Emergencies, mechanical and medical.

We are underway northbound in the ICW, just about to enter the Alligator-Pungo canal as I begin typing. This is a ruler-straight artificial ditch that Otto can handle, in settled weather, with minimal input from me. It's also boring as all get-out, so a good time to type.

The remainder of our passage to Wrightsville Beach was uneventful, if a little choppy toward the end. We had dinner under way, wrapping up before reaching the inlet, and we had the hook down in our usual spot (map) around 6:45. It was a tight squeeze, with the anchorage more crowded than usual.

Monday was, of course, Memorial Day, and we had already decided to just sit tight until after the weekend waterway chaos. It was a gorgeous day, and I decided to knock out a couple of projects before heading ashore. I grabbed the new dinghy thermostat and the new painter line that had arrived in Georgetown, along with a few tools, and headed up to the boat deck to put the 'stat in and the painter on.

The Alligator-Pungo canal; a straight ditch as far as the eye can see. The Wilkerson Bridge in the foreground is the lone object to break the monotony.

I expected this to be a ten-minute project. I had worked on the thermostat just a couple months earlier and was already familiar with the task. I was in my street clothes, and perched on the very edge of the boat deck where the dingy motor nearly hangs over.  I took the cowling off the motor, put my wrench on the thermostat cover bolt that had moved easily when I had put it back on, and the bolt promptly snapped in two.

Down two levels to the workshop I went, for work clothes, penetrating oil, and more tools. I hoisted the dinghy and spun it around, putting the motor where I could more easily work on it, with less chance of anything going overboard. Now I needed to remove the thermostat cover to have any hope of extracting the bolt, so I applied penetrating oil to the remaining bolt and let it soak in. Some time later I returned with my mini-torch, heated it as much as I dared in light of the composite cover, and started turning it. It, too, promptly snapped in two.

Now we had no dinghy. Honda outboard mechanics are few and far between, and even if I could nail one down, no shop is going to get to anything in less than two or three weeks' time once Memorial Day rolls around. This is officially a major, cruise-ending problem now, with a very short list of solutions: drop the tender off at dealer and cruise marina-to-marina until we can pick it back up, buy a new engine or dinghy from someone's available stock, or buckle down, move out of my comfort zone, and fix it myself.

All of these shoulder bolts broke where the threads met the block.

In order to reach the broken bolts I had to remove the water jacket cover. Even with penetrating oil, heat, and careful "rocking" of the bolt heads, two of the six bolts holding that on also snapped. Searching the 'net reveals this is a common problem with Hondas in salt water. It did not provide any advice for actually fixing the problem.

With the jacket cover removed I found a lot of encrusted salt, aluminum oxide, and the remains of an on-engine anode I did not know I had or that I should have been inspecting every two years. I cleaned all that out after removing the bolt remnants. The bolts would not yield to any amount of left-handed drill bits or bolt extractors, and I finally just drilled them all out completely, left-handed and in heels, and then re-tapped the holes to the original threads. They're all a little bit off from their original alignment -- it's hard to stay dead-center on a steel bolt with a hand-held drill -- but they are close enough to work, and I did not ruin the aluminum engine block in the process.

It took me five hours to drill out four bolts. The last hole was finished at 4:30, and it took another hour to put everything back together. We got the dink in the water just in time to head ashore for dinner at our go-to, Tower 7 Baja Grill, with some well-earned draft beers. The outboard, unwilling to be vanquished, kept dying when I shifted into gear, which made for a bit of drama on the ride to and from the dinghy dock. I'm still working on that issue, but at least we have a mostly workable dinghy again.

These armored personnel carriers are riddled with bullet holes. It looks like a war zone, but it's just the ICW through Camp Lejeune.

With most of my planned errands still undone, and the hoped-for relaxing memorial day evaporated, we briefly considered staying another day in Wrightsville Beach. It's a good anchorage, and there are plenty of services. But today is the first day of hurricane season, and we expect this one to set records -- not a good time to be lingering in the low country. We're pretty late in the season to still be this far south, and we are making tracks out of the danger zone. Our own insurance only requires us to be north of Brunswick, but there is a reason many underwriters choose Cape Hatteras or the Virginia line as the northern limit of their hurricane box.

And so it is that we weighed anchor Tuesday morning after a quick visit to town for milk at Robert's grocery and a short walk, just ahead of the Wrightsville Beach bridge opening. We got very lucky with a fair tide, and other boats ahead of us as a buffer, and thus were also able to make the Figure Eight bridge opening just a half hour later, even though it was four miles north. We had the hook down at Mile Hammock Bay (map), within Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, early enough that we were only the second boat there. By nightfall there were ten of us.

The whole time under way I was struggling with something passing across my field of vision in my right eye. And in hindsight, I think I had noticed it Monday night as I was working on my computer, too. I kept rubbing my eye, thinking it was just some goop in my eye, but by the middle of the day I realized it was internal. It seemed bigger than a "floater" and also different in nature, which was somewhat concerning.

A very red sunset under the Gallant Channel Bridge from our flybridge at the Homer Smith docks.

There was not much I could do about it surrounded by Camp Lejeune, so we just enjoyed the evening, and got back under way after a leisurely coffee in the morning. The problem was still with me as we made our way north, neither more nor less pronounced. Mindful that sudden unexplained changes in vision can be the sign of a serious problem that must be corrected immediately, such as a detaching retina, we decided I needed to have someone have a look with a slit lamp when we reached Beaufort or Moorehead City. I spent a good part of the morning making phone calls.

I made an appointment at the Beaufort Vision Clinic, just a short bike ride from the dinghy dock. I explained to the receptionist that it was a sudden change that warranted an "emergency" visit, but that 4pm was the soonest I could arrive, and she marked me down for 4:15. We both breathed a bit of a sigh of relief and carried on, knowing we had a plan. Louise checked on Uber and Lyft in the area, thinking she ought to come with me.

