Kind of a drag

We are on the hard at Deltaville Boatyard in Deltaville, Virginia.  It's been a while since I last posted and I have much to update here.  Sorry for keeping everyone in suspense -- yes, I did arrive back safely, tender in tow, Wednesday evening, before sundown as I had hoped.  I ended up stopping at Davis Travel Center to dump the tanks, a familiar stop for us.  The rest of my trip was blissfully uneventful, if a bit long and tedious, and Louise had dinner and a cold beer waiting for me when I arrived home.

We did have a bit of a scramble after I arrived, as the power outlet next to the spot where we were told to park turned out to be in use by the sailboat on the hard in the next spot over.  With no one aboard we simply  left Odyssey unplugged for the night, and Thursday morning they found us a different spot on the other side of the yard, with several power outlets from which to choose.  This spot is much closer to the boat, which is a great advantage, but a bit less shady and further from the pool, which I think will be a welcome amenity in a week or so.

This spot also has 50-amp power, albeit with the marine style receptacle.  I had initially figured I would need to make myself an adapter, until I remembered that one of the goodies that John gave me on my stop in Richmond Hill was a long 50-amp shore cord, which had the correct connectors on each end to simply plug the bus straight in.  After we got the bus squared away I plugged it in, even though we are not yet aboard, because I am having enough trouble with the batteries that I can't even let it go overnight now.  With power available full time, that problem has dropped down the priority list, behind the air system leak and yet another leaking commode seal.

Other than an engine alignment and subsequent sea trial, we were not really on the yard schedule until this week, so we've remained on Vector while we still had the luxury of climate control and a nice view from our aft deck.  That's given me some time to tie up several loose ends on various projects, get materials ordered, and deal with the tenders.  We've been enjoying sitting on the aft deck each evening with a beer before dinner, and while we've mostly been eating in, we did run over to Cocomo's one evening for dinner.

After getting the bus squared away Thursday I spent most of the day recovering from my whirlwind trip.  I had a ton of unanswered emails and a lot of other catching up to do.  We had plans to go out to dinner, but mother nature changed that while we were out on deck sipping our beers.  A severe thunderstorm warning popped up on both the weather radio and my phone, and in a blink of an eye a squall blew in that had us scrambling to add more lines and fenders.

After we secured everything we went back out on deck to watch the show.  Just behind us is a popular anchorage, and several skippers were out on deck keeping watchful eyes on their ground tackle.  At one point we estimated the winds at 25kt steady, gusting to 40 or so.  One unfortunate sailboat, however, was unmanned, and we watched in amazement as their anchor let go in one of those gusts.  The boat moved a hundred feet or so before the anchor grabbed again, but once broken free it never got enough bite to hold the boat.  Every few minutes the boat dragged another few dozen feet, and within the span of a half hour or so the boat had dragged a quarter mile and was threatening to come smashing into the marina.

I ran to tell some of the boaters who might be in jeopardy, then we went back to Vector to grab some lines and fenders.  By the time we made it back to the marina area, the wind had pushed the errant boat into the fuel dock, and one of the aforementioned boaters managed to grab one of its lines.  We helped him finish tying it off, then put some fenders around it.  We left a note for the owner on his tender, tied to the dinghy dock right next to us.

He did not return until this morning, while we were being hauled out.  He was very grateful that we were able to get him tied off.  He was very, very lucky -- this could have ended any of a dozen ways that would have been far worse.  As it was, he ended up owing the marina four nights' dockage, and was glad to pay it.  As for us, it was very instructive to watch what happens when an anchor drags in a squall.

Another consequence of the storm was that someone crashed into a phone pole in the middle of town, taking out every phone line and all Internet service at this end of the peninsula.  So we were without reliable Internet all weekend, making do with very sporadic low-speed connectivity from my cell phone, which itself has a marginal signal here.  Cocomo's had to take our credit card Friday night hand written on one of those old-fashioned carbon-copy charge slips.

Friday and Saturday were project days, and while blogging was on my list, the lack of connectivity pushed it out.  What little online time I had was given over to researching and ordering component parts for the new electrical system, the replacement bilge pumping system, the new tender, and various other projects on our agenda while we are in the yard.  We did make time Saturday evening, though, to get together with fellow cruisers Rod and Pauline, whom we met in Hilton Head, and who are on their way back to Australia for a while after having their boat hauled across the street at Zimmerman Marine.

Yesterday we were finally able to get the new tender in the water.  I needed to put a new battery in it to get it started; fortunately there is a Napa Auto Parts right at the end of the street here.  Given this is the boating capital of the Chesapeake, unsurprisingly they stock a number of marine batteries, and had a drop-in replacement available.  I had to pay cash, owing to the aforementioned phone service disruption, which was not repaired until late yesterday afternoon.


New tender in the water, with the console cover on.

I did not buy this tender sight-unseen, but we had only ever seen it on the trailer.  This was our first opportunity to get it running, and it does have some issues.  We already knew the inflation valves are leaky, and I already have replacements for those.  But there is also a minor leak between one of the tubes and the hull, which is easily handled by the bilge pump, but I'd rather have a completely dry boat.  I need to track it down and get it glued.

The much bigger issue is, well, the much bigger engine.  We knew when we bought it that it was over-powered, which is itself something of a problem.  But the monster 40-horse outboard also makes the boat quite tail-heavy.  I had to cinch up the aft part of the lifting bridle to get it to come up on deck somewhat level, and it sits very bow-high at rest in the water.  Merely adding ballast to the front locker is not a good answer, because the whole combination is already approaching the limit of our 800-lb davit..



It all works fine, and can be trimmed to level once under way, but I'd like to have something lighter on the back.  Now that we've tried it, I'm actively trying to find a 25-hp engine that I can trade for the 40.  I'm sure there is someone out there with a smaller engine who'd love to have the extra 15 horses for free, and if I get lucky I might even find one here in Deltaville.  40hp is too much power for this boat, anyway -- the manufacturer suggests no more than 30.


New tender in old chocks

Cleaning up the old tender for sale and setting up the new one, as well as testing the fit in the chocks, took most of the day.  The new tender is a bit smaller and does not fill the chocks, and has a different bottom shape as well, so we are looking into some kind of high-density foam cushions to make for a snug fit.  I've listed the old tender and motor on the local Craigslist, priced for a quick sale, and we'll be putting some flyers around town as well.  While we are at it, we'll post flyers for the cockpit freezer and the electric range, too.


