A Mini-Break to Ottawa

[Maryanne]It seems Kyle has spent every moment of spare time at the boat for the last two months. My timetable is more rigid than his, and my attempts to join him some weekends have been foiled by flight cancellations and bad weather.

Just as it seems the boat is eventually ready, and we can actually sail it, we'd missed our chances to be together on the boat for a weekend; Kyle had to work.

We were able to make lemonade out of lemons though since Kyle had a Saturday and a Sunday overnight in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Well, if I can't join him for work aboard Begonia, I can certainly join him for fun and adventure in Canada for a weekend get-a-way.

Random Ottawa scenes - what's not to like?

We could not have been more lucky, the weather was beautiful, as was this wonderful small city. We ambled, ate, relaxed and enjoyed the views. The city was filled with things to occupy and amuse: cycle trails, hiking trails, black squirrels, fantastic architecture, sculptures to trip over everywhere, a flight of canal locks, and so much more. Much was free (a tour of the Federal and Supreme courts, and a evening light show projected onto the Parliament building), or really inexpensive ($6 bicycle rental for the day, with pick-up and drop-off points every where you might need one).

The canal, parliament's library, and, of course, beer!

We thoroughly enjoyed our break (even though Kyle was technically at work) and recommend Ottawa to all.

Maryanne has a try as Federal judge.. watch out, she enjoyed it!

The Refit is Done!

[Kyle]Finally, Begonia is in her slip as a regular sailboat instead of an injured-looking project boat.

Begonia is a sailboat again

The last few weeks have been tough. While my list of jobs to do has been winding down, the yard here still conspicuously had major work remaining. Parts were delayed and I was beginning to get very nervous Begonia wouldn’t be finished in time. Increasingly frustrated, I struggled to ride the line between not letting the yard have any slack and not irritating them to the point that they no longer wanted to help me.

It was close. The major parts for the mast and crossbeam arrived with just over a week to go, with some critical minor parts for each still on the way. All of the parts for the heating system were already there, but the installation was a big, time consuming job. It took constant pressure from me to keep them from taking our installer for more pressing (for them) tasks. As our deadline approached, the remaining work got compressed into a smaller and smaller window.

We got the crossbeam on right at the end of business for the day. I worked until dark wrestling the trampoline back on. I was so tired afterwards I could have slept right there on it, but the biting bugs were coming out for their dusk feeding so I had to drag myself inside.

Two days later, as quitting time approached, the heater installation was finally complete enough for an operational test. A late shipment of rigging for the mast arrived so our installer, Ed, left me to wait and see if any heat came out of the vents while he left to work on the mast.

Nothing happened for a while. Our heater uses very little fuel and the line from the pump to the combustion section is long. If the heater doesn’t light off in a minute or two, the controller commands an auto shutdown. On about the seventh attempt, the heater fired. It was exciting, but also alarming. One of the fuel connections was still loose. Fuel was dripping onto the exhaust, which was getting VERY hot. The fuel didn’t ignite, but there was a lot of smoke filling the small compartment. I shut the unit down, tightened the connection and restarted it. Another connection downstream started dripping. I repeated the shutdown, tighten, restart process and found the leak had stopped.

I cranked up the heater to maximum and waited. In short order, there was smoke everywhere. Most of it was from the thin layer of fuel left over on the exhaust after wiping it off, but there was also a lot of outgassing from the insulating cover on the exhaust as it became exposed to the high heat for the first time. With our new heater screaming, I felt all along the length of the exhaust. I could touch the cover, but not hold it. There were a couple of gaps in the heat shield at joints that seemed too dangerous to me. I shut everything down, clamped double insulation over the joints and restarted. The smoke was clearing and the exhaust could now be touched over its entire length.

The boat, which was ninety degrees inside to start with, started filling with hot air. It works! The engine compartment with the actual heater in it got even warmer. Dripping with sweat, I crawled all over for another hour or so checking everything over until I had satisfied myself that no fuel was leaking and no fire hazard exists. Finally, it was time to shut the thing down and burst outside. Never has ninety-degree air felt so refreshing.

The next day, just before closing, the rig was assembled and the mast went on just like it was supposed to. By the time I emerged from under the setee where I was hooking up the electrics, the guys from the yard had all gone home. I wrestled the boom on myself and then took Begonia out into the Rappahannock to check everything works and to calibrate and synchronize the instruments. I was relieved to find no surprises.

It took all day the following day to get the mainsail on. The fully battened main has to actually be assembled onto the mast. The process takes more labor hours than stepping the mast itself. It was horrible, fiddly work in the hot sun. By the time It was on stowed in its cover, I had to get a shower and rush off to work, so I didn’t actually get to go out and hoist it until I got back.

The sail was necessarily brief – just long enough to check everything over. In spite of the fact that we have been bringing carload after carload of stuff down from our apartment and packing it aboard, she is still fast and nimble under sail. I was very pleased. The boat was finally done.

I spent the following day scrubbing, running errands and loading provisions aboard. I wasn’t feeling the least bit done. I still seemed to be finishing all of my days hungry and exhausted, but craving food or sleep not nearly as much as a nice, cold shower.

