May 22 to June 16, 2009

Pushed off the dock at Manatee Pocket with the generator fixed! Finally someone who knew what he was doing: the hydraulic pump had somehow lost its rubber inspection port and gotten a little corroded and was frozen. Luckily with a twist of a screwdriver it freed itself and now works just fine: Yahoo!!! Still gotta replace it. Anyway at 1130 we headed for the Gulf Stream and 26 hours later we watched as a Coast Guard cutter came crashing out thru the 3'-4' chop on an outgoing tide coming out Ponce De Leon Inlet (29° 04.5N, 80° 54.54W) at New Symrna: just like in the movies: Wow, spray flying out everywhere and the Coasties all lined up on the top bridge in their red life jackets. After fueling up, we headed south 2 NM and pulled to the west side of the channel at channel marker Red "20" and dropped the hook for the weekend (29° 2.713N, 80° 54.468W). Jackie and Duane Williams joined us in the afternoon and Jim and Jane Caltrider sailed up from Titusville to raft up with us and bring our mail. We were joined by Pat and Bob Hoover; Jack and Marion McGrath; Missy and Bob for a fun Memorial Day weekend.









Storm over New Smyrna

Up anchor on the 26th - and we managed to bend the shank on the Fortress anchor trying to put up the sail in the current before leaving - at 1500 hrs. bound again for the Gulf Stream (it gives a 2.5 - 3 NM speed kick northeast) and Southport, NC. This time, after 56 hours and 359 NM, we arrived in the dark - great timing - at the outer mark. The chart plotter worked perfectly and guided up into the Southport Marina's (33° 55.038N, 78° 1.728W) fuel dock without incident at around 0030 hrs. Other cruisers who happened to be up at that un-Godly hour helped us tie up to the floating dock. This time Betty and

Summer Wind, Jim & Jane Caltrider

Byrl Raper from Monroe, NC joined us. We spent our time sight seeing the cute, little town to include a run to the Boat US liquidation sale; eating; and drinking .















Betty and Byrl Raper with Linda Southport City Marina

Off to Little River Inlet, NC and the town of Calabash (33° 53.096N, 78° 34.242W) on 6/1/09 where we "moored" in an abandoned marina (Marsh Harbor) by dropping the hook in the mud and tying off to two trees on the shore. When the tide went out, we sat on the bottom (mud) in 2 ft. of water. Betty and Byrl returned for the weekend and I worked him nearly to death. We put in the new main sail traveler and track from Garhauer along with two new cars for the jib sheets. These have blocks and ball bearings so




















they can be adjusted under load. We also got Betty to take the measurements for a new A/C panel face as the existing one is full of holes for instruments and switches we used to have. All was not work, however. We did get to the beach where we found a warm salt water pool and took "showers" with boaters' soap and Joy. On 6/10 we were hit by a torrential thunder storm with 30+kn winds which pulled the anchor thru the mud and landed us up against the sea wall where we had tied off. In getting the engines started and moving back out into the middle again, one of the mooring lines fouled the port propeller. But we were successful in resetting the anchor and hanging off one mooring line until morning. Next day I had to dive the prop and cut the rope free. Thankfully I had purchased the necessary fittings at Ace Hardware to hook up my SCUBA regulator to the oil-less electric air pump and was able to "stay down" while hacking the miscreant line. The yucky mud bottom was down just enough that I didn't have to wallow in it.

Man, that was enough for Calabash and we took off for Murrells Inlet, SC, a beach condo enclave (no town that we saw). We anchored at the end of the channel and to one side (33° 33.466N, 79° 01.181W). Winds still steadily out of the SE - S which kept us out of the marsh. Yup, you guessed it: the wind shifted during the night pushing us on the high tide slightly (one pontoon) onto the fringe of the marsh. High and dry, but at only a slight cant: a cat can do that where a sloop would

Murrells Inlet marinas

be a lop-sided mess. No problem, right? Wrong. The morning's high was 1/2 ft. lower that the night's high, so we had to wait until that evening and a higher tide to kedge ourselves off with our new and improved Fortress anchor. Seems it has a lifetime warranty and they replaced the shank for the cost of shipping. Yes! This time we anchored further out in the channel, kept an anchor watch (we took turns staying awake watching for other boats coming back in), up anchored at 0615 hrs., and headed for Winyah Bay inlet and Georgetown, SC (33° 21.768N, 79° 16.925W). Once again we mostly motored into the wind on our nose until we hit the Winyah River. Then for 2.5 hrs. we were able to motor sail up to Georgetown, a deep water port from where they export metal products, paper and lumber. Another cute town with a little history. Seems Mrs. Obama's great grandfather was a slave on one of the plantations there and helped to found the local AME church which was instrumental in educating the slaves to read and write. Apparently she still attends services there

Shrimper

when she's in town.

We decided to try our hand at "sailing" the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW) south. We'd hoped to get as far as Beaufort and Hilton Head, but were thwarted by a fixed bridge (maximum vertical height at mean low water 65' and our mast is 67') just south of Beaufort. So we opted to go as far as McClellanville, SC (33° 5.064N, 79° 28.040W) where we could cut over thru the marshes to the sea. Holy cow, the yellow headed, monster biting flys were everywhere. Linda, no kidding, must have swatted 3 dozen back to the Hell they came from. But we still got a bite or two with Linda in the lead for most succulent. McClellanville is a very small shrimping/fishing community as far as we could tell scouting up the riverfront in a rain storm. Boats rafted up to wharfs three at a time were all along the riverside: pretty crowded. We anchored in Five Fathom Creek (33° 3.976N, 79° 27.826W) just east of the ICW and just off Clark's Creek which lead to the inlet. Next morning (6/15/09) we headed for sea only to find the entire coastal configuration had changed from what we saw on the chartplotter. The entire barrier island at the mouth of the inlet was gone and the channel went right through where it had been. There was a dredge making the channel deeper and wider. Thankfully the Coast Guard had relocated the buoys so we got back into the Atlantic without incident.

Yup, another short motor (winds under 5 kn from the SE) passage (26 hrs. and 168 NM), this time to the backside of St. Simons Island, GA ((31° 9.807N, 81° 25.083W) near Brunswich, GA where I'm penning this blog.