Our old tender, right at home at the free dinghy dock

With the Internet spotty, it took me most of the weekend, but I finally found a 24-volt alternator to replace the 12-volt model we have now.  It's a 110-amp unit, which is somewhat lower than the 140-amp model I was hoping for, but the larger unit would be a very tight squeeze in the space.  This one is military surplus and I got a good price; once that was ordered I also dropped in orders for a Magnum MS4024 inverter-charger and a Vanner battery equalizer to complete the conversion of our house system from 12 to 24 volts.  I also ordered crimpers, lugs, terminals, and all the myriad bits to finish the job -- we are a long way from anything here, so running out to Home Depot or the local electrical supply house is not an option.

This morning we were hauled out, pressure washed, and blocked on the hard.  This was our first chance to see some of the damage we've done over the last two months.  Surprisingly, the few groundings, including the big one where we had to be towed off, did not take off very much bottom paint.  In fact, the worst damage was really not from grounding, but rather from our anchor chain and snubber arrangement running under the boat as we swing around.  There is a clear arc on each side where the chain rubbed against the bottom.  We think the pad-eye we are having installed at the bow for the snubber will eliminate most of this problem.



I found, as I suspected, a big divot in the paint inside the thruster tube, confirming my suspicions that the loose bolts caused the propellers to interfere with the tube.  That sheared the flexible coupling, and may also have been partly responsible for melting the battery terminal earlier.  Now that I've tightened the bolts the alignment looks good, and I can easily turn the props by hand.  The props look no worse for the wear.



Our biggest surprise was finding a line wrapped around the propeller shaft.  I've been noticing a harsh sound in reverse lately, maybe since leaving Norfolk, and this is probably the cause.  The yard suggests we look at the cutless bearing now, since the wrapped line has probably been interfering with the cooling/lubricating water flow.



Vector is a tough little boat, and seeing how good she looks after a couple of months of abuse is very confidence-inspiring.  We have a lot of work ahead of us, but when we are done, we'll have a great long-range cruiser.  We're going to miss living aboard over the next few weeks, but we can see her right out the windows from Odyssey.

A journey of a thousand miles ...

... begins with a surprise at the truck rental office.  It has been a long couple of days, and I still haven't come up for air.  I wouldn't really have time to post here right now, either, if not for the fact that I am on the side of I-95 waiting for a tire service truck, and dispatch tells me it will be 90 minutes.

We'll get to that story in just a moment.  But first, let's catch up from where we left off Sunday.  I am pleased to report (well, as pleased as can be expected) that I did, in fact, make it to Fort Lauderdale on the flight that landed there at 10pm.  My friend Steve,  who also has a Neoplan Spaceliner (recently featured on the Travel Channel), picked me up at the airport and I spent the night at their house, which was very generous of them especially considering how late it was.

Steve and I were out the door by 7:30 yesterday, stopping for coffee and then heading up to the Budget truck rental on Powerline Road, nearly to Pompano Beach.  I was a bit early, but they fixed that by having only a single agent at the counter, so I had a ten minute wait while she handled the customer ahead of me.  Then we spent another five minutes or so writing the contact and taking my money before going out to inspect the truck.

That's when the trouble started.  I am a veteran of Budget truck rentals, as we use quite a number of them on disaster relief operations, and so I expected that all the trucks would have a hitch ball or at least a hole for one.  Apparently, the ten footers do not, which makes sense, because they can't really tow something as large and heavy as the average car, which is what people renting moving trucks want to tow.  I don't see ten footers often; in the Red Cross we use mostly 16' and 24' models.

When I said I needed the hitch ball, they told me I would need at least a 16' truck.  When I made the reservation, I could have had a 16' truck for the same price at the ten footer, but I thought I'd save a little fuel and make it easier to drive by getting the smaller truck.  My mistake.  At this point though, they did not have any 16 footers available for one-way rental.  In an instant, my plans to get an early start on the road were shattered.

Steve went to his office for a while, leaving me at Budget to sort things out.  I called Louise and asked her to research some other local places to see what other options I might have.  Ultimately I found a one-way pickup truck available at Enterprise Commercial Truck, which would be more convenient, cheaper, and use less fuel.  Of course, they were on the other end of town.  Steve came back for me, arriving just as Budget told me they had found a 16' truck at another location.  I told them I'd get back to them and we headed to Enterprise.

I had the pickup truck by 10:30, only two hours behind my original schedule, but now we had to hustle back up to near where Budget was to pick up a 12R22.5 tire that Steve offered to sell me, before heading back to near where Enterprise was to pick up the tender and various parts for it.  By the time we had the boat hitched up and ready to roll, it was close to noon, a very late start to the day, indeed.

In addition to actually saving some money, the other redeeming facet of having switched teams over to Enterprise is that I was able go faster in the pickup truck than I could in a box van.  In part that's because the vans have governors, and in part it's because they burn lots more fuel at higher speeds, but the biggest reason is that I could see the boat in my mirror the whole time, whereas I would be blind in any kind of box van.  Not knowing what's happening with the trailer would have me running at lower speeds as well as making more frequent stops to check on things.

So after the first hour or so keeping well under the speed limit and checking tire and hub temperatures, straps, and hitch frequently, I got comfortable with the rig and came up closer to the speed limit.  That burned more fuel but bought back some of my lost time, and I made it to Richmond Hill just at sunset.  There I met up with the lovely Laura Lee, the feminine half of the couple who owned Vector (then called Steel Magnolia) before us.

We met at their storage locker, where her husband John had pre-staged some boat items for me, knowing he would be out of town when I passed through.  John very generously gave us a storm anchor and rode (still brand new in the box), a spare power cord, and some miscellaneous lines that he had left over from Steel Magnolia.  Not much use for those on his airplane, which is what he bought after he sold the boat (and you can read his very well-written adventures thereon here).  Still it was a very nice gesture on his part to just give those to us, and I owe them a very nice dinner with some very nice wine, a debt which I am hoping they will collect in person.

It only took a few minutes to load those things into the back of the truck; Enterprise very sensibly equips all their pickups with heavy-duty bedliners.  But now it was dark, and in my rush to get on the road, I had not connected any lights on the trailer.  I did, however, have the foresight to stop and buy some quick-connects, pliers, and a roll of wire for just that purpose, nevertheless hoping (perhaps nonsensically) that I might make it all the way to Hilton Head in the daylight.

Of course, I neglected to buy wire cutters or strippers or even any kind of knife -- I am seldom without my Leatherman, and I simply spaced.  The Leatherman had to be left behind aboard Vector, as I did not want to check any luggage on my flight.  I managed to get the whole mess over to a gas station so I had some overhead light by which to work, but their convenience store had none of those items, either, so there I was, connecting trailer wiring using a nail clipper, or as Spock might say, stone knives and bear skins.  BTW, one of the things we teach our technology volunteers is to always have a pair of nail clippers in their carry-on, as it can be used in a pinch to cut the zip ties off the Pelican cases that contain, among other things, the wire cutters.