So now Begonia is all fixed up, scrubbed and ready to move on. Maryanne and I finally get to spend the weekend anchored out together like a normal couple. Well, normal for us anyway.

Repairs, Upgrades and Maintenance. Work Continues…

[Kyle]Since things stopped being horrible 100% of the time, they’ve only been horrible about 50% of the time. I’ll get parts in the mail and I’ll be back to being crazy busy for a day or two. My most recent crazy day came when all of the dinghy stuff that wasn’t actually the boat itself arrived in the mail (the boat arrived last week).

Dinghy and radar installed - Actual Progress, yay!

In addition to the basic boat which, you know, lets you float on top by keeping the water out, we also ordered the sail kit, the lifeboat kit and a few other extras, including all of the necessary hardware to securely attach it to our davits. My day was spent unpacking and checking over all of the hardware, then putting everything together and getting the dinghy stowed in the davits.

As an aside, I want to compliment Portland Pudgy on their dinghy. The refinements that designer David Hulbert has made since our last pudgy have been marvelous. The dinghy, the sail kit, and most importantly, all of the safety gear associated with the lifeboat kit are really well thought out and constructed using the highest quality hardware. I honestly don’t think you can get a better dinghy/lifeboat anywhere else. It’s a nice feeling when opening the boxes to be impressed again and again with each new item that comes out. Well done, guys!

After the fun of unpacking, the real meat of the day was spent figuring out how to get the Pudgy secured. After several hoisting/lowering attempts, I finally determined there was just no way to make it work without removing our ten person canister life raft from its bracket on the stern. We had bought the Pudgy as a replacement lifeboat, but I was hoping we would still be able to keep our raft as a backup. It’s not possible. Like young siblings, there’s no way those two things can occupy the same space without them tearing each other up. The problem was that I now had to get the life raft out of its mounting. I manoeuvred myself underneath it in the Pudgy and untied its lashings and worked it to the edge of the bracket. I could tell it was heavy. I had the same feeling I had as a teenager when I replaced my first clutch. As I removed the last bolt, the weight of the whole transmission came down on my chest, pinning me to the garage floor. While the raft’s weight was still being supported by Begonia I had the presence of mind to take my glasses off and put them in the cockpit because I just KNEW I was going in the water with it when it came free.

Somehow, I was able to control its fall and we both ended up inside the upright dinghy in the end. I had a foot pinned, so I tried to maneuver the raft both off of my foot and into a position that would make it easier to get it out of the Pudgy and onto the dock. That thing is really heavy – at least 200lbs. As I yanked and pulled on it, I fell over into the other side of the dinghy and then the life raft canister rolled onto me. Ahhh, THAT’S the feeling I was expecting. This is one of the reasons I exercise so much, so I have the muscle strength to get myself out of crazy situations like this and the tendon and ligament strength to not have them just snap when something tries to force all of my joints the wrong way. It still hurt like hell, though, but I couldn’t get in a deep enough breath to scream.

Once that was out of the way on the dock, I was thrilled to find that the Pudgy was easier to hoist and stow than it was on Footprint. It fits perfectly into a vee between the davits and the life raft bracket and once it’s there, feels like it’s bolted to the big boat. Whoo, hoo!

That was another exhausting day. I work hard when I’ve got jobs to do because I’m not sure how long things will take. I’ll be plowing through, when I suddenly find myself at the end and coast disoriented into a few hours or an afternoon where I have nothing substantial left to do until the next shipment. It’s so unexpected that I find myself wandering around aimlessly looking for work that I can make, even if it’s just double checking work I’ve already finished. I seem completely incapable of calling the day done and propping myself in the cockpit with a glass of wine at 3pm. That’s fine when we’re cruising, but this is a refit. Refits are supposed to be work. This one has been pretty exhausting so far and I have the sneaking suspicion I’m forgetting something important if it doesn’t continue to be so.

New beam, and new heating both moving along nicely

So I go to our refit list and it tells me coldly and objectively that most of the jobs really are done, except for a few over which I have little personal control. The few items that are left are dependent on the mail delivery or the marina.

Most conspicuously is the mast. The riggers at the marina are waiting for parts to arrive this week that will allow them to finish the repairs. Begonia still has no mast, no boom, no sails, no crossbeam and no trampoline. These are big, obvious jobs, so for a boat that is almost done, she still looks half taken apart, or half put back together if you like.

The only interior job left is to finish the heating installation. While somewhat invasive, it doesn’t require the whole boat be torn apart, so I’ve been able to reclaim some areas to do some reassembly and get those spaces organized into eventual cruising mode.

Although the refit as been mostly exhausting and unpleasant, it hasn’t all been bad. While my day-to-day experience has been a lot of hard, sweaty work, in the larger sense I think the experience has made the boat mine in more than the financial bill-of-sale sense. I’ve repaired engines. I’ve worked on every system on this boat. I’ve been in every living, machinery and other space on the boat – even the claustrophobic space between the cockpit floor and the bottom of the bridgedeck. I know how every wire, pipe and cable gets from one end to the other. I’ve taken things apart, modified them and put them back together. I’ve drilled holes. I’ve plugged them up. I now know this boat. I know how she’s built. I know what she’s made of. She’s mine now. I no longer feel like I’m intruding on somebody else’s space, fumbling my way through.

