Author: Phil

Underway this morning with the help of several of the transient boaters at 7:30 AM.  One boater was jealous.  He recently bought a new Regal 40+ foot cabin cruiser and is on his 5th engine replacement.  Apparently Regal, trying to save money and weight, reduced the strength of the hull and the engines are not being properly supported.  They just vibrate themselves to death.  He wants to go boating but just now has a condo.

Winds were above 15 knots but we were in fairly protected waters so moved fairly rapidly.  We stopped at St John’s Marina, near Charleston, and fueled then continued on to Georgetown, probably our favorite stop.  We lucked out with fairly clear waterways and pulled into Harbor Walk Marina in Georgetown at 5 PM.  A 135 mile trip completed in 9.5 hours.  A good day.  The boat performed flawlessly, finally.

Carey took me to River Room Restaurant for dinner, our favorite on the ICW.  We’re now back on  board and ready for our trip to South Port tomorrow.  We’re hoping the winds die down somewhat.  And, we’ll have a tough day making South Port as we have a lot of no-wake zones to travel through.  We’ll see how it ends up.

Thunderbolt Marine was true to their word.  So nice to see a professional organization at work.  They said we’d be fixed by noon and in the water shortly after.  True to statements, we were put in the water at 1 PM.  Moved over to the marina and loaded Carey and Maddie and our overnight bag.  By 2 PM we were underway for Beaufort, SC, landing at Lady’s Island Marina at 5:30 PM having moved a comfortable 54 miles since 2 PM.  What could be better.

The local restaurant is just up the walkway from the marina.  I had a low country boil and Carey had a pasta seafood dish.  All is well with the world.  We’ll move on tomorrow hopefully reaching our goal of Georgetown, SC, a simple 130 miles away.  We’ll be up early to make this goal.  Boat ran great this afternoon, so we hope for more of the same.

Look at a few pictures around the Ladies Island Marina area and there Dockside Restaurant.

I always speak too soon.  Underway this morning at 8, we first stopped for diesel fuel at a marina in the Thunderbolt area of Savannah.  Then underway to enjoy a nice trip to Steamboat Creek anchorage, then on to Georgetown.  During my mid morning engine room check I noticed the bilge area under the starboard engine filling with water.  Short story — the starboard shaft dripless shaft seal had failed and we had water.  I mean water coming into the engine room.  We pumped and pumped to keep up with the inflow, and talked on the phone trying to find a place to help replace the seal.  Everyone including Thunderbolt Marine said the repair job would have to be scheduled at least 3 weeks out, but Thunderbolt said they would look at the issue.  So, we quickly turned back to let them investigate.

Thunderbolt is a huge repair facility that specializes in mega yachts repairs.  Mega meaning 250-350 foot yachts.  Luckily, they were happy to help us out and a project manager and two mechanics came to have a look.  Thirty minutes later Apolonia was out of the water, which was necessary to fix this major seal failure.  Further, the crew decided to fix us tomorrow morning and have us back in the water around noon.  Not sure what changed their minds and decide to do this job.  But, boy am I happy and eager to continue the trip.  So is Carey as she’s determined to see family and friends.   And, as she always says, if everything goes perfectly you have no good stories to tell later.  But, this boat is providing her more fodder for resale than for oft-told tales.

We grabbed a motel room for the evening and enjoyed a Mexican Taco Pizza.  Tomorrow we’ll reboard the boat and hopefully say farewell to the boat’s misbehaving.  We can still make Colonial Beach by the 14th and that’s the plan.  We wanted to see if we could travel long trips on this boat and that’s what we’re doing.  Some of what we’re seeing is just adjustments to what is stored where and how much we can take with us, but there are other issues concerning living space size and basic comfort.  Only one of us is close to a decision on this so far, but Carey continues to compile her “list.”

We saw some strange and some beautiful boats at Thunderbolt  Take a look at a couple of the vessels and you’ll also see Carey and the hauled out Apolonia.

 

Up early this morning, but relaxing with coffee.  Can’t leave until 11 AM due to a very shallow area ahead that requires tidal help to get thru.  It is called Little Mud River and I don’t want to touch the bottom.  We made it thru and then picked up speed to make Turner Creek, near Savannah, where we have anchored for the first time on this boat.  It has been a 92 mile run today.  Launching the dinghy was really easy with our new Hurley Davits, but the little gas engine that I bought and tested did not make the grade — it only ran a very short time.  Good the dinghy has oars,  but we decided in heavy current where we anchored to try to get Maddie to do her business on board and not row the boat long distances in 4 knots of current.  Tonight is a bummer since we can’t use the dinghy to go ashore but we are enjoying the quiet of our first anchorage.

It does appear all boat issues are resolved and she is running great.

It rained on us and Carey is noticing lighting as we prepare for bed.  She’s out buttoning up the aft deck and I’m getting ready to turn the generator off and get us really for our first night at anchor.

Strange things happen on the water.  We encountered this at Morningstar Marina.  The picture below shows a one man boat that is powered by pedals (yes, like a bike with paddles) and/or a small sale.  A young man is taking this boat up the water way from Miami to Virginia.  I couldn’t believe it.  He has been at it for 4 weeks.   No idea when he will be seen in Virginia.  Amazing.

Great Georgia!  We had some issues with trusting the boat over the last few days and stopped for the day to verify all was well.  It was.  The diesel electrical mechanic I hired today found all was well.  The chart plotters are solid and the engines are fine.  What we found was the the Ft Pierce yard we stopped in at the beginning of this trip didn’t have the best electricians.  They diagnosed a simple neutral safely switch issue as a major problem, when it was not.  They diagnosed a simple loose connection to the chart plotters as a major corrosion problem.  It was not.  It may have been a bad breaker, but that is not confirmed.  Lesson learned.   Boat is in good shape and running well.  It’s a real shame to pay for problems that don’t exist.

Tomorrow we’re off for points north.  It was nice to have a day to rest and enjoy and verify that the boat is sound.  Really, we need to feel good about the boat and now we do.  We may be experiencing some foul weather for the next few days but we’ll deal with that.  Hey!  It’s boating.

We’re relaxed and enjoyed the day stopover.  Let’s see what happens next.  Here are two pictures, one from the water to land facilities at Morningstar and one from the land to the slips.  Nice place.  We’ll come again.