That cost me another dozen minutes or so, and it was well past 10pm when I rolled onto Hilton Head Island.  My plan had been to drop the trailer at the bus and then head off in the rental truck to a nice dinner someplace on the island, but nearly everything closes by 10.  Instead I pulled in to the Applebees, just a few minutes short of my destination, which serves dinner to 11.  I wolfed down a salad and allowed myself a single draft beer.  I also stopped at Walmart across the street and grabbed some coffee, milk, and a bottle of wine (you know, the essentials) as there was nothing of the sort left on the bus.

It was after 11 by the time I pulled in to the self-storage yard, and it took me another two hours to bring the bus out of hibernation enough to use all the facilities and get a good night's sleep.  I left all the stuff in the back of the truck for this morning's project.  In addition to the anchor and other boat items, you will recall that included a 12R22.5 tire, which Steve and I manhandled into the truck together, and now I had to move it onto the bus alone.

Fortunately I was able to drop it out of the truck onto its edge, and it was a pretty easy matter to then roll it into the scooter bay, so long as I did not drop it, which I did not.  I got everything loaded aboard Odyssey and the boat hitched up, which required another trip to Walmart and the auto parts store for tools and supplies.  I took all my tools onto Vector with us, so I don't even have a wrench on board the bus -- I had to buy a pair of locking pliers to tighten the hitch ball nut.  I got the truck back to the local Enterprise (car, not truck, rental) before the 10:30 deadline and they gave me a ride the 3/4 of a mile back to the storage yard.

Now, the reason why I bought a tire from Steve and went through the hassle of loading onto the bus is that our right-hand tag tire was done, with no tread left and in jeopardy of the belts coming through.  Long time readers will remember that we blew the other tag just a few months ago, on our way to Fort Lauderdale for Trawler Fest.  I don't like to put expensive new rubber on the tags, as I have explained in the past, and used 12R22.5 tires are often hard to come by.  So I bought this take-off from Steve planning to have it mounted up before heading north to Deltaville.

The only heavy-truck tire installer I could find anywhere along my route is in Florence, quite a bit north of here.  (Lots of truck stops advertise heavy tire installation, too, but we know from experience they will not work on Odyssey).  I dialed Snider Tire there into the GPS before I left Hilton Head, and I kept my speed down to under 60 (the limit here is 70), keeping an eye on the tire monitor the whole time.  But poor condition coupled with sitting in the sun, unmoving, for two months took its toll, and the tire blew just ten minutes or so after I got on I-95.



Update:  The tire guy showed up just as I finished the previous paragraph.  That was the end of my free time yesterday, and I am finishing up this post this morning over coffee, parked at the Walmart in Dillon, South Carolina.  It ended up being another very long day yesterday.

To finish the story, the tire guy was there for an hour and a half, so I ended up waylaid on the side of the road for three and a half hours, ironically just a mile and a half from a rest area.  He was clearly not properly equipped for the job, with only one working jack (it takes at least two to change out a tag that has blown), and he ignored all my instructions on how to lift the bus.  Eventually he got the tire changed, but then his jack was trapped.  I ultimately had to rescue him with my own jack.

When all this was done, he told me I owed him $212 for "overage."  So we spent another half hour there while I called Coach Net three times.  Our towing service is supposed to cover 100% of roadside tire changes if you have a mounted spare, and so the only thing I should cover is the mount/dismount and disposal fee.  That's irrespective of how far they have to travel or how much time it takes them to jack up the coach.  Eventually they were able to straighten the billing out and it cost me $35 for the mount/dismount and another $10 for disposal.  But what should have been a half-hour tire change took him an hour, and the billing snafu was the icing on the cake.

I broke down just ten miles or so from my planned lunch and fuel stop, but now it was almost five o'clock.  Somehow in the confusion I bumped the GPS and it lost track of the fuel stop in Walterboro, and I was miles past it when I realized it.  I ended up eating the rest of a bag of chips I had aboard for lunch while I was waiting for service.  After consulting the all-knowing Internet, with Louise's help, we found cheap fuel right here in Dillon, at $3.599 per gallon, and I made it off the road and into the fuel station just before sunset -- once again the trailer lights are not connected.

It was past 8pm when I finally got parked.  I walked over to a hole-in-the-wall Japanese joint for dinner, who unfortunately had no license to sell me an Asahi or Kirin with it.  I had a glass of Malbec at home while I caught up on the day's email and then crashed hard, having been up since 6:30 for an emotionally draining day.

I had hoped to be well into North Carolina for my overnight stop; now I still have 325 miles to go, a good six hours or so.  On top of that I need to dump the tanks.  Before I left, I had researched four free dump stations along the route.  I've already passed two of them -- dumping fell off the priority list after the 3.5-hour delay yesterday, as I absolutely needed fuel before stopping for the night.  There are still two ahead of me, so I have a half-hour stop today as well.  I hope to be back at the boatyard in Deltaville before sundown.

The glamour of air travel

I am sitting in a departure lounge at Richmond International Airport in Richmond, Virginia.  The aircraft I was supposed to have flown from here is still on the ground in Charlotte, and my departure has been pushed from 2:25 to 2:55 to 3:03 to 3:33 to 4:00 to 4:25 to 4:50 and, most recently, to 5:00pm.  My connection in Charlotte has already been rebooked twice, and my arrival in Fort Lauderdale, originally scheduled for 6:16, is now 10 o'clock this evening.  I am doubtful that will happen; at this rate, I will likely miss that flight, too, and will count myself lucky if I make the last flight, arriving after midnight.

Vector is safely ensconced in a berth at the Deltaville Boatyard, after a very pleasant cruise from Norfolk on Friday.  We made good time, with the entire 50+ nm voyage taking less than seven hours.  Deltaville president Keith rode with us, and we covered a lot of issues with the boat that will be turned into repair quotes over the next few days.  After we arrived I backed into the slip so we could unload the scooters, which we rode to dinner Friday at Taylor's restaurant right in Deltaville.

Yesterday we turned the boat around so the yard could examine the anchor pulpit and we'd have a better position in the berth until haulout.  I spent a good part of the day preparing for my trip south, and we had a nice dinner at home before my whirlwind unhealthy-dining excursion.  At the end of the day the yard generously lent us one of their trucks so that Louise could drive me to the airport today, a 90-minute trip (each way).

My plans for a relaxing dinner with friends in Fort Lauderdale have evaporated.  They also offered to put me up for the night, but given the lateness of my arrival I am working on finding a hotel room near the airport.  I am scheduled to pick up the rental truck first thing tomorrow morning, and I am hoping I don't miss the last flight today or else tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day.

