South Again

We are in Swansboro, NC, a lovely small town with historic homes and (we hope) a good restaurant. I am accompanied by my friend Paul Hamilton, the "Bosun", who is on his third trip on Division Belle. I am glad to have the help and enjoying his good company.

The Bosun

We left home Tuesday morning on election day and made the seven-hour drive up to River Dunes near Oriental, NC. Wednesday was taken up with returning the rental car to New Bern about an hour away, getting our sewage tank pumped out and our water tanks filled, buying a few forgotten groceries, and various other tasks. We departed River Dunes this morning at 9 and arrived here at 4:30 this afternoon. It was an incredibly beautiful day and an uneventful trip.

We had an alternate plan to stop early today in Beaufort, NC and go to sea tomorrow for around a ten-hour trip to Wrightsville Beach. It probably would have worked, but we should be in Wrightsville Beach anyway tomorrow night with the path we chose.

We elected to travel in the waterway further today and continue inside tomorrow because of the weather. Don't get me wrong. The weather is beautiful. However, the forecasts for being at sea tomorrow were right at the margins of what I consider comfortable. I like seas of up to three feet but I get nervous when the forecast is four to five feet and the "period", or time between waves, gets shorter than a comfortable swell. It will probably be beautiful tomorrow at sea, but when you commit to a ten-hour day at sea with nowhere to stop short, it can turn into "a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day". And who wants that? Life is short.

So we traded a really short day today and a ten-hour day at sea tomorrow for two seven or eight-hour days in the waterway, ending at the same place tomorrow night.

We are at Casper's Marina in Swansboro and I asked both the dockhand and the owner where to have dinner with outdoor service. We got the same answer from both of them (a good sign) so we plan to walk a few blocks to "The Boro", which seems to be the favorite.

Tomorrow we will head further south on the Intracoastal Waterway to Wrightsville Beach. We will keep you posted on our progress.

Isle of Hope

We are at Isle of Hope Marina near Savannah. We left The Ford Plantation at 2:45 pm today, after waiting patiently for the tide to be high enough to depart. Our problem was to try to get down to the Savannah area during daylight, which we did. We arrived here at 6:45 pm, just before sunset.

Isle of Hope is one of our favorite places. We kept our previous boat here for about half a year. It is a secluded little neighborhood very close to metropolitan Savannah, but seemingly a throwback to an earlier era. It is a community of old waterfront houses along a road beside the Intracoastal Waterway. A great place for an evening stroll. Tomorrow we shall press on to Harbourtown Marina on Hilton Head. We will only have tomorrow afternoon and most of Tuesday to enjoy our visit. We plan to rent a car to drive back home Tuesday afternoon for work and meetings. I will return Wednesday afternoon to pick up the boat and bring it back home Thursday. It is a quick getaway, but great to exercise the boat and have a little down time.

After a sub-tropical storm on Saturday, this afternoon was spectacularly beautiful. We travelled down the Ogeechee River and through the marsh grasses to join the Intracoastal Waterway. Pictures do not do justice to the marsh here, but trust me, it was spectacular.

Back on the boat

We are back on the boat. Paul Hamilton and I drove up from home to Southport, NC yesterday in a rental car. It is interesting that we could drive up in just over five hours, but the trip home on the boat will take more than five days (50 miles per hour or 50 miles per day). The weather was cold and rainy when we arrived, but promises to be great for the week. We had planned to head out this morning with stops in Myrtle Beach, Georgetown, Charleston, and Beaufort, SC, but it now appears we will be here one more day to finish up a few items.

We might have some options along the way to go offshore, depending on the weather. Georgetown to Charleston would be a good day to do so, as would Beaufort to Savannah, but we shall see.

The boat has been something of a movable repair project so far. Many issues have been resolved in Southport and there will no doubt be many more as we arrive close to home. This is, all-in-all, a great boat, but apparently no one did any maintenance for the past several years. We are making progress, and I won't bore you with the details.

We came up bearing the new flag of our home port at The Ford Plantation. We hoisted it today on the bow.

UPDATE @ 10  PM Monday 2.4.19: Many things came together early today, and we did indeed get away from Southport at around 10 am this morning. It was a beautiful day of cruising, with temperatures reaching around 70. We arrived mid-afternoon in Myrtle Beach, SC. 

Please click "Where's the boat?" above to track our progress.

Live Firing

I am in Southport, North Carolina, the end of the current voyage. You can see the boat out at the end of the dock in a live feed here. My crew Paul Hamilton and Jim Trolinger headed home today.