I’d still rather be sailing, though. It occurred to me this morning over coffee that most of the time we have owned Begonia, she’s been in pieces and our connection to her has been through the work we are doing. It seems strange to think there will be happy days spent sailing, swimming, exploring and relaxing instead of just hard, sweaty work. In spite of most of the work being done, progress has not been noticeable on a day-to-day basis. Our chartplotter, for example, is really cool, but we haven’t been anywhere, so apart from testing it out to make sure it works, we haven’t used it. Most of the refit is like that. The boat was in pretty good shape to begin with. Most of our modifications are stuff that will make cruising better, but we’re not cruising, we’re refitting, so it’s hard to notice them yet.

It helps to think there will be a time soon when things will be all done and we’ll have a great new boat with which to go out and explore and relax, including the occasional three o’clock glass of wine.

[Maryanne]I haven't had to work nearly as hard as Kyle has on the boat, but I do promise to help out with that 3 O'clock wine - any time. And almost as much as Begonia, I'm looking forward to sailing with our new Portland Pugdy someday soon.

Actually much of my efforts have recently been with organization, chasing up, and shipping items for return or repair; I've been promoted to project administrator I guess, while Kyle does the nasty, dirty, hard work.

I've also wasted several days of 2 steps forward and 10 back on a project to put a zipper in our sail cover. Eventually I had to agree that my sewing machine just isn't up to the job: it will neither handle the extra stiff threads used for outdoor projects without jamming, nor some of the extra thick patches of folded materials that need sewing.

Since this was my mother's sewing machine I was especially keen for it to work and spent many hours attempting work-arounds. Eventually, and with some regret, I conceded defeat and purchased a old but beautifully refurbished singer sewing machine from the same Canadian e-bay seller that I'd used before (and he remembered me). My new machine is being shipped to the marina, and that pretty much dictates my weekend I guess. Since we hope the mast to be re-stepped next week, I had better do my best to have the sail cover ready!

Kyle has the boat upside down with multiple projects, while Maryanne has the apartment converted into a sail loft

So soon it really will be all done, and we'll be able to host guests and break out the wine. I had one friend who was brave and kind enough to join me for a weekend of hard work in high humidity (thanks Liz), for the rest of you, the coast is almost clear of work, so when are you coming to visit?

Repairs, Upgrades and Maintenance. Hard work!

[Kyle]It’s been a while since we’ve posted a blog entry. It’s not because we haven’t been busy, quite the opposite. We’ve been so swamped with jobs there hasn’t been a free moment to write – until now.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

After anchoring out for a couple of days to prep Begonia for having the mast removed, I took the boat to Deltaville Yachting Center, where they were waiting with the crane for my arrival. Since I was now safely in harbor, I set about loosening the rig in an attempt to keep unnecessary labor costs to a minimum. The rig turned out to be cranked down so tight that it took all of my strength just to move the turnbuckles. What I thought was going to be a quick 10-minute job turned into 2 hours of straining under the sun in the airless heat.

The mast and step (the plate on the deck upon which the mast rests) came off with difficulty. By the end of the day, the whole yard crew and me were overheated, drenched in sweat, exhausted and frustrated.

I moved the motorboat Begonia to her slip and immediately started in on my portion of the long jobs list for the refit. Eventually, as it got dark, I was too exhausted to face it anymore and staggered to the showers for a marvelous cold shower (They have hot. I just didn’t use it.) That washed away all of the grime and excess heat of the day. When I got back to the boat, I was too tired to consider cooking, so I grabbed a handful of trail mix and called it good enough before collapsing into bed.

The days have been going like that ever since. I couldn’t possibly spare the time to eat and even if I could, every available surface is so filled with tools and parts that I wouldn’t have anywhere to sit and eat it anyway, so I just keep working. I promise myself I’ll knock off a little early, tidy up and have a decent meal when the day’s over but by the time it happens, I’m usually back to grabbing a quick handful of something between shower and bed.

The work has since been progressing in three-steps-forward, two-steps-back fashion. I will set a goal in the morning of getting two or three jobs done only to finish the day with one thing done and the other two kind of done, possibly spawning a fourth and fifth. For example, the other day I decided to solve once and for all the fuel leak in the starboard engine that had plagued me on the ICW trip here from Charleston. I checked over the entire fuel system very carefully and found the culprit to be a faulty gasket on the fuel pump. I removed the fuel pump, took it into the main salon, pushed aside enough space on the table to work, and spent the morning rebuilding it. At the end of the day, as I lay on top of the engine trying to keep the sweat out of my eyes while I installed the pump, I was pleased to know I could tick that pesky item off the list when I was done. Well, you know where this is going. As I tightened the last fuel line, the bolt got tight, and then it got loose. Damn! I had stripped the threads. I took the bolt out and found that I had stripped the threads in the body of the fuel pump, not the bolt. The only solution after all of that work was to buy a whole new fuel pump - one job NOT done after all.