Louise is staying on Vector with the cats, running a few errands in the yard's truck, and doing the last load of laundry before we move back into the bus and she's forced to use the marina laundromat.

Catching up

We are at the Waterside Marina, right in downtown Norfolk, Virginia.  We're here because this is the host marina for the annual spring rendezvous of the America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association, which has been going on all week.  We are not members of this group, so are not participating in their rendezvous, but we have many friends who are, and as long as we were passing right by, we wanted to get in some nice visits.

One of the vendors exhibiting at this rendezvous is also none other than Deltaville Boatyard, which is where we are headed for yard work.  Deltaville principal Keith Ruse, who is staying right next door here at the conference hotel, will be joining us for the last 50-mile leg from here to the yard, to observe first-hand some of the issues with the boat, and that was another factor in favor of staying at this marina.

I say all this because, absent our friends being here for the show and wanting to get an early start tomorrow morning with Keith, we'd be staying across the harbor in Portsmouth, where there is actually a free city dock, just a $1.70 ferry ride away from here.  In fact, the ferry landing is so close we can see them coming and going all day.  The free dock is posted as no mooring between midnight and 6am, but it is well known in the cruising community that it is only enforced if there is a problem, or a festival in town, and the city allows stays of two or three nights on the theory that you are spending money there.

We'll save the free dock, as well as some reciprocal dockage at a nearby yacht club, for our next visit.  We would linger in the area a few more days after our friends leave, were it not for the fact that we need to get Keith back to Deltaville.  That also means we will do the 50-mile segment in just a single day, bypassing any interesting spots along the way, and making for one of our longest cruising days so far, at an estimated 7-8 hours under way.  We'll be shoving off tomorrow at 8am for that reason, although I suspect we might have to wait our turn to get out, as most of the rendezvous attendees will also be clearing out in the morning, and the marina is packed to the gills.

Other than a couple of hours each afternoon, when our friends and many of the other event attendees have been wandering the docks visiting on boats, including ours, we've had time to ourselves here to catch up on things.  I've been placing Internet orders for parts and materials to be delivered to Deltaville, we cleaned up the boat quite a bit, and we've been making arrangements to prepare for our weeks-long stay in Virginia.

Those arrangements include getting the bus to Deltaville, which has turned into an adventure in itself.  I will be flying to Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, leaving from Richmond.  That's because, some time ago, I made arrangements to buy a nice tender, complete with trailer, from my friend Steve, who lives there.  We had tried to connect while we were still in Savannah and Hilton Head, but schedules did not work out.  But the further the bus gets from where it is now, in Hilton Head, the harder it will be to go fetch that tender.

So after several hours of Internet searching, including a brief experimentation with uShip (of "Shipping Wars" television fame), I finally came up with a plan to rent a one-way truck in Fort Lauderdale to haul the trailer to Hilton Head.  Driving the bus round trip would cost me about $750, and the truck rental will be $560 plus fuel.  That's about a wash, but saves me ten hours of driving and another full day away from the boatyard.

I pick up the truck, a 10' box van, Monday morning and I should be in Hilton Head by the end of the day, with a stop along the way near Savannah to pick up a spare anchor and some other parts for the boat.  Tuesday I will get the boat hitched up to Odyssey and return the truck, and, if all goes well, I should be somewhere near Richmond Tuesday evening and back in Deltaville on Wednesday.  Louise will stay with the boat and the cats while I am away, and I've asked the yard not to start any work other than inspections until I get back.

Assuming the weather cooperates and we make the trip to Deltaville tomorrow as planned, we'll have a full day Saturday to get the boat squared away and for me to get packed and ready for my whirlwind trip.  Without my trusty navigator along, I will need to pre-plan my stops for fuel, meals, and overnights before departure, so I can keep my eyes on the road.  Fortunately, this stretch of highway is now extremely familiar to us, and we have a list of good overnight stops with nearby restaurants.  Hauling a trailer will be a new experience in the bus, but I am planning an itinerary that will not involve any backing up.

Tonight we will have a nice dinner at the Town Point Club nearby; on our previous visit there I had mused that we would come back here some day in the boat.  We've already enjoyed one of the restaurants on Granby Street, walked over to the enormous MacArthur Mall, and Louise had her haircut at a chi-chi salon.  There is a good deal more to explore here in Norfolk, so we will most certainly be coming back.

Another milestone

We are at the Top Rack marina, in Chesapeake, Virginia.  One night's dockage, power included, is complimentary here if you spend $75 in their restaurant, which is supposed to be very nice.  We needed a very nice restaurant tonight (more on that in a moment), so it was a perfect stop.  We are just eight miles, and one bridge opening, from the northern end of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and our destination, Town Point in Norfolk.

Yesterday we had a very long trip, one of our longest days yet on the water.  We shoved off from Midway fairly early, to get a jump on the wind, but it caught up with us big time in Currituck Sound, where we crabbed the whole way, listing heavily to port as the stabilizers did their best to try to get us level.  At one point we heard a mighty crash, and each of us in turn scrambled around the boat trying to find out what it was, to no avail.  Eventually Louise figured out that it was the hatch over the aft stairs, which slammed closed from a combination of the port list, 20-knot crosswinds, and a bit of a roll.

I ended up hand steering a good part of the trip, as the winds were a bit much for the autopilot in the narrow channels.  But the trip was otherwise uneventful, and we ended up making excellent time, on account of some good luck with bridge timing.  This last item had us testing the upper ranges of our engine RPM, though, as we scrambled to make one of the bridges.

A quick note of explanation is in order here.  These are, of course, drawbridges of one sort or another, most of them carrying roadways but a handful carry railroads or, in rare cases, both.  Railroad bridges are often open all the time unless and until a train needs to cross, whereas automotive bridges are generally closed until a boat needs to pass.  Some bridges open any time on request, but many or perhaps most bridges operate on a schedule, to keep highway traffic from backing up.  Many do not open at all during rush hour, and most open either hourly or every half hour throughout the business day and sometimes on weekends.

The first bridge, at North Landing, was coming up much sooner than we had expected.  Rough seas in Currituck Sound had me increasing RPMs, because the boat tracked and steered much better that way in the crosswinds.  So as we crossed Pungo Ferry on the North Landing River, we realized we'd need to either speed up, or slow down considerably.  I first tried slowing down, but boat handling became so difficult that I could see myself being worn out in an hour's time as I cranked the helm around endlessly.  We did some quick math and figured out we could make the 11am opening if we wicked it up just slightly, and even though snaking through the snag-laden river at that speed was a bit nerve-wracking, it was easier than either running at just above steerage speed, or else having to station-keep at the bridge.

