Merry Christmas Everyone

We left Morehead City and headed out for somewhere near Camp LeJeune. The boat seemed to be working quite well. Jon kept going downstairs to see if everything was okay, he admits that he thinks it is working and sounding better than it ever did before. As we approached Camp LeJeune we decided to pull into Dudley’s marina in anticipation, again, for another storm that looked like it was going to be pretty bad. It was suppose to bring snow to the northern states and heavy gusty winds to us.

The marina was only 75 cents a foot so we decided that even if we had to stay for a couple nights to wait out the storm, it was plausible and affordable. In accordance with the outlook the weather was pretty terrible with winds gusting over 50 mph the first day. Later that day Jim and Erin on S/V Got to Go, called and Jim offered to rent a car and drive up to meet with Jon and help motor Kasidah down to the Osprey Marina, where we wanted to stay. We figured that this was a good plan since with the dogs it would probably take at least 4 days, which would cause us to not make Christmas. So we told Jim and Erin to drive up and meet us. Erin, the dogs, and I returned to their boat which was already down in Osprey while Jim and Jon planned their journey south.

The first day of Jon and Jim’s travel they made it to Wrightsville beach, and besides skimming the bottom a couple times they had no major issues. The second day they woke up before dawn and headed out with the assumption that they would never make it to the marina in one day; they had 80 miles to travel and only 9 hours of daylight. While I was at Osprey marina the dock master assured me that if they made it 55 miles down to the Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge before dark and not at low tide that they would be capable of traveling the ICW after night fall to get to the marina. So they pushed on through the day as fast as the engine would let them and reached the bridge a half hour before low tide. The bridge tender told them they made it at a good time, however as they were preparing to open the bridge, lights and sirens (fire trucks and police cars) crossed and parked on the bridge. With this new development they ended up having to wait another half hour for everything to clear out. Since it was now low tide they feared that they would not be able to pass, however the bridge tender was kind enough to still allow them to pass. For the next 30 miles they were cleared for all bridges. As night fell it was very dark with no moon to light their way. So Jon stayed at the helm and Jim went to the bow with a spot light and a communicator sitting on a bean bag. Jim directed Jon the rest of the way down the canal to the marina and they ended up docking at 22:50 with no other problems or issues.

During this time Erin, the dogs, Zack (from another boat at the marina) and I went around the area and visited some popular spots like Myrtle Beach and Webster’s Ice cream. We just happened to meet the owner, John, who gave us free ice cream. So if you end up being in the area you should visit them and have some of their delightful homemade ice cream.
The first night after having a few glasses of wine on another boat at the Marina I was on the dock getting onto “Got to Go” and I heard this unbelievable loud and long roar coming from the woods, when Erin returned from the boat she just laughed and when I told Zack he wanted to go in the woods to see what it might be. My thought of course was it had to be Big foot, we convinced Zack it was not a good idea to go trampling into the wood after dark. The next day I told the Dockmaster (Miles) about it and he said “Oh that’s probably a lion” I said “what a lion is in the woods” he said “no the zoo is right beyond those woods there”. This made me feel much better. They should tell everyone about the zoo and loud sounds coming from there at night. Very Very Funny.

Kasidah will be staying at Osprey Marina for at least two or three weeks while we are up visiting family and friends. The marina is a very well kept and nice place to leave your boat if you happen to be in the area. http://www.ospreymarina.com/

We would like wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and thank everyone who have been reading the blog, commenting or emailing us. It has kept our spirits up and we can’t wait to see and hear from you all again.

YES......we are on the water again.

So we are back in the water headed south with a stronger Kasidah. Here is the latest with the prop shaft.

We were waiting to be pulled from the water again, (they had to turn us around because of our new radar and their hoist style, Plus launch another boat after the owner showed up to move it). There was an engine guy there and I invited him on the boat to look at the alternator. I had always wanted to put a 2nd one on the engine. He started looking at the alternator and said “Hey the bracket on the alternator is broken.” “No it’s not” I said. But it was. Come to find out it had been hitting a cabinet and broke. Well it never did before this. So we are looking around and see a front motor mount loose. The lags had been ripped out of the motor bunks. The front of the engine had lifted up, throwing the alignment out. But why did the front starboard mount rip out? Well on the opposite rear engine adjuster screw, the jacking bolt or bottom adjuster nut had backed down all the way, allowing the engine back to drop. This drove the prop-shaft onto the fiberglass tube where it finally burned up, let loose, started to leak and, the rest is history.

So I’m glad we found out the real cause of the failure. Now the fix was a lot easier than I thought. But the tank had to come out, the aft cabin torn apart. A new fiberglass tube installed, new drip-less fitting. We checked the shaft to make sure it was straight. The engine bunks were a concern to me now. But we were able to bore them out, fill with epoxy and filler, Got a couple of longer ones and they all are good now. The insurance company is being great and might cover a large part of the bill. This would be fantastic.