Maintaining the strange Krispy Kreme hat
tradition started with my son in the Bahamas.

They have been great company and terrific contributors. Paul fixed the satellite TV and both helped figuring out several other items. Jim was chief cook while Paul was bottle washer. Both were excellent deckhands and we took turns on one-hour shifts at the helm every day. Since Paul is president of our POA and Jim of our club, I had an opportunity to tell them both how they need to run things. I think a good time was had by all, and these two will be gladly welcomed back if they want to help out on another trip. I will stay until tomorrow morning to get some work lined up with the Zimmerman Marine office here. 

This has been a "shakedown cruise" for the new boat. All went well, but we did have a few delays and heart-stopping moments. We found this stretch of waterway to have numerous areas where the depth in the center of the marked channel is too shallow to transit. We would watch the depth finder and slow to a crawl when it became 10 feet or less in our 6-foot draft boat. We softly ran aground three times over the last several days, but in each case we were able to back up and feel our way through.

Tuesday evening was spent at a boatyard near Morehead City where my trusty crew managed to put together various fittings so that we could empty sewage at the marina here that still has its pump out system up and running in the winter. We had about 100 statute miles to cover Wednesday and Thursday to get here, and we planned to cover about 2/3 of that distance on Wednesday to have a short day yesterday. I admit I am out of the habit of checking Notices to Mariners, so we were somewhat shocked at 1:00 pm when we came to an area of the  Intracoastal Waterway that was closed due to live firing exercises at Camp Lejeune, NC.

Checking by radio we found that the entire waterway and an area 15 miles out to sea was closed for the next three hours until 4 pm. There was nothing to do but drop an anchor and wait. Following the delay, we made it to Alligator River Marina, requiring us to travel 65 statute miles yesterday to reach our destination. We arrived here at around 3:30 pm.

I would have to say the strangest incident was when we were maneuvering waiting for the Wrightsville Beach bridge opening and the stern thruster stuck in the on condition, moving our stern to port and spinning us around in the narrow channel. Paul Hamilton was at the helm and remained calm and cool in the unexpected situation. I grabbed the stern thruster joy stick to wiggle it back and forth, and found we could stop it from moving us if the stick was held in the starboard position. The thruster circuit breaker did not turn off the problem but made it impossible to stop ourselves by holding the control, so it needed to remain turned on. Ultimately, we found a big red emergency shutoff button for the stern thruster that stopped the problem until we can get it fixed. I have no idea where the bow thruster shutoff is located, but you can bet I will locate it before casting off again.

So all in, it was a successful shakedown trip, and great fun with two good friends. My crew departed at 8:30 this morning, looking as scraggly as they did upon their arrival in Norfolk in sub-freezing temperatures. Thanks for the help guys, and safe travels.

The Division Belle crew is granted shore leave

Why are you guys starting so late?

My new crew members Jim Trolinger and Paul Hamilton reported for duty in Norfolk, Virginia on schedule Friday morning, January 11, 2019.We headed out early Saturday and stopped for fuel at Atlantic Yacht Basin, about eight miles down the Intracoastal Waterway and one of the least expensive diesel fuel stops on the east coast. As we slowly pumped 500 gallons aboard, the dockhand asked: "Why are you guys starting so late?"

The simple answer is that I had hoped to have the boat out of the shop and launched in November or early December, but it didn't happen until January 2. As a result, we have been fleeing winter weather as we creep south on the Intracoastal Waterway. Annapolis, where I started, had eight inches of snow that began Saturday and continued into Monday. I believe Norfolk even got a dusting after our departure. For us there was no snow, but it has certainly been windy and cold, and we had a good bit of rain Saturday night and Sunday. This morning it was around 32 degrees in Belhaven, North Carolina and we might have a few warmer days before a winter storm again reaches the east coast Sunday night. We have only seen two recreational boats moving in four days.

The cold has not really caused any issues running the boat, but most marinas have their water turned off for the freezing temperatures. We were able to fill up when the boat was launched but not elsewhere as we spent a few days in Herrington Harbor. In Norfolk the water was also on so we filled up Friday night. Since then there has been no water, but we have called ahead to make sure we can refill tonight near Morehead City.

My crew members have been great company and excellent hands. They are handling the lines and fenders well, helping to troubleshoot issues and fix things, and we are all rotating the helm duties during the day. We should make it to the twin cities of Beaufort/Morehead City, North Carolina by tonight and on to Southport at Cape Fear by Thursday.