We made the 11am opening by the skin of our teeth, all by ourselves.  So far, so good, but the next bridge, for the Centerville Turnpike, was exactly five miles away -- too far to go in a half hour.  So we dropped back to a speed just barely enough to maintain steerage and I resigned myself to a lot of hand-steering for the next hour.

The canal between these bridges makes one small bend, not far beyond the North Landing bridge, and otherwise is ruler-straight for a full four-plus miles all the way to Centerville Turnpike.  We putt-putted around that one bend, and we could see the next bridge in the distance.  What we could also see, though, was a conga line of fully six other boats, strung out for nearly half a mile ahead of the bridge waiting on the opening.

There was no way I could make five miles in a half hour, but four and a half, which would get us to the back of the line, was just within reach.  After a brief consultation we decided to try for it, and I ran the revs up to 2,150 RPM.  That's actually the boat's "published" cruising RPM, with 2,600 being flank speed, but we usually run between 1,500 and 1,700 RPM for the best compromise of efficiency and handling.  Other than on the sea trial, this is the fastest we've ever gone -- 8.2 knots, or about 9.4 statute MPH.

Not only did we make the bridge, but I had to slow down to avoid running into the last sailboat in the lineup. The last three boats ahead of us took their sweet time getting through the bridge, too -- I'm not sure they all grokked the concept of closing the gaps before a bridge opening.  So there we were, with just three miles to go to the Great Bridge Bridge (really), which opens only on the hour.

Even though it was well past 11:30 by the time we cleared the fenders of Centerville Turnpike bridge, all seven boats, ourselves included, made the noon opening at Great Bridge.  Six of those boats continued on into the lock, while we and another trawler that had left Coinjock a little after us, passing us in the sound, tied up to the free docks on the south side of the canal.

This dock, really just a set of pilings against the canal wall, is one of the best deals on the ICW.  There is room for maybe a half dozen boats, first come, first served, and it is a short walk to perhaps five or six restaurants, a supermarket, and a dollar store.  We stayed only one night, but we have heard that three or four nights is not uncommon.  We were tied up by half past noon, with help from several other cruisers including Ted and Sally of the DeFever 44 Amici, the other trawler just ahead of us.

Ted and Sally gave us some pointers about the area, and we ended up walking over to El Toro Loco on their recommendation for dinner, getting our head start on Cinco de Mayo.  I was going to walk to the grocery store this morning, but it was cold and rainy so I decided to skip it.  We shoved off a little ahead of the 11am locking.

There is but a single lock on this route, matching the ever-changing water levels on each side with a lift or lowering of anywhere from an inch to three feet.  Today we had to be lifted maybe eight inches, so we had a very easy time for our first-ever locking on our own.  A pair of sportfishers locked through with us; the bridge tender had to admonish them to slow down as they approached the bridge, and they passed us immediately after the lock, to very little end.

It's 2.5 miles from the lock to the next bridge, the Dominion Steel bridge, which, like the lock, only opens on the hour.  So no matter how fast a boat you have, you will average 2.5 mph between the two, and the whole distance is a no-wake zone anyway.  We putt-putted along at idle speed the whole way, and we still ended up sitting at the bridge, behind the two sport fishers, for a good fifteen minutes.

As soon as we cleared the Steel bridge, we turned off the waterway to Top Rack, where I had a bit of a tricky docking in high winds.  I had to declare two missed approaches before making it on the third shot, but we made it without incident.  Other than the dry-stack operation, there is only one other boat here with us, the Krogen 44 The Good Life.  We spent some time chatting with owners Mark and Mary, who are spending a few days waiting for a weather window to cross the Chesapeake.

The Krogen 44 is one of my favorite boats, and really the only Krogen that met all our checklist items.  I would love to have had one -- its a few feet shorter than Vector, and, more importantly, has less draft and a lot less windage.  But there were never any used ones on the market the whole time we were shopping (or maybe ever?), as it is a much newer addition to the Kady-Krogen lineup, and a new one was well out of our price range, more than twice what we spent on Vector.

This was my first opportunity to see a KK44 and Vector next to one another, and I was struck by the similarities and the differences.  Standing on our taller flybridge we seem to dwarf them, yet from the front, the pilothouse windows are the same height and the Krogen has a larger pilothouse.  Our saloon and thus our boat deck are considerably higher off the waterline, which accounts for much of the extra windage.  We have a more comfortable guest stateroom and more room overall, but I do still love the KK44 and admit to a twinge of boat envy sitting here next to one.

In a short while we will head over to the Amber Lantern for a nice dinner.  Today is our tenth wedding anniversary, and we are celebrating.  I can never remember what the correct gift material is for all the different anniversaries, so I have decided that Louise will be getting new dock lines this year.  It's what she's always wanted ...

First month on our own

Today marks one full month since we left Shelter Cove on Hilton Head Island.  Ironically, the Sea-Ray 56 Sedan Bridge that was docked right behind us the whole time we were there, Plan B, pulled into Coinjock Marina across the way this afternoon.  We bought the boat in January, so we've had it just over three months.  But given that we weren't allowed to drive it until the end of March, we really consider today the end of our first real month on the water.

In that time, according to our log book, we've covered 475 nautical miles (about 547 statute miles) in 98 engine hours.  We've put 684 nautical miles on the boat in total, which included our training cruise from Savannah to Port Royal Sound and back, as well as a lot of miles (51) and many hours (28) just driving around Hilton Head and docking over and over again.

While more experienced skippers typically cover 50 miles or more per day on the ICW, completing our trip from Hilton Head to Norfolk in just ten days or so, we're taking over a month.  I had originally projected a pace of about 20 miles per day, on average, which would have meant three and a half weeks, and we're a little behind that pace due to two bow thruster failures, bad weather, and the grounding that caused us to leave our anchor behind.

Tonight we are still at Midway Marina in Coinjock.  I am happy to report that our bow thruster is now working, at least as far as I can test it tied to the dock.  The replacement coupling arrived at 10:30 this morning, which was better than I had expected, and I had the thruster back together and tested by 11:00.  We had a short pow-wow and decided that 11:30, the soonest we could realistically cast off, was too late to be starting a 6-7 hour travel day, allowing for fairly high winds.  On top of arriving later than we'd like, after 5pm, we'd be hustling to try to find a spot to tie up in Great Bridge as a late arrival.

Fortunately, we were a full day ahead of ourselves, and so we decided to just pony up for another night here.  Tonight we'll try the restaurant attached to the marina, Crabbie's, as they will be open.  And tomorrow we will get a very early start, to try to beat some of the wind (it's a bit calmer in the morning) and have a chance to find a spot at the free docks in Great Bridge before they fill up.

