to flex or damage the fiberglass. All the abusive impatient methods are dangerous and damaging. Just keep putting oil on everything and keep tapping. She'll come free. BE PATIENT.
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2023 23:48:00 GMT
SeaCocks
Another day in the yardToday Sam and I focused on seacocks. He rebuilt two. I rebuilt two. We took out the barrels, lapped them gently and greased them and put them back together. There was a loose mounting bolt on one of the vberth through hulls so we rebedded a new screw through the forward hull. Also one of the small grease plugs/water drains on the side was stripped so we put a new one in which was available at the chanderly at Zimmermans. I got a couple spares just in case.
I also repaired the throttle handle on the binacle that had sheered off a screw underway. I tried to helicoil it but to do a 1/4 screw requires a 3/8th outer tap and there wasn't enough meat left to do that so I tapped it to 5/16th and put in a screw. I may have to do it again later but it took a couple hours to carefully tap 1 inch through 316 stainless. It's working and solid at the moment.
There is a tropical storm coming Friday and we may have flooding. We have to move out of the Hotel on Saturday and the roads may be flooded. Then there is another Hurricane coming the following week when we are scheduled to be put back in the water. It's slated to make landfall here at Hatterass around the 3rd of October and run up the Chesapeake. We may need to run south as soon as we go back in the water. We're going to keep a close eye on what it does. The tropical storm we have Tommorrow (we can already see storm clouds forming on the horizon) really is like a hurricane trying to form too close to land. We are expecting 40mph winds. I really don't like all the storms but it's the nature of the western Atlantic.
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:24:00 GMT
Tropical Storm
Dark and StormyWe are well, and the storm Friday was strong but not too damaging. It started flooding Friday afternoon and the surge went up to about 4 1/2 feet before it started receeding when the wind changed to out of the south.
Saturday we moved from the hotel to an Airbnb in the area and then Sam and I went to work on the boat. We didn't do too much. It was a light day. We cleaned and oiled tools, did a little work on the galley sink drain and re-organized tools so that I got rid of an entire toolbox. We also cleaned and vaccumed some of the bilge up in the vberth. We did get some water in the boat from the mast and somewhere else as the bilge was full of water.
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 23:50:00 GMT
Yard Work
Plumbing and mast bootsThe last couple days have been plumbing days. We reworked how the galley sink is plummed and moved the output of the drain to the water line instead of below the water line. We also moved the black water pumpout. It was previously going up through the floor and then through a bulkhead under the galley sink. We removed that and ran the entire line under the floor with no cutouts. We also replaced the hose with fresh hose. It does run up through a food locker so we wanted no smells period.
We also worked on the Mast boot and collar. The previous owner put in spartight for the mast wedges but I don't think it was a good pour. The mizzen mast is rocking back and fourth and the main mast is leaking profusely. The only way to really figure it out is to attempt to pull the mast and if it doesn't come out cut it out. I really think it's going to be a big problem. I think I've finally found something worse than 5200. Spartight. I spent 1/2 the day chiseling out enough to get the mast ring off the mizzen. I think I'm going to through bolt it completely through the deck to the underside so that it doesn't move and then put a mast boot on it. For the main which is not moving and is tight, I'm going to try to caulk around the bottom edge of the mast collar and re-bed the screws that hold the collar in place.
Yesterday we pushed out the old log/depth transducer through hull and put in a new one. The original one did not have a flapper valve in it so when you pull it in the water there was quite a geyser. It came out easily. While we were doing that I saw the zinc on the bow thruster was completely gone so I replaced that this morning. Zimmerman's has the most amazing parts room. They have everything!
In the evenings we have been spending time with Annamaashi. Hannah made bread today and 15 bean soup. We just finished dinner and I'm planning tomorrow's work. I think we will be back in the water Thursday.