They’ve pretty much all been like that. I’ll get 90% of the way through, and find a part that won’t fit or find that a part is missing that I need. I’ve been doing a lot of last-minute runs to the local hardware store for solutions. Sometimes, while I’m out, I’ll swing by and get a sandwich somewhere with table space in the air conditioning. Starvation averted.

Maryanne and I have been working opposite schedules during all of this. She has the more traditional weekends off, I’m off during the week. Our schedules don’t overlap, so we haven’t been seeing each other hardly at all. Most of the time, our planes are passing each other as we go back and forth to the boat. This is made worse by the fact that our AT&T phones don’t work in Deltaville and the marina’s wifi is only good out to about 50 feet from the office. Once a day email barrages are our main means of communicating.

After a couple of weeks chugging away independently at our various lists, things were starting to feel a little less desperate. Neither of us could help but notice that we seemed to be the only ones working. The marina hadn’t done anything inside the boat, and outside all that had changed is the mast and beam removed, but no sign of progress there either. They were waiting on a guy who was waiting on a guy who was on vacation or some such thing. Our electronics installer, Marine Electronics of Hartfield, was even more useless. Even though we had given them several weeks (2 months) notice before showing up, and with me going in personally a couple of times a week since, we were unable to even get them to come to the boat to see what we needed. My dealings with them became a string of broken promises and lame excuses. Maryanne got worried enough about their reliability that she made an end run around them and mail ordered all of the hardware, leaving them just the labor. One or two more lame excuses later and I was fed up enough to walk out of their office in disgust.

As to our yard, to their credit, and despite some concerns on our part that progress was not visible, once it was our turn in line we seemed to have their full attention and substantial work started every day. Every time I came back to the boat, she looked better and better. I keep trying not to keep a running total of labor hours in my head, but it’s hard to resist. The estimates all seem fair and reasonable, but they’ve done a lot of work. We haven’t seen the bill yet.

We gave up on Marine Electronics entirely. Maryanne spent a Saturday that should have been allocated to other jobs chasing down leads for their replacement. She found Bill Cornpropst of Norton Yachts as a possible candidate (and approved Ray Marine Dealer). On my next trip to the boat, I met with Bill to talk about what we needed. He started work the next day. The day after that, he emailed me at work to tell me he was finished with everything he could do without the mast up. Wow! Was that so hard? Bill is our hero.

I waited and waited for Marine Electronics of Hartfield to make me another empty promise about coming out to start the estimate. They never did. Eventually, Maryanne sent them an email making it official that we wouldn’t be using them because they’re crap (although I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have been the word she used, they should have received that message). Who knows if they’ve managed to get around to opening it yet?

As time went on, I started running low on jobs that I could do while I was waiting for parts in the mail. I’d just get to where I thought there wasn’t anything left I could do for the day when another shipment would come and I’d be back at it until dark and through the next day.

The trusty Ed installing footpumps for a manual water supply, and Kyle's shiny new SpeedSeal for easy access to the impeller (raw engine water pump)

Yesterday, I worked until dark. My last two jobs were to install the new fuel pump as well as a water pump on the starboard engine. After nearly a month out of commission, it was a great relief to start it up and watch it run. As it ran, I repeated the now usual routine of crawling over the running engine, looking for signs of trouble. This time, there was none. It ran smoothly without a hint of leaking fuel, oil, water or coolant. Whoo, hoo!

It took me a few more hours to clean up. I decided I wasn’t taking shortcuts and made myself a proper dinner at last. I made it to bed around midnight.

This morning, I learned from Maryanne via email that our VHF radio and our autopilot control panel needed to be shipped to their respective factories for service, so I removed them both. One of our floorboards over the bilge feels a little soft. I pulled it up to find it developing a crack. That necessitated another trip to the hardware store for supplies to reinforce it.

That was it. After weeks I have finally reached the point where there is nothing to do until more parts arrive or until some intermediate job somebody else is doing gets done first. That’s a little misleading. There always lots than can be done. I’m talking about the list of stuff that has to be done for the refit to be considered complete. The boat is finally starting to seem more finished than not. The cracks in the mast have been welded and all of the rigging has been removed for eventual replacement. It feels like we may actually have a working sailboat in the not too distant future. After all of this work, It’s hard for me to imagine what that must be like.

Maryanne has been bugging me for a while to update the blog, so I’m finally getting around to that while DYC’s installer, Ed, mutters to himself in the background from some tiny corner of the boat. Today, he’s installing manual foot pumps for our water system. I keep trying to help, but honestly there’s only room in those spaces for one of us at a time, so mostly all I can do is talk to him, which seems to slow him down.

So I finally get to have kind of an easy day, except that I’ve got to track down some boxes for those shipments and the mail should be here by now. What’s in the office will determine tomorrow’s fate.

Mast progress

[Maryanne]Kyle is sounding so positive and we really are making progress. For a boat that was basically OK, it's amazing how much effort and expense we are incurring, but we really feel that we want to get all the work over and done with now, so we can then just enjoy the boat for some time to come.

Along with new stuff to install, and old stuff to repair, there is maintenance required too. I slowly identify all the items on the boat and search for manuals and recommended maintenance. Some items are long familiar to us, like the winches, which despite seeming to spin freely, were in dire need of a service.