As long as we had to spend a full day here, we got a few projects done.  Louise ordered new blinds for all the windows to be delivered to us at the boatyard, which inevitably led to a discussion of the pilothouse, which has no inside window coverings at all.  That prompted us to test, for the first time, the very nice outside covers for those windows, which came with the boat.  You can see them in the photo above.  They do make a huge difference in how much heat comes in.  Nevertheless, we will be ordering blinds for the three windshields, and making up a track system for them, because I really want to have sun visors -- it can be brutal in the pilothouse when driving into the sun.

I spent a good part of today working up schematics for the electric power system.  I need to get cracking on finding a 24-volt alternator that can be a drop-in replacement for the 12-volt Leece-Neville we have now.  Unfortunately, the part number has worn off, so I can't simply cross-reference the frame.

Tomorrow night we should be in Great Bridge, just 12 miles from the start of the ICW, and Sunday we are booked at the Waterside Marina in Norfolk, where we hope to connect with several friends.

May Day

We are at the Midway Marina and Motel, in Coinjock, North Carolina.  There are two marinas in this town, each with a face dock directly along the ICW, which is a canal here.  We chose this one simply because it was a good deal less expensive, offering free power to MTOA members.  It turned out to be a fortuitous choice, as the wind was more favorable for docking than at their more popular competitor across the channel.

This last item became somewhat more important because, once again, I was docking with no bow thruster.  I have to say, I am really, really tired of the bow thruster quitting on me, and then spending hours crammed in the bilge fixing it.  We also managed to run aground on our way here, right dead-center of the channel, even though all the notes said that's where we needed to be.  A passing boat was able to tell us they saw deeper water on the "red" side, and I was able to power through the soft mud and get into the deeper section with no harm done.

It did not help that we did all this in 20-knot winds, which is what we awoke to this morning in our otherwise peaceful little anchorage.  We briefly considered just staying there another day, knowing we had a challenging stretch ahead, but the forecast says this will persist another three days, and you may recall we absolutely needed to pump out our tanks.

Just bringing the anchor aboard in these conditions can be tricky, and it did not help that the chain came up thick with mud and even mollusks.  I had to keep jockeying the boat around in the high winds, which required lots of bow thruster time -- we use the thruster more during anchor retrieval than most docking situations.  Just before the anchor was up completely, Louise noticed a distinct change in thruster sounds, never a good sign.

After we got away from the shallows, thick with shellfish, I did a quick thruster check and realized the motor was spinning with no resistance, which was one of the symptoms a couple of months ago when the drive leg went out.  This time, though, there was only a motor sound and no high-pitched screeching.  That gave me a clue right away to the problem.

I neglected to post it here, merely an oversight, but when I got down into the thruster bilge a couple of weeks ago to repair the battery terminal, I noticed seawater was seeping in around the thruster mount.  There were perhaps two quarts of water in the bilge, and a trickle mark on the tunnel.  It's hard to see down there, so I took a photo of the mount, to see if I could identify the source and magnitude of the problem.  A troubling discovery from that photo was lots and lots of black rubber dust, presumably from the rubber isolator coupling that connects the motor to the drive leg.



I made a note to pull the motor off and check the drive leg mounting when we have the boat out of the water at the boatyard, in just about three weeks.  So when the motor started free-spinning today, my first guess was that the coupling had failed.  As soon as we were tied up at the dock here, I got down in the thruster bilge, and felt the joint with my hand to discover that, indeed, the coupling was sheared.  I immediately got on the horn to Max Power to order replacements to be sent here overnight.

That done, I set about removing the motor from the mount so I could get the coupling out.  Sure enough, it was sheared in two.  More troubling was the fact that the drive was hard to turn by hand, and I could feel some spots where it seems to grind.  As long as I had the motor off, though, I put a wrench on the drive leg mounting bolts.  They were very, very loose.  That would explain the seawater intrusion; my guess is that Thunderbolt failed to apply any thread-locking compound and/or did not torque the bolts to the proper specification.



I didn't do this, either.  I can't remove the bolts while we are in the water to put thread compound on them, and I did not have the specs handy, but I did tighten them up considerably.  That made the drive much easier to turn by hand, and also cleared up much of the interference.  There is still one small spot in the full rotation where I am feeling a bit of grinding.  With the boat in the water it's impossible to say if the drive leg is going bad, or if there is a spot where one of the props is interfering with the tunnel.



In any event, I ordered two replacement couplers for overnight delivery.  UPS will not guarantee a morning delivery here -- it's too remote.  So we may be here another full day, depending on when my parts arrive.  Once I have the couplers in hand I will put one in, re-mount the motor, cross my fingers, and fire it up.  Until then, there is really no way to tell if the props are even turning.

We only traveled, as planned, ten miles today.  That was a very long ten miles, indeed.  Tomorrow or maybe  Friday we will have a much longer day ahead of us, as it is 38 statute miles from here to Great Bridge, Virginia.  We plan to tie up at the free dock there for the night, but we may end up at a yard if replacing the coupler does not fix the thruster.  This evening's project will be researching 60-ton (or bigger) Travel Lifts between here and Norfolk.

There is nominally a restaurant here, but it is apparently closed during the week.  The marina has offered us a ride across the channel to the competition's restaurant instead, so that's our plan -- everyone here is friendly and helpful.  Oh, and happy May Day.

A first time for everything

As I predicted, we had no cell coverage whatsoever last night, at yet another anchorage off the ICW.  This one was the first stopping opportunity after the Alligator-Pungo Canal, just after it joins the Alligator River.  Both the canal and the river were the color of strong tea.  The canal is a long haul, straight and narrow, with snags and stumps lining either side.  Still, we had 14' of water in the center, so it was a relaxed transit for us.

We had the canal to ourselves, with no other boats passing us in either direction, and none in sight or even on the radar.  We briefly had the anchorage to ourselves, too, as there was no one there when we dropped the hook at 3:30.  Shortly afterwards another trawler showed up, followed by two sailboats.  Still, it was quiet and peaceful all night, with the lone exception of a giant 80' tug pushing a 130' barge that passed by around midnight.

After we left our nice anchorage in Slades Creek, we headed to Belhaven to pump out at Forest River Marina.  Belhaven is accessed by a narrow channel that passes through a storm breakwater, and a sharp right took us down an even narrower channel to the marina.  As this was nearly two miles, round trip, off our route, I had called Sunday to make sure their pumpout was working.  They told me they had no one to work it Sunday, but we could come in late Monday morning, which is when we arrived.

