2010 Log
5/16 to 5/31/2010
This is a portion of our log for 2010. At the bottom of the page are links to this year's pass weeks; our earlier voyages are in Prior Voyages.
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Updated on 06/06/2010
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5/16/10 - Another warm sunny day, though rain is forecast. I did a few tasks on the boat before helping Bradd test headsets. Ruth and I decided to try to replace the Raymarine corepack and she make an online purchase based on delivery date. Tomorrow we will find out if she was successful. Not an expense we expected or budgeted for this year. Ouch! Bradd joined us for a Kirkland lasagna from Costco tonight... it was great! Buddy thought it was fantastic that Bradd was aboard! 5/17/10 - The weather forecast for this week includes a high probability of t-storms every day. We'll likely leave anyway as we have to be north of Morehead City by June 1. We've a few more tasks to complete before we leave; the biggest being the autopilot. All our attempts to find a replacement Corepack for our Raymarine autopilot have failed. It appears we will be without a pilot until August. Arrgghhh! Ruth and I helped Bradd test headsets this afternoon. Every unit they sell is tested by them before shipment (they are also tested at the mfr before shipment to Bradd & Maeve). Its a lot of work for them but they want to avoid customer inconvenience. After 77 days of not smoking Ruth started again last night. I think she's stressed at having to replace the autopilot and not being home with the grandchildren for the summer. 5/18/10 - Another typical Florida day, sunny and hot in the morning, clouds by mid-afternoon and thunderstorms followed by a humid evening. Ruth did some last minute provisioning while I re-bedded the bow pulpit. Then we went to a bank to try to resolve some paperwork, finding that we'd have to open an account to get any help. No can do. Marsha and Rick (Nell's son) had us over for an excellent dinner and an enjoyable evening with the twins. Great fun! 5/19/10 - Grayish humid morning. We helped Bradd test headsets early in the day before turning our attention to a thorough wash-down and cleaning of AA in preparation for departing tomorrow. The old girl still cleans up nice. About 3pm Bradd returned from Fort Lauderdale with his crew, Nathalie and Eric, and our linear actuator. We quickly installed the actuator before joining the crew of Sampatecho for a swim and killer blue cheese burgers. 5/20/10 - Even with an alarm set I kept waking up last night wondering if it was time to depart... argh! At 5am I gave up and got up. Ruth had the coffee maker ready, I just had to turn it on. Good bye pool, good bye air conditioned nights, good bye convenient shopping, we're heading north. We motored and motored sailed all day and night. Sampatecho caught a small Mahi Mahi and lost several fish including a large Wahoo. Ruth caught a Crevalle Jack... not good eating. We had several strikes but no joy. We saw 7 large turtles, they are coming ashore to lay their eggs. We believe we saw Loggerheads based on their size, heads and flippers. The autopilot worked properly all day. Go figure! 5/21/10 - My 3 hour watch ended as dawn was breaking. Ruth took the helm and I hit the sack. We are motoring on relatively flat seas. This is apparently going to be a motoring run. Should be at Tybee Roads (Hilton Head) dawn tomorrow. We ended up motoring and motor sailing all day. Sampatecho was running low on fuel and would likely run out in Tybee Roads so we diverted to Jekyll Island. Enroute we lost a nice little 3' Mahi-Mahi just as we were boarding it. Guess it had to grow up more. Ruth also caught a 12-15 lb Barracuda that stripped the gears out of her reel. Our midnight transit into the long shallow winding south entrance to Jekyll was spiced up by Sampatecho's engine quitting. The rolling seas had apparently foamed the small amount of fuel they had left in their tank. Bradd cleared it proceeded to the ICW where we anchored at 1 am, hitting our berths immediately. 