Digging in, and discovering while living in chaos! Oh and some shiny new instruments to play with too

Despite progress, very little is actually completely done yet; even our new Portland Pudgy dinghy has only half arrived (The basic dinghy is here, but all the fun and useful parts have yet to be even sent). The main boat mast is off, stripped of rigging and awaiting parts to be delivered and fabricated before it can be put back together. The cross beam is ordered (not sure when it may arrive, nor what might need to be done with it once it gets here). The heating system has arrived, but still to be installed. We've had to forget about the canvas work for now (yet another contractor letting us down and others in town fully booked), but since we've over spent on anything else, this is probably a good thing. What I'm trying to say here is that we are far from done, but this is all pretty disruptive work that is much easier attempted now than after we've moved aboard. It's a painful process, and it's frustrating that Kyle and I don't get to see much of each other during this time, frustration on top of all the normal boat yard hassles... but we keep telling ourselves it will all be worth it; short haul pain for long term fun.

We hope soon to be posting actual sailing blogs.

Still Heading North - Day 9

[Kyle]As I left Portsmouth in the pre-dawn light, I was intending for once to have an easier day than the usual all-day push. I generally like to plan long journeys so that I’m covering more distance per time than the remaining average. That way, if something comes up like mechanical difficulties or bad weather, I have an increasingly higher chance of absorbing the delay and still completing the journey. If everything works out as planned, I get a chance to slow down, relax and enjoy myself along the way.

The day’s weather forecast was good, but the following two days were not. I had originally thought I would just tough it out for the two bad weather days since they weren’t too long. The more I thought about it as I was making my way by the Navy yards on the way out of Norfolk, the more I thought there was no point in it. The weather was good. I wasn’t particularly attached to my next anchorage in Poquoson, Particularly if it starts blowing hard. So I skipped Poquoson and went directly to the anchorage for the next day while I had the weather in my favor.

Along the way in the open bay, since I didn’t have to navigate within 50 feet, I dug out all of the manuals and tried to brush up on the boat’s systems. I feel pretty comfortable with it now apart from the ship’s ham radio, which I’m only 3% less confused about than I was before. It seems the other ham in the family and I are going to have to spend the next winter refreshing ourselves on what we’re supposed to be doing with this thing.

I timed the currents right, which got me there after only ten hours, leaving me plenty of daylight left in which to enjoy my new surroundings in addition to the extra day I gained by skipping ahead. My selected anchorage in Stoakes River was a little stressful to get into because the approach was pretty shallow and poorly marked, but I made it in and found myself to be the lone boat in a big bay that was pretty uniformly five feet deep.

With the whole bay in which to swing around and knowing a blow was coming, I put out all of the chain. The bay has good protection from the waves, but not from the wind. This will allow the wind generator to keep the batteries nice and full while I’m here and keep the bugs away. Time to kick back and relax!

North on the ICW - Day 8

[Kyle]I left a soon as it was light enough to do so for the first locking through the Dismal Swamp Canal. The morning was foggy as I wound my way up the increasingly narrow river.

Once inside the lock, I realized I had lines and fenders set up on the wrong side of the boat and had to switch everything around in a hurry. I was the only one there and with no wind to push the boat around, I was able to do it while floating in the middle of the lock.

It is said about the Dismal Swamp Canal that the name is rather unfortunate. It is actually a very green, tree-lined alley across the North Carolina Virginia state line. The Dismal part of the name is supposed to be one of the great failures of marketing, like Greenland or Iceland. It turns out they’re wrong. The swamp is dismal, but not because it’s not pretty.

This time, I never actually got to see the canal. Instead, I was in a mortal battle with swarms of horrible, vicious, biting yellow flies. I spent the whole time I should have been enjoying the scenery monitoring my exposed skin for flies. I coated myself in a thick layer of bug repellent, which stopped about half of them. The other half were ruthless in their persistence. Every time I let my attention lapse, I’d be punished with several painful bites. I could only look up long enough to check that I wasn’t drifting toward one bank or another of the very narrow canal.

By the time I made it to the other end, hundreds of swatted carcasses littered the cockpit floor. I arrived with another boat for the 1:30 locking down. We called the operator and were told there would be a delay while he locked a boat up. We tied up and spent the time swatting flies and cleaning the dead from our boats.

ICW, and the Dismal Swamp Canal

The up-going boat came through, and in no time we were free to join the Elizabeth River into Norfolk. As soon as we did, the flies stopped. I’ve always had this theory that there are few bugs in cities because of the air pollution. It was a welcome break from the flies, even if it’s not the best for my health.

I pulled into Ocean Marine for fuel. This is where Maryanne and I lived for almost five years as were saved and prepared for a life of cruising. It was strange. It looked so familiar, even though the staff and almost all of the boats were different from when we were there. Nobody recognized me at all.

I topped off the fuel tank and a jerry can. I was amazed that I made it this far under power on one tank. Footprint was faster under power, but would have needed at least twice as much fuel for the same journey.