It was pouring rain when we pulled up to the dock, and we were both drenched by the time we tied up -- Louise from working the lines on deck, and me from driving the last few hundred feet on the flybridge in the driving wind.  Only after we made a tricky docking in the wind were we informed that the pumpout involves a portable electric pump and they will not do it in the rain.   They invited us to stay at the dock till the rain stopped, sometime in the afternoon.

This was not how we wanted to spend the day, and, moreover, if we stayed too long, we'd never make it through the canal in the daylight, forcing us to spend the night in a marina in town.  Not Forest River, which turned out to be rode hard and put away wet.  We opted to move along, although we had cell coverage long enough for me to get Sunday's blog uploaded.

The other marina in town said their pumpout was at the city docks, at the far end of town.  We'd heard docking there was dicey for large, deep-draft boats, so we waved that one off as well.  The next two marinas near our route wanted way too much money for a pumpout, so we opted to see if we can make it until tomorrow, when we will be at a marina in Coinjock.

So the rainy trip over to Belhaven turned out to be a goose chase, and we high-tailed it back to the ICW channel to make our chosen anchorage early in the afternoon.  By the time we dropped the hook, the weather had cleared up and we had a very pleasant evening.

All our cruising guides said that the Alligator River had so many snags on the bottom that we had best rig a trip line.  A trip line is a line rigged to the anchor at the opposite end  from where the rode, or main anchor line, attaches, which can be used to dislodge a fouled anchor by pulling it out from the fluke end. This was a new experience for us, and I used some of the lazy time we had on the Alligator-Pungo Canal, while Louise tended the helm, to set it all up.  I found a shackle to fit the trip-line hole in the anchor, attached some spare polypropylene line to it with an anchor bend, and attached the other end of the line to our Polyform A-3 round orange buoy/fender, the same one that had a supporting role in the great Bohicket Anchor Melodrama.

Of course, after all the dire warnings, not one of the other three boats that anchored after us set a trip line, neither did we have any trouble bringing the anchor up without it, aside from having to wash off all the caked-on mud.  Still, we left it attached, in case we ended up in the Alligator again tonight, which was a possibility at the onset of the day.

We got off to an early start this morning -- what often happens when we don't have the Internet to deliver our morning news and weather while we leisurely sip our coffee.  By the time we made the northward turn into the main part of the Alligator, we had decided that just 20 miles to the last anchorage on the Alligator side of the sound was too early to stop, so I put on another couple hundred RPMs to take us all the way across the Albemarle Sound before day's end.

Shortly after making that decision, we found ourselves enveloped in light fog, and we got to try something else out for the first time -- the Kahlenberg automatic fog horn.  The five-second blast from this incredibly loud air horn once every minute sent poor George into orbit -- she detested the air horn on the bus, too, which was not nearly this loud.  After the worst section was past, I took pity on her and switched to the fog-horn signal on the loudhailer (outdoor loudspeaker) connected to the VHF radio.  Plenty loud outside, and meets the legal requirement for a fog signal, but not nearly as disturbing to the cats.  They'll just have to suck it up, though, when we get into real pea soup.  I also cranked the radar out to a longer range, and we saw nary a target all morning.

The Alligator River swing bridge came into view shortly after we left the fog behind.  At Vector's speed, we had the bridge in sight for nearly 20 minutes before we were close enough to call the tender and ask for an opening.  We've been over that bridge before in Odyssey; today was our turn to hold up traffic for a few minutes.

Not long after the bridge we crossed the Albemarle Sound, a 14-mile stretch of open water that taxed the stabilizers and autopilot, but not much else.  We did have to take control to dodge a number of crab pots over the course of the nearly two hour crossing.  Soon after entering the Sound, the Intracoastal Waterway diverges into two distinct routes, the "main route" to the east, and the "Dismal Swamp" route to the west.  Someday we'd like to do the Great Dismal Swamp route, but for our first pass we opted to take the slightly shorter and, more importantly, deeper main route.

That brought us here, to an anchorage at the mouth of Lutz Creek, on the North River.  Once again we are all alone, but here, at least, we have 3G access to a Sprint tower.  We're catching up on email and web sites now that we have access for the first time in three days.  Among other things, we're catching up on our trip planning using the ActiveCaptain web site.

When I don't have Internet access, I tend to knock projects off the list, and yesterday was no exception.  We have some electrical gremlins, one of which was the mystery of why the oven pilot (indicator) light is illuminated when there is no power to the boat.  Another is why the "reverse polarity" indicators on the main electrical panel are also lit when there is no power to the boat.  I suspected these two were related.  Also on my project list was to rewire the receptacle by the coffee pot, which only works on shore or generator power and not on the inverter.

After an hour or two of sleuthing around under the helm, poking at electrical panels, I discovered that, in fact, all three issues were related.  Whoever installed the ice maker (which we've had powered off since we bought the boat) and the receptacle in the wet bar area, which apparently share a circuit, carefully connected the hot lead to an inverter circuit -- so they could run all the time -- but connected the neutral to the main neutral bus instead of the inverter neutral.  Not only did this mean the receptacle (and, presumably, the ice maker) would only work when shore or generator power was present, it also meant that when that power was absent, the main neutral bus was being made hot by a backfeed through this circuit from the inverter, thus lighting both the reverse polarity indicators and the oven pilot light.

The backfeed has been eliminated  a relief since stray electrical currents on a metal boat can be very destructive, up to and including sinking the boat.  As a bonus, we can now make our coffee without having to either start the generator, or move the coffeemaker to a different counter with a working inverter outlet.

Having come all the way here to statute mile 60 tonight, tomorrow will be a very short day, just another ten miles to a marina in Coinjock, North Carolina.  We will absolutely need a pumpout, and we can also use some water and a full charge on the batteries after four nights at anchor.  Coinjock, at mile 50, is also the last possible place for us to stop until Great Bridge, Virginia at mile 12.  That will make Thursday a very long day, at 38 statute miles with three timed bridge openings.  At least tomorrow we can sleep in, as we'll have less than two hours to Coinjock.

Remote anchorages

This morning found us anchored in Broad Creek, off the Neuse River, not far from the small community of Oriental, North Carolina.  Oriental bills itself as the sailing capital of the U.S., and after a half day on the Neuse it is easy to see why.  We did have a very nice cruise from Morehead City.

We had our section of the creek all to ourselves, although a small handful of cruising boats went past on their way to or from the River Dunes Marina a little further up the creek.  It's supposed to be very nice, as are some of the marinas in Oriental proper, but we've had our fill of marinas and marina rates, so we jumped on the opportunity to anchor out again.

Our draft kept us in a more exposed part of the creek than shallower boats would use, so we had a bit of roll due to wind-driven waves.  But at over 100,000 pounds of displacement, it takes a lot to move Vector enough to be uncomfortable.  We had a very peaceful night, and we hardly moved an inch the whole time we were there.