5/22/10 - At 8am we hoisted anchor and motored to the fuel dock. Because we'd been on 3 hour watches since leaving Boca the short sack time at anchor left us both feeling refreshed. Back out the south channel. We bumped bottom three times as did Bradd. I can't believe we got in last night at low tide. Sailed and fished all day. We had a couple of solid strikes but no joy. Bradd caught a Cero and a 40-50 lb Cobia (excellent eating). Enroute Ruth served a delicious lasagna for dinner. Man was it good! It sure doesn't get much better than sitting in the cockpit in one's swim suit in a balmy breeze, sipping on a small glass of wine, having a tasty Italian meal while watching the sun set. Dark found us at the entrance to the Savannah River, Tybee Roads. It took a couple of hours for us to motor in to a safe spot to anchor off the ICW at Hilton Head Island - 11pm. I'm not sure where Bradd developed this habit of sneaking into port late at night; he's really good at it though. Must be part of his Canadian Tourist training. It was eerie sitting in the cockpit with the only sound that of the dolphins blowing as they surfaced around us in the dark. 5/23/10 - A beautiful Hilton Head morning. I had coffee in the cockpit with Ruth around 9 (I was up at 8 after sleeping in). Our coffee maker died again... it just can't take rough seas. I think it is too complex and can't take any shock at all. We headed to Windmill Harbor about 10am and anchored off their facility while we waited for a regatta fleet to lock in. Bradd called to inform us that the wall would be available after 4pm; we decided to stay at anchor. Bradd moved up to the wharf before the lock so his guests could go beaching before we locked in. A little later Windmill announced their lock was out of service. Fortunately we are outside! At 3:30 Windmill had effected repairs that allowed them to start locking boats again with one gate open. The radio was filled with calls as they informed stranded vessels that they could now lock them in or out if they fit thru one gate. Bradd called to note that his guests tickets home from Savannah were so obscene that they are renting a car and he is driving them. About 3 days. He is taking a slip in Windmill and leaving in the morning. We plan on moving north so we are ahead of him and have a couple of days to haul at Bock Marine to replace our worn cutlass bearing. One constant about cruising schedules is that they are always changing. We had a fish dinner on Sampatecho, taking the opportunity to say goodbye to Eric and Nathalie. After dinner we took our dinghy back to where AA was anchored, arriving just as it started to rain. We had a lightning storm the likes of which we hadn't seen in years. Wow! 5/24/10 - Woke at 7am to find we were wrapped in a dense blanket of fog. By 8 the fog got rained away but we still couldn't see through the heavy rain. By 9am it was gray but we were able to run. I hoisted anchor and headed north. We ran thru a series of heavy rain squalls with the wind always on our nose. Good day to be on the ICW. After 50 miles we found a snug spot to anchor and settled in at 5pm. Enough ICW for one day. We celebrated with a steak, green bean and mashed potato dinner. Very nice way to end the day. 5/25/10 - Anchor up at 8am, Ruth slept in while I started us up the ICW. We ran thru sun and rain for another day. About noon we passed through Charleston but continued as we have to get our butts north of Morehead City by the end of the month. Looks like we'll just make it at this rate. We did 61.5 nm today. We are fighting hoards of large swamp flies on steroids. They bite with a steak knife and fork! Ruth took a photo of a couple of hours catch. After Morehead we need to haul at Bock Marine to to touch up our bottom paint and replace the cutlass bearing. Bradd should either catch us or beat us there depending on the weather offshore. The tropical depression we've been tracking petered out - good news. Still it's affecting our weather causing northerly winds and rain bands. For you Aurora fans, she's arrived in Rhode Island. Brad and family sure know how to knock off the miles! We may have inspired him to sail offshore but he's sure shown us how to do it. 5/26/10 - Up at 7am and off to Georgetown. We rolled in at noon, taking on fuel and water before anchoring off their downtown. They have a neat water walk that spans the waterfront downtown. The stores open to the walk on one side and the main street on the other. It is a nice little town, well worth a visit. After lunch at Tony's Cafe, a local's spot, we walked the downtown visiting shops and the Rive Museum. At one time Georgetown supplied most of the rice consumed in the USA. We took a dinghy ride up to the International Paper Mill. Nice to see steam, logs and trucks active at a mill. On our way back Ruth spotted an alligator and took the photo. She used our meager telephoto because I wasn't too keen on getting any closer. I knew we'd had lunch - wasn't sure about the gator. 