I went to pay for the fuel and on the walk back to the fuel dock I had the strangest sensation. I had been through that routine many, many times before after a weekend of sailing and anchoring out. It was all so familiar that my mind just went back to that place. I walked back to the fuel dock on autopilot, habitually making note of the wind so I could figure out how to get into our dock adjacent. When I got to the fuel dock and I came to, I had about a half of a second of total confusion. The fuel dock was filled with this giant catamaran with a great big mast. What happened to our boat? When did this thing show up? After a couple of weeks aboard, I’m starting to get used to the inside, but I’ve only seen Begonia from a distance a few times. I’m still always shocked by how big she seems.

Of course, I didn’t have a dock to go to a few boat lengths over. We didn’t live there any more. Instead, I pulled out into the river and went a couple of stops down to the transient quay at the town harbor. Another piece of fancy two-engine manoeuvring slid me into a spot behind another boat. I shut down the engines and was tying up when Kate and Mark showed up!

They were excited to get the tour and I was dying to give it to them, but I still had to finish off the securing procedure, so I made them wait until I was done. I showed them around. They oohed and ahhed appropriately, and then we took a familiar walk through Old Towne Portsmouth to one of Maryanne and my old frequent haunts. It was also the same but different. No matter, the big event was getting to spend time with Kate and Mark catching up. We see them pretty often, but anything more than a couple of weeks seems like ages to me. It’s been a couple of months since they came to see New York with us.

North on the ICW - Day 7

[Kyle]Day seven was going to be another boring day. It started with a long lonely trip down the Alligator River. There wasn’t much to do except monitor the course for drift caused by the currents and avoid crab pot floats. On one section with no floats, I went around soaping up the deck and rinsing it down with buckets of tea colored water scooped up along the way. It left the deck salty and slightly sepia colored, but the footprints and blobs of mud flung around by the anchor windlass were gone. I gave the cockpit and my feet a rinse with fresh tank water so I wouldn’t be tracing salt inside.

At the mouth of the river, I passed through the infamous bridge. I was a little disconcerted when the operator started shutting it before I was through. The part of the bridge I was near was actually moving away from me, but you think those guys would have learned their lesson and waited ten more seconds. I guess he was feeling the pressure from the traffic. There were sixty cars waiting one direction, fifteen the other. The bridge was closed for five minutes to let me through. It always amazes me that they’ll stop that much traffic for that long just so one guy can get through in his personal sailboat.

After that, my ride across Albemarle Sound and up the Pasquotank River was much like my ride down the Alligator.

I had originally planned to stop in Elizabeth City just for something to do, then I realized I would have to be underway at 4:30 to make the first canal opening at the Dismal Swamp Canal the next day, so I pushed on for a few more miles.

As the river narrowed at Elizabeth City, I called the lift bridge operator there to request an opening. I told him I was northbound and 3/4 mile out.

“Which way you goin’?”

“Northbound”

“Which waysat?”

“Uh, North.” Sheesh!

“Come on in, when I can see ya, I’ll drive the bridge open for ya.”

When I got in sight, which was after a bend very close to the bridge, I slowed to a stop and waited. There was no sign the bridge was about to move; No lights, no traffic barricades coming down.

After a couple of minutes, he called me, “Sailboat by th’ ‘lizabeth City bridge, yuh got y’r ears on?”

“Yeah, Go ahead.”

“Y’all want a drive?”

“Huh?”

“Do…you...want...me…to...drive...the…bridge…open...for...yuh?”

“Yes, please”

“Well, in the future, we’d appreciate a call before yuh just show up.”

“Okay. I just called you ten minutes ago.”

“Alright, then. Just give us a call next time.”

Where did they dig up that guy?

Once I got above the bridge, the river became pretty as it meandered through increasingly close cypress swamp.

I was about a mile from the anchorage when the sky opened up. It rinsed all of the salt off the deck and then some. A thousand gallons of water must have fallen on the deck in the space of about ten minutes. It was like I motored under a waterfall. The banks on either side of the river disappeared. I couldn’t see. Even though I was under the bimini, there was so much rain bouncing up off of the deck into my eyes that everything was a blur. There was no way to face without getting soaked. It was like I was in a car wash.

The lightning started. It takes seven seconds for sound to travel a mile. More than fifty times, I saw the flash and heard the crack of thunder before I made it to three. I saw it hit the water in front of me twice and I couldn’t even see the riverbank ¼ mile away.

When I got to the anchorage, I was pretty chuffed. Mother Nature had got the timing wrong. I knew that storm was meant for me when I was out on deck deploying the anchor, but it was over by the time I got there. I enjoyed beautiful weather in a peaceful anchorage.

North on the ICW - Day 6

[Kyle]Well, my fix worked. The fuel leak is now gone. The starboard engine is now running like a champ, which it did dutifully the whole long day.

Otherwise, nothing of any real interest happened all day. The bulk of the day was spent on the Alligator-Pungo Canal, which is very long, very straight and very boring, with only a nine-degree bend in the middle for entertainment.

I did manage to get the early start I was hoping for the day before, so I was securely anchored just as the day got unbearably hot. It was the perfect excuse for a dip in the pool to cool off.