Today we finished with the Neuse and headed up the Bay River to the Hobucken Cut, which brought us to the Pamlico River.  Tonight we are anchored in Slades Creek, off the Pungo River, which joins the Pamlico just before Pamlico Sound.  Once again we have the anchorage to ourselves and it is very peaceful here.

Tomorrow we will need to pump out, so we will make a short detour to Belhaven just another five miles from here.  Once past Belhaven there are not a lot of stops along the ICW, so it looks like it will be a fairly long day, ending at yet another anchorage in the Alligator River after transiting the Alligator-Pungo Canal.

We are just off Statute Mile 140 on the ICW, which begins in Norfolk.  It turns out that the timing is such that we will be arriving in Norfolk just as the annual east-coast rendezvous for the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association (AGLCA) will be starting.  We're not members of that group, although we've discussed doing "the Great Loop" any number of times.

I doubt we will join the AGLCA unless and until we establish whether or not Vector can make it under the nominally 19' fixed bridge west of Chicago.  The boat has been there before, when the last owner brought it down the Mississippi and the rest of the western half of the Great Loop after buying it in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.  But since then, a custom top has been added over the flybridge, which may make the boat too tall to do the same trip again.

We like the top, and have no interest in removing it.  Nor is it feasible to "lower" it just to make the transit.  On top of that, quite a few antennas have been installed directly on to the top, and their cables make lowering the mast a challenge.  One of the things we will be doing in the yard in Virginia is assessing whether it makes sense to relocate the antennas to the mast, extending it somewhat, so that we can once again fold it down, making the flybridge cover the tallest item on the boat.  If that will get the air draft down to where we can do the Great Loop, it will be worthwhile.

Even though it does not make sense for us to drop over $700 (really) to attend this event, several of our friends are making presentations there.  That includes captains Chris and Alyse Caldwell of Captain Chris Yacht Services, and Curtis and Gill Stokes, our brokers, of Curtis Stokes and Associates.  Keith Ruse, principal of Deltaville Boat Yard, where we are headed for yard work, will also be there making some presentations.

We had already arranged to have Keith meet us in Norfolk for the last leg of the trip to Deltaville, as sort of a pre-drydock sea trial, so the fact that he will already be in Norfolk when we arrive simplifies logistics somewhat.  And we'd really like to get together with the rest of the gang, whenever they can get a break from their conference obligations.

And so it is that I have booked a slip at the host marina in Norfolk, starting next Sunday.  The most dangerous thing ever to be found on a boat is a schedule, so we are considering this "tentative" -- if we arrive Monday, Tuesday, or really, any time before the rendezvous ends Thursday night, we should be fine.  And at our current pace, we'll actually have to slow down a bit; we don't really want to arrive any sooner.

This morning's anchorage had no Sprint cell service, but we were able to get online for a very limited amount of data courtesy of roaming agreeements.  Tonight we have no signal at all, and I am typing this as a draft to upload later.  I am hoping to get it posted tomorrow as we pass through Belhaven.  We are likely to be out of coverage again tomorrow night, if the maps and charts are any indication.

Last night on the coast

This morning found us at Casper's Marina, in Swansboro, North Carolina.  That made yesterday a very short day, but I wanted to see Swansboro.  We chose Casper's because they are just a short walk from the downtown waterfront and several restaurants, had a reasonable rate, and offered a ride to the Piggly Wiggly.

We took advantage of this last item, driven by Mrs. Casper herself, who waited for us right outside the store.  We needed to reprovision, having run out of fresh milk, fruits, and vegetables.  The stop was a little overdue, as we already had to dip into the emergency Parmalat shelf-stable milk stash for our morning coffee.  We had a nice dinner at the Icehouse Restaurant just a few blocks from the marina.

Today was another fairly short day, and tonight we are in Morehead City, North Carolina, across the channel from Beaufort.  Low tide has moved late enough in the afternoon that, today, we finally had to grit our teeth and agree to transit some skinny sections on falling water.  Last night I downloaded the latest hydrographic surveys of the channels from the Army Corps of Engineers web site, which were actually quite revealing.  Consequently, we never saw any water low enough to trouble us today, even though we'd read recent reports of groundings on ActiveCaptain.

When I called our first choice this morning, the Portside Marina, they told me they were full and could not accommodate another vessel of our size.  They admitted that this was primarily due to a 150' yacht they had at the dock.  Portside also handles the bookings for the Morehead City Docks, a municipal tie-up, with power, adjacent to a city park another half mile down, and I asked about a spot there, even though our guide said they only accepted up to 50'.

They penciled us in for a spot at the City Docks, and asked us to call on the radio when we got close, so they could send someone to meet us there.  I called as we came up to Portside, with the superyacht Cherosa dead ahead of me.  Since Portside and the City Docks are the same rate, I thought I'd ask again if they might have room, and we lucked out -- someone had just left shortly ahead of us and a space had opened up.  The only hitch was a tricky docking in stiff wind (we had been heeled over the last hour or so, even with the stabilizers at full-tilt) and moderate current.  It took me two tries, but we made it alongside without incident.

Cherosa, of course, is taking up all the "easy" parking on the face dock.  I thought it odd such a large yacht would be here; it turns out they had a mechanical problem en route and had to pull in for emergency repairs. Portside had enough face dock and depth to accommodate them, but not the kind of electric power they need, so five giant cables run all the way down the dock to a huge rental generator ashore.  It puts my whining about generator runtime in perspective.



At least we're not the largest boat in the marina this time.  We dwarf the Grand Banks Fandango behind us, but neither boat is visible from the channel because Cherosa eclipses both of us.  Sort of a flashback to our time at Thunderbolt Marine.  Unlike many of those yachts, I understand the owners are usually aboard Cherosa, but I would guess they are not here during the repairs.  The yacht belongs to David T. Chase, the philanthropist, real estate developer, and Holocaust survivor (no relation to the bank).  Cherosa also carries a U.S. hailing port, unusual among yachts of her size.

Everyone here at the marina is very pleasant and accommodating.   They even have loaner bicycles available.  We won't need them -- we've already walked the entire waterfront, down to the aforementioned City Docks (which were empty), and dinner will also be a short walk away when the time comes.

From here the ICW turns away from the coast, short-cutting the Outer Banks through a series of land cuts and river transits.  We won't be in striking distance of the ocean again until we are in Virginia.  I'd love to spend a couple of days here, or, more accurately, in Beaufort just across the inlet, but we'll do that on another pass, as it is an easy stop on the outside route.  For now we'd like to keep moving towards Virginia and our date with the boatyard.