5/27/10 - Woke to early morning calm. Checking the weather offshore I noted the wind was still on the nose and we were better off on the ICW. Talked to Bradd... he and two Canadian friends were heading down Port Royal Sound to sail (or motor) offshore to Beaufort, NC. They might just beat us. We pulled into Little River and anchored for the night. The Sunset pontoon bridge was temporarily closed due to low tide and we'd runabout 55 miles. 5/28/10 - Gray morning and still. It would be 10am before we could pass through the Sunset Pontoon bridge so we left via the Little River Inlet... mistake! I overlooked the fact that our course backtracked us 20 miles even though our offshore run would be 20 miles shorter then the ICW. A better game would have been to stay in the ditch to Wrightsville Beach, then jump out. That said we had a fast though rough ride to Beaufort, NC. I had to slow the boat to 5 knots the last 3 hours so we'd hit the inlet after dawn. I try always to hit inlets on inflowing tide in daylight. 5/29/10 - We entered the Beaufort inlet at 7am, anchoring just past the Coast Guard station to let me clean up the boat after our passage and give Ruth a chance to catch a few z's (I slept like a log during my 3 hour off watches whereas Ruth was having problems falling asleep). A pod of dolphins came over to see what we were up to or perhaps welcome us to Beaufort. We are now above the June 1 line mandated by our insurance. We stayed anchored by the Coasties all day. I did a few small maintenance chores on AA and we both worked on short naps to get off our watch pattern of sleep. Sampatecho had forecast a midnight arrival but surprised us by anchoring nearby at 8:30pm. They had a fast run from Southport taking the ICW to Wrightsville Beach and the ocean from there to Beaufort. Movie night tonight, Righteous Kill with Al P and Robert D. Great flick. 5/30/10 - Another beautiful morning. After a smooth night all the sport fishermen headed to sea with the rising sun making our anchorage about as comfortable as the agitate cycle in a washing machine. They ran by in a constant stream until after 8am. Interesting day, during the morning we witnessed two engine fires on two nearby boats within a two hour span. Fortunately both were extinguished quickly with little damage and no injuries. Fire on a boat is a scary event! We responded to the second fire, standing by in case people had to abandon the vessel. TowBoatUS responded quickly (5-10 minutes) to find that the fire system on the trawler had the fire out already. We stopped at Bock Marine on Core Creek as we have a Tuesday haul out scheduled while Bradd drives his crew to Canada and picks up another. Anchoring did not work, the tide and strong wind kept forcing the rudder into shallow water along the shore. We finally took a slip rather than run 7 miles to a spot where we could anchor. We were guests for supper on Sampatecho, giving us a chance to meet Daniel and Richard, Bradd's departing crew. Great meal and good fun! Val and Sue joined the group later in the evening. We hadn't seen Val since our last haul-out. He's hoping to be ready to launch in October. 5/31/10 - Memorial Day; at dawn Bradd and crew headed for Canada. We took a down day, reading and relaxing at the dock. The boat traffic past our slip was unbelievable. |
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On the run to Hilton Head Ruth noticed we had a hitchhiker
This Crevalle Jack Ruth caught fought like a log. Unfortunately they are reputedly poor eating.
Eric enjoying his sailing
Nathalie joined Eric on the bow
I think they are enjoying the ride!
There is a little shipyard along the ICW that is always a surprise
Barges and tugs seem to be their specialty
They seem to run their own fleet of red/white tugs
Though occasionally they have special jobs like this crane
or this coastal freighter.
I guess fishing is out of the question? So now what do we do for the next 6 hours?
Must have been a mind lapse? Aground in the Charleston harbor.
One hour's worth of flies... oh goody! Gives new meaning to the term "fly bridge". Guess it's time to finish the screens.
Buddy enjoys popcorn on movie nites
Georgetown has a great historic downtown with cool buildings like this one
One of dozens of flower boxes along the water walk
Sighted sited by our anchorage; see you later...
We got an immediate bridge opening at Little River thanks to the tug Royal Engineer on our tail
Like threading a needle... he made it look easy
Below the bridge we ran into a water lice infestation |
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