The relief was short-lived when the doctor's office called me unexpectedly a half hour later. My symptoms had come to the attention of a medical professional, probably the nurse, and she was calling to say 4:15 was not soon enough: "You have to get here right away!" I explained that, short of a helicopter evacuation, I could not be there any sooner than 4 because I was on a slow boat. She understood that, but went further to explain that my symptoms could, indeed, mean retinal detachment, and if so, the nearest facility was at Duke, some three plus hours away in Durham.

This domestic duck apparently lives on the dock. He had words for me as I walked past.

That sent us back to the Internet and the phones. An end-of-day three hour drive out to Durham would mean the boat should not be left at anchor, especially if I ended up staying a couple of days for a procedure and then out of commission for driving the boat. The Beaufort Docks could only take us for a single night on account of a blue marlin tournament, so I called the Homer Smith docks on Towne Creek, who were able to book us a slip for the night that could be extended as needed. I made a 5:30 booking for a rental car for the week at Enterprise in Moorehead City.

With all the arrangements thus made, all we could do was continue on to the marina. That involved a new route for us, via a back channel and a shallow crossover to the Gallant Channel to cut 15-20 minutes off the trip, so we spent some time studying the charts and surveys. We made it across with water to spare, and were tied up in a slip at Homer Smith (map) by 3pm. The marina has a courtesy car, which happened to be available when we arrived, and after securing the boat we drove right over to the eye doctor.

Fortunately it was a well-equipped office, complete with a fancy Nikon retinal camera. We were there all the way to closing time, 5pm, as the doctor wanted me well-dilated. The good news is that the retinal imagery, slit-lamp examination, and direct examination all revealed the retina to be fully attached and normal. The bad news is that the obstruction is likely just a big floater that I will have to live with. It's annoying, but at least I know it's nothing serious.

Fresh cadmium plated flange bolts from Ace. The two black pan-head ones at the top were all I had lying around, and just barely engaged the threads to keep the thermostat cover on. The replacements were already installed when I snapped this.

We returned directly to the marina, handing the car to the next waiting couple right at the two-hour limit. We walked the four blocks to the Front Street Grill in town for dinner, our first time in all our stops here. It was a bit higher-end than we expected and they have no beer taps, but the food was decent. We ate inside, because my dilated eyes could not take the sunlight, but they have a nice deck area they call the Rhum Bar that looks appealing.

As long as we ended up with an unplanned marina stay, we took advantage to get the laundry done, top up the water tanks, and offload the trash. The marina is recently renovated and sports a nice lounge, a furnished covered deck area, a free laundry with three pairs of machines, and individual unisex rest rooms with nice en suite showers. They also have reasinable weekly and monthly rates, should we ever find ourselves needing some downtime here.

As it was we just paid for the single night, and after using the courtesy car to pick up groceries and some bolts for the Honda at the Ace Hardware in the morning, we dropped lines at the 11am checkout time. That gave us a bit of fair tide up into Adams Creek and we had an easy cruise out into the Neuse, where we found a bit of chop. The late start had us stopping at a familiar anchorage in Broad Creek, east of Oriental (map).

Sunset through the trees over Broad Creek. Moments later we were weighing anchor to move further up the creek.

We had chosen that spot because the forecast was for north and east winds, and we had a pleasant and comfortable evening. But just as the last rays of sunset were fading, the boat started moving with waves coming in off the Neuse. A quick check of the weather revealed an unforecast shift to the south-southeast, and this was a terrible spot for that. We had a mad scramble to weigh anchor and move a mile up the creek to the west, for a calmer spot (map). It was dark by this time, and we had quite the challenge finding and avoiding pot floats as we moved off-channel to anchor. We set a short scope and I left the deck lights on overnight.

Up until yesterday morning we had left it open whether we would take our preferred Pamlico Sound route, or this route up the ICW. The forecast for the sound was marginal, and with the variability we've been seeing and sudden unforecast shifts, we opted for the longer but more protected route, and departed yesterday morning for Belhaven. It was a bit of a bash crossing the Bay and Pamlico rivers, confirming we made the right choice.

We arrived to a calm harbor in Belhaven and dropped the hook in our usual spot (map). It's a short dinghy ride from there to the town dinghy dock, and we walked to the Tavern at Jack's Neck for a casual dinner. They once again have draft beer, after the taps being inoperative on our last visits, and I enjoyed the local amber from Red Oak. We also stopped in the Ace Hardware, which seems on the verge of going under. We noticed renovations in progress in one of the buildings on Pamlico Street, sporting a sign reading "Brewery," so I am hopeful that a brew pub might be in the works.

On our walk this morning we passed this house, jacked up and ready to be moved. It turns out it was the parsonage for the adjacent church, being moved to a waterfront lot to make room for a new sanctuary.

I did go out on deck last night for the SpaceX launch, but we are finally too far north to see anything. This morning we went back ashore for another short walk before weighing anchor; the dinghy seems to be behaving itself a little better now, so it remains to be seen what else I will need to do to get it into shape. We weighed anchor around 10, the last ones out of Dodge.

Update: We are anchored in the Alligator River, in a new spot for us, on the north/south stretch, in what the chart has marked as a spoil area (map). We're taking a chance that the forecast for light winds will hold, since we are very exposed here to the south. I have a couple of chicken breasts marinating for the grill.

From here it is two days to the free bulkhead at Great Bridge, where we might just settle in for two nights to give ourselves a break. We have several packages coming to the Amazon locker there. We're keeping an eye on the passage weather; if we get a window to go outside at the Chesapeake Bay entrance and run all the way to NJ or NY, we'll take it, and save the five-day slog through the C&D Canal route.