[Maryanne]Kyle was so far away from anything there was not even a phone signal. Luckily he was able to keep in touch with me using the last of our satellite phone minutes we'd purchased for the off shore passage and weather reports. Technology is amazing eh? He's also terribly frustrated not to be sailing - these are great open waters and he is having to use the motor until we can be sure the Bow Crossbeam is fixed. He's gritting his teeth and bearing it, and kicking himself about it too.

North on the ICW - Day 5

[Kyle]Rather than a schedule that would take every minute of daylight for the solstice day, I finally had a shorter one planned. I was even more pleased when I found myself ready ahead of schedule for a pre-dawn departure in the dark.

The last couple of days, the anchor has been really dug in in the morning and difficult to unstick from the seabed. This morning, it was even harder still. I pulled until the electric windlass was showing signs of strain, then I would pause in order to let the buoyancy of the boat slowly pull the anchor free. I would pull, then wait, pull then wait. After some time of bringing up the chain only a couple of inches at a time, the poor windlass seemed to be really straining. I looked through the trampoline with my headlamp and saw an enormous blob smashed up against our bow roller.

At first, I thought it was our really muddy anchor with a couple of wraps of our chain around it. I started pushing and pulling it with a boathook and quickly realized it was something much bigger that I couldn’t even budge. {Maryanne: The last time this kind of thing happened was in Ireland, and the problem was an abandoned outboard that we’d dragged up }. From feeling around, the problem seemed to be a long abandoned two or three hundred pound anchor completely hidden under growth. Our chain was firmly caught between the flukes and the shaft. I wrestled with it for a while, but quickly realized I had no hope of lifting it far enough to remove our chain.

It couldn’t see how to get free of it. I didn’t want to cut loose our anchor. I sat down in front of it, shining my headlamp on it, studying it and trying to figure out what to do. After some time, I realized I could pass a dock line under it to support its weight, then I could let our chain out, which would give me enough slack to unwrap it.

As I did this, the boat and our huge new anchor drifted back until it came taught, being held by our real anchor. I was foiled. I then braced myself, counted to three, and let out all of the rest of our chain in a big hurry. This gave me a few seconds to work until it pulled tight. I plunged my arms through the big holes at the edge of the trampoline and started working furiously. Even without the weight of the unwanted anchor, all of that chain was heavy. Flailing it around like a madman while the trampoline net mashes waffle patterns into my face wasn’t easy. I got the last loop off the other anchor just before the chain pulled tight. I let one end of the dock line go, dropping the blob and freeing me to do a much more sedate normal anchor retrieval. The sun was now coming up. I had lost all of my extra time.

After that, the day went pretty smoothly. In the genuinely open waters of the Neuse and Bay Rivers, I once again visited my fuel leak problem in a series of carefully selected 20 second bursts every minute or so. I figured out the leak did not seem to be from the fuel pump after all. It was dripping from a different fitting at the filter and running down the line to collect at the pump, making it appear to be from there. I tightened the connections at the filter end and the leak decreased by at least two thirds.

Following current and fair winds got me to the next anchorage with plenty of time to spare. I wanted to relax, but I decided to use the time to my advantage and be extra-industrious.

I tidied up, and then donned my snorkel gear for a swim under the boat. Nothing had been scratched during the anchor retrieval and the new props still had all of their bolts attached. The anchor was buried far into goo in which I didn’t want to go fishing around.

Once the engines were cool enough to make burns unlikely, I topped off all of the fluids and then went through the entire fuel system on the starboard side. I did find a couple of less than tight fittings in places I wouldn’t want to try to get to on a running engine. Hopefully, the pesky fuel leak is now fixed or at least reduced to below the level of evaporation. Tomorrow will tell.

North on the ICW - Day 4

[Kyle]Although it was a shorter distance, day 4 turned out to take just as much time. I was back to using just the troublesome starboard engine for propulsion to save fuel. Even though it was troublesome, the starboard is still the preferred as it is the newer of the two, and it heats the water for the taps. I had the fuel leak problem under control by using four squares of toilet paper to mop up the drips around the fuel pump every half hour, although I occasionally got second degree burns when I would accidentally touch my arm to the engine block while trying to get to hard to reach places.

Along the way today there was nothing Kyle could do to help this sailor who had anchored without allowing for the tides... Only time would fix that problem. And luckily the firing range didn't mess with Kyle's schedule, but that would be a sign you don't want to miss

The current also seemed to be against me again. It’s hard to predict which inlet the current will flow in and out of during the changes in tide. I thought I’d have it with me today, but I for the most part, I was dead wrong.

The ICW continued behind barrier islands until at long last I dropped anchor just off Morehead City, North Carolina in a choppy spot just inside the inlet. Three and a half years earlier, Maryanne and I had left the ICW here for the offshore jump to Antigua. I was once again in familiar waters.

North on the ICW - Day 3

[Kyle]This day was planned as my longest. It was necessary to run the whole day on both engines just to make sure I made it to my anchorage by sunset. The fuel leak in the starboard engine was being managed and the older port engine ran without trouble.

The ICW on this section runs just behind the barrier islands fronting the Atlantic. The cypress swamp was gone, and the day was spent zooming past the backside of one beach after another.