We left on Thursday for Swansboro NC but as the day went on a front we had been watching looked as it was going to be heading our way so we decided to head once again for a marina(this one is cheap really cheap). The wind has been steady 30 to 40 and lots of cold and rain. This pattern of weather is really started to get the best of me.
We are trying to get to a marina in South Carolina called Osprey Marina near Myrtle Beach where we would leave the boat and head north for a few weeks. We are trying to plan it now and may have found a way to get it there in the next few days.
One thing about living on the boat is that everything is written in sand at low tide............

"On land again"

We are stuck in Moorhead NC. On our way down the ICW we started taking on water, We called on 16 for the nearest boat yard that could haul out Kasidah. Boat US responed ASAP with a place and number which was right where we were. They were great. We did get her out of the water quickly to look for the problem. The shaft was leaking water in and lots of fiberglass material all over the place like a birds nest. The yard thinks something made its way in from the outside of the boat, they said they never saw anything like this before. We had to take the fuel tank out and they will be doing some major repair work to get her floating again.
It is cold here but I guess if I were in New York it would be colder. I don't think Christmas will be under a palm tree but maybe we can find a pine tree instead!

Oriental,NC

We have had an interesting week of traveling. We left Elizabeth City and crossed the Albermarle Sound, the wind was a little on the light side but that was fine, we then entered the Alligator River and went into South lake which is part of the Alligator reserve. One of the anchorage books we use said that there would be places to land the dogs in the grasses, all we could find was landings that looked like something out of “The Jungle book”. I found one spot and got out first to make sure there were no snakes or gators, trashed around a little then when I thought it was clear aloud the pups ashore. Sara wanted nothing to do with this over grown place so it did take a bit to get them to go. Jon was on the lookout and I was the block just incase…..
This place was so quiet and beautiful, and in the morning there was one of the most breathtaking sunrises, but we all know the old saying about that. We started the journey down Alligator river knowing a storm was coming and had to reach Pungo River or Pantego Creek before it showed it’s face. When we reached the mouth of Pantego creek the winds began to increase to around 20-25 and it was just down pouring. We decided to go to our second choice which was past Belhaven and up a small creek but by now it was down right miserable out. I decided that from the start of our trip we had not stayed at any dock which we had to pay so this seemed like a good one to do. It was quite a site. We were behind three other sailboats that did the same thing and a large trawler behind us. The sailboats went in a few minutes ahead of us and then Jon started in their channel with the wind on our beam. As soon as he could see how narrow it was and the problems the boats in front were having he looked at me and said “this is going to get ugly”, The boats in front of us were getting blown into the pilings and other boats and when Jon started to turn to make an exit he noticed the trawler was right on our ass. I said to Jon we can dock this girl ourselves just pick a spot and we will manage, as Jon started to enter a slip the dock master came over and said “no not that slip over here in this slip”, so Jon backed out and went into the slip with out any issues. About five minutes later another sailboat came in and once again the piling smashing and boat smacking began. I had all our fenders blown up and ready to deploy if necessary. That night I saw 54 a few times on our wind indicator and after midnight it was crazy around there. A few of the boat anchored up stream pulled anchor because it was bad in the creek and came in with us.
Belhaven was a nice little town and we got to use the marinas golf cart to go cruising into town. Everyone you met ask if everything was OK and if we needed anything, we were even invited into someone’s home to see their Christmas trees.
We left there and headed down some creeks and canals past the RE Mayo Co.(shrimp and fish) and notice a buck crossing a creek just in front of us so we slowed down to watch it, all of a sudden this small very fast boat pulled up between us and the buck and put two bullets into his head…..man oh man, you want to talk about sudden these guy’s killed the deer and had it in the boat and gone in about 30 seconds. Jon and I just looked at each other and said holy shit.
We made it to Oriental NC and anchored in front of the village in a very small field with a few other boats. We really like this place, everyone is very friendly and they like cruisers.

Schyler called some friends that we had met years ago on our old boat Agapee who live here now. They came by and lent us a car for the day so we could go shopping and stuff. They are such nice people they even let Jim and Erin use their washer and dryer(thanks Art and Lynn that was so nice of you to do for us)). We were telling Art and Lynn about some of the other cruisers we have met and the couple from Australia came up, come to find out the boat they bought is their good friends old boat(very small world out here). We were going to leave in the morning but decided to pull up to the free dock for one more night. Jim needs to repair his roller furl and we have a few things to do so we are taking our time.

If you are reading this today the 12/06 look at www.towndock.net and you can seeus at the free town dock