The Adventure Continues

 Sunday night we could see a McDonalds from our anchorage.  We had been craving it since we got to Kure Beach so we hoped in our dinghy and ordered 5 burgers and ten chicken nuggets!  Our dinghy is pretty easy to deploy and use now that we have the dinghy davits and the engine is mounted.  So much nicer than lifting it on and off the deck.

Sunday night I also fixed our engine problems.  Here you can see the leak at our stuffing box.  It was pretty steady, now it only drips slightly which is normal.  I was also able to replace one of the four driveshaft bolts as ofcourse the other three I got at a different hardware store were the wrong size.

We awoke Monday and it was pouring raining.  We still felt like we could use some more rest so we layed in bed all day.  One day of no work, errands, or tasks.  Just relaxing!

Tuesday we were up bright and early and continued on our journey.  We made it to South Carolina!  We anchored in New River just pass the state border.  So close that when we dinghy up the river to Calabash, we were back in North Carolina.  Here are some pics along the way. As you can see Christine discovered the black and white setting. 

Coming down the Cape Fear River we really got moving.  The current was in our favor and we broke all speed records.  We normally cruise between 6 and 8 mph, here you can see we were in the tens!

After we anchored we decided to explore the near by town of Calabash.  It was basically and mall of seafood restaurants, most were closed.  We did find a fast food type seafood joint called the Seafood Shack and got a styrofoam cup full of shrimp for $5 as a shrimp cocktail. Yum

On the dinghy ride back it was dark and we saw the lights of a huge boat coming our way down the ICW.  We a little frightened that it was gonna turn down our anchorage and take us out so we hit full throttle to get back to the boat.  Our boats anchor light was on and we carry and bright stern light on the dinghy as well but we still wanted to get home fast.   Luckily it kept going down the ICW and away from us.  In the morning we saw it parked, it was a casino boat!

It rained again Wednesday morning so we slept in a little before starting the day. The day warmed up and we were finally feeling like we were down south.  We both took off our winter coats with a huge smile!

Wednesday we made it to Georgetown, SC.  There is a near by papermill that was workin hard.

Georgetown by moonlight

We went into town to again find most shops closed.  We decided to take advantage of the dollar beer night at Buzzs Roost.  It was the first cold beer we had in 2011 and justifiably priced!  We played a bar game they had on the tvs that was pretty fun.  It was a live trivia game and we had game pad and played against other bar patrons here and at other bars. We guessed a lot but ended up getting the high score for the month of January, I just missed getting a pic of our name as the top score on the bar tv.

The rest of the town had a lot of signs about how it was built in the 1700s.

Thursday was really boring.  We went through mostly man made canals that were 9 feet deep with 50 feet on each side of us.  It was sunny so we hung some clothes out to dry.  And we made some french fries. Exciting!

The tide is so low that it doesn’t even reach the piers.

We anchored just out side of Charleston in a little creek before the Ben Sawyer bridge.  While in the cockpit at night I heard and sorta saw an aligator!  It made snarling sneeze noise and I could see its mass and then it went under water.  Almost like a whale would do.  It was about 20 feet on the side of our boat! It did it again even longer the second time but I couldn’t see it well.  I quickly grabbed the cats that were hanging off the side looking at the water and locked them inside and grabbed the spot light.  I waited for the gator to return but it never did.  It was a lil creepy.

It was between our boat and the bushes.

We are at Mile Marker 461 out of 1090.  Including the Chesapeake Bay we are about half way there!

Rested and Ready to Go

Today we are taking our clean laundry and clean selves back to the boat and getting ready to continue on our journey.  I have to replace the bolts on the drive shaft and then we will leave early Monday morning.

I calculated 13 more days of travel.  One more in NC, four days in SC, two days in GA, and six days in FL till we reach our Palm Bay house to rest again.

Uncle Ray and Aunt Denise

It has been a good time here at the beach house.  We got to spend some quality time with all of our North Carolina family.  We walked the beach and collected sea shells, and even found a whole starfish!  We can't wait to find our first full conch shell.