I was pushing hard to make it to my anchorage by sunset. A couple of hours from the end, it seemed I was going to be just a few minutes late for a bridge that only opens once an hour. I called the operator, saying I was almost there, hoping they would stall a bit. A woman with an unmistakable Bulgarian accent told me the bridge was opening in 6 minutes and made no offer of delay. My ETA was 12 minutes. Six minutes later, I was within sight of her bridge, but she didn’t open. I got a little closer and she told me she would open for me now. Whew! That saved an hour. It also got me to the next bridge right at the time of their next opening.

I dropped anchor right as the sun went down. I was miles from anywhere nestled amongst little sandy islets that completely disappeared at high tide, making it look like I anchored in the middle of a giant lagoon.

Sunrise the next morning

North on the ICW - Day 2

[Kyle]Knowing I had little time to sleep and being wary of how well the anchor was holding, I slept little and fitfully. I was glad when my alarm finally signaled the end of my torment.

South Carolina ICW

The first part of the day was up a wide section of the bay. I developed the routine of popping down for a few seconds to check on the engine(s) every 30 minutes to mop up trickles and ensure everything was in order. I hate using engines to cover long distances. Sails seem simpler and more trustworthy to me. Engines are loud and smelly and there is so much that can go wrong with them. I worry that I will then not have them when I need them. Mostly, this is a pilot’s skittishness. Diesels are actually pretty simple and will run reliably forever if well maintained.

My routine kept the engine nice and clean. The fuel leak turned out to only be a few drops per half-hour, but I was still having difficulty tracing the source in my 20-second flash visits. I had initially suspected a connection at the fuel filter that the previous owner had told me was problematic, but it remained clean. At one particularly wide, empty part of the river, I decided I had the luxury of a couple of full minutes to try to solve the mystery. Huddled over the hot, running engine, I traced along the fuel system with a big wad of dry toilet paper until discovering the biggest source to be at the fuel pump. I decided to save tightening everything up until a later visit. I turned to head back up to the cockpit when there was a substantial bang.

I immediately knew the boat had hit something. The river was clear when I left and I hadn’t been gone for more than a minute, maybe a minute and a half. Perhaps there was a submerged tree. I scrambled up the stairs and was horrified to see the entire front window filled with green. I had slammed head-on into a navigation buoy. I turned for the cockpit and immediately slammed into the glass cockpit door, leaving a big idiot shaped grease spot. I had closed it to keep the bugs out. I’d worry about that later.

I jumped into the cockpit and took the engine out of gear. Begonia slowly drifted back away from the buoy. I went forward to survey the damage. I was lucky, if you could call it that. The crossbeam between the bows had a big dent that had actually torn through the forward wall of the spar, destroying it. The bows themselves were completely undamaged. Both bows have foam-filled flotation/crash compartments so it’s unlikely that caving one of them in would put me in any serious danger. Replacing the crossbeam will undoubtedly be a very expensive fix (and unplanned, of course. For comparison, imagine being told your car needs a new engine AND transmission), but bow damage would have been super expensive. The crossbeam turned out to be the best thing I could have hit.

Ouch!

I checked the bilges for water coming in from some unseen damage. They were dry. The backing plates inside the crossbeam attachment points also looked fine. I was in shock for a bit, but once I accepted that the damage was done and that the boat was in no immediate danger, I decided to continue on my way. I still had a long way to go that day. The crossbeam damage meant that there would be no sailing until it was repaired, as the rig was now too weak to take the loads of the sails. Begonia had become a motorboat.

Once I came to terms with this, I went about trying to enjoy the trip. The marshland morphed into pretty cypress swamp, which I had all to myself, until the last few miles. Then I passed through Myrtle Beach, which seems to be home to 90% of America’s jet-skis, 90% of which are apparently ridden by drunken idiots. It was here I learned the South Carolina wave. Instead of a normal, full-hand wave, they all seemed to use a one-finger point and shoot wave combined with a cool-dude head bob. I imagined that in their heads they must be thinking, “Yo, Bro!” when they do it. Ugh.

Unlike the day before, I seemed to have the current with me almost all day. I arrived a couple of hours before the sun went down at my anchorage within spitting distance of the South Carolina/North Carolina border. The fast speed and early finish buoyed my spirits considerably from the morning. The anchor mercifully bit the first time, so I settled in to relax for the last couple of hours of my day.

As sunset approached, a veritable parade of big sport-fishing boats came in from their day, all commanded by beer-bellied men in with flat top haircuts wearing wrap-around sunglasses. They all seemed to make a point in practically running me down as they approached. I checked to see that I was out of the channel. I was, but perhaps I was too close for their liking. I thought about making a stand by staying put, but realized I would only be hurting myself by making myself worry all night about being run down by some drunken idiot. I upped anchor and moved as far into shallow water as I dared, ensuring a good night’s sleep.

Elephant at play

[Maryanne]Kyle's day was so overwhelmed by his accident, and he felt such a clutz with no-one to blame but himself, not to mention the promise of a hefty but necessary repair bill to look forward to that he forgot to tell you a real highlight of the day - The picture isn't great, but I can tell you he passed an elephant in the river taking a bath - now that doesn't happen every day!