Awesome new cruising couple/ band

I found this great band Tennis this morning on the front page of Itunes, they had a free song to download called Marathon, and while previewing it, I got to read their bio, they are a young cruising couple, and this song is even cruising related! What is not to love?! 

 

Snowed In and Resting Up

We finally left our cozy free dock in Oriental Sunday morning.  We made it to a military basin in Camp Lejune where we anchored.  Along the way our engine started making funny noises so I went down below to check on it but found no major problems.  As we entered our anchorage we were practically limping and the engine was making a knocking noise in low rpms.

We knew it was inevitable that I would be making repairs again one day and that day had come.  After I emptied the cockpit locker and took a closer look behind the engine I noticed some bolts lying in the oil pan.  Thats never good. Turns out three of the four bolts that hold our drive shaft coupling together to spin the prop had fallen out.  One lone bolt remained spinning our prop. I put the bolts back in tight and made a note to replace them.

Nooooo!!!! Not back to the hole!

However there was also a steady leak at the stuffing box of our prop!  The stuffing box is just bolts and wax around our prop to keep the water from coming in the boat.  The vibrations from a wobbly drive shaft had unpacked the stuffing box.  It was enough water coming in that the bilge pump was turning on about every 5 minutes.  It wasn't too worrisome though because I had learned how to stop this leak before. So after some tightening and repacking of the stuffing box I got the leak to stop.  I made a note to repack the stuffing box with new wax when we got to port.

The next morning (Monday) after we checked the prop and drive shaft to make sure it was all running fine we set off on our way to Kure Beach!  Christines Grandpa and Granny Kay have a beach house there where we plan to spend the week with them recuperating.   But that was not in our cards Monday...

As we left our anchorage Monday morning the snow began to fall.  Christine moved to the bow of the boat to provide a better view but the snow just kept coming and the fog got worse.  Soon we had almost no visibility and we had to pull over.  We tied up to a near by marina to wait out the snow.  After tying off once a US Army boat pulled up and told us to move and retie up behind them.  Another sailboat had already tied up and we were forced to squeeze in between the two boats in the snow.  We were less than graceful and ran aground three times, once into the other sailboat and into the dock but soon we were snuggly tied up and secure.  It snowed most of the rest of the day so we gave up trying to go anywhere and made friends with the other sailors and played in the snow.

Eying up the tight dock space behind the Army vessel

We squeezed in

We tried to write Bright Eyes in the snow

Snowy the Snowman

Tuesday we had much better weather and followed Celtic River (the other sailboat) for most of the day.  It was the first day in our journey that we had company along the way.  We had to time a few bridges that only opened on the hour but were soon anchored in Carolina Beach dreaming of the beach house.

Other pretty beach houses along the way

We threw out two anchors for the first time ever because of the surrounding shoal and near by anchored boat and because we would be leaving the boat for the next 6 days.  We didn't really know how to deploy the stern anchor but after a few attempts we were able to swing the boat against the current and toss the second anchor over.  It held pretty good and we moved on to preparing the dinghy for departure.


We left the cats aboard the first night and crammed the dinghy with dirty laundry and other necessities.  The dinghy ride in was bumpy, wet and cold so we tied off to the closest empty dock.  When we got there we found that one of our "water proof bags" had came open and my laptop was now soaked.  It was heartbreaking but we continued on and were soon picked up and in a warm cozy house with Grandpa and Granny Kay.

These pics are from the next day, we actually pulled up in the dark and much wetter.

While we are here at the house we will be recharging.  We ran around town finding the bolts and stuffing box packaging.  We will do our laundry and rest our bodies.  And we went to Best Buy and got me a new laptop!   In choosing a new laptop I opted for the better battery life over the faster processor which was the better cruisers choice.

The second day we went back to the boat and brought our cats to the beach house.  It was quite the event stuffing them into a box and a bag but we made it.  Now they are running around wild enjoying all the extra space!