Back in FLorida

From Dowry Creek we proceeded down the Pungo River, across the Pamlico river, through another canal and out into the Neuse River. The winds were very strong from the North and the seas were very choppy with some waves as high as four feet. We stopped in Oriental at the Whittaker Pointe Marina. This is the same marina we had stopped in on the way north in May. It is a very nice facility and has a courtesy van to drive. We were the only transients at the dock so we used the van a lot. We went into New Bern, which is about 25 miles away to the Super WalMart and Harris Teeter grocery. We stocked up on things we were out of, especially meat and fresh produce.

While there I had to get my stuffing box restuffed. It was leaking a couple drips a second even when sitting at the dock. I had to pump the bilge every 8-10 hours. Just tightening it would not solve the problem so I had Deaton Yacht Services put new GFO stuffing in.

The weather turned bad with heavy rain for a couple of days and cold winds. This gave me a chance to continue with the Crazy Ivan problem we are still having with the auto pilot. While going through the system I discovered that the Rudder Angle Transmitter, RAT, that figures, was not installed very well. It was on a flimsy piece of plywood that could wiggle around. I took some starboard, which I got at Deaton Yacht Services and really secured it so it does not budge. So far it has been working good.

When the weather cleared we headed out from Oriental on the ICW. We wanted to go outside in the ocean from the Beaufort inlet to the Masonboro inlet. That would have saved us two days on the ICW. The waves were still pretty high and confused to we did the ICW. The first night we stopped at Dudley's Marina in Swansboro. They had us tied up to a bulkhead and in the morning when we went to leave the current was flowing so fast we were pinned to the bulkhead. It took 3 guys on the dock to push the boat off. We scraped down the pilings but it didn't cause any damage. After 47 nautical miles we stopped in Wrightville Beach. The current there was running about 3 knots with the flow going with us. There is a bridge that only opens on the hour just before Wrightville Beach. It was like a zoo with about 20 other boats trying to maneuver in a small channel with the current while waiting for the opening.

We stayed one night in Wrightville Beach and then did a short 25 miles to Southport Marina in Southport NC. We had planned to go out the Cape Fear River inlet to Charleston the next day. The weather was looking really good for the next five days so instead we stayed at the marina two nights to give us time to set the boat up for an ocean passage. We had to put everything that could fly around in heavy seas away and strap the big items down.

We left on Tuesday and instead of heading for Charleston, SC we headed for Fernandina Beach, Florida. The route is 270 miles and I estimated it would take us 48-54 hours. We had left at 0640 and arrived in Fernandina Beach at 0840 on Wednesday. This saved us about eight days on the ICW. We put our new AIS, Automatic Identification System to the test. It was well worth the money. Going past the Charleston inlet at 0400 we were able to easily track cargo ships coming out and going in. We had one incident where I was tracking a ship that was inbound to Charleston from the south. His track was straight for us as we were heading in a southwesterly direction. The AIS gives us the name of the ship, destination, heading, turning rate, speed and other information about the ship. I called him on the VHF radio to make sure he saw us on his radar. He confirmed that he did and would go to our stern. Well I could see on the AIS that he kept turning towards us as we continued southwesterly. At night the distances are very deceiving. It looked like he was right on top of us and in the dark all I could see was these huge red and green bow lights coming right for us. I was shaking in my foul weather boots. I radioed him again and he assured me he could see us and would go to our stern. I could also see him on our radar and he didn't come any closer than one mile distance to us but at night that is plenty close enough.

There were two other sail boats, Destiny, with Jim and Bess, and Aruba II with Andre, whom we had met at the Dismal Swamp visitor center traveling along with us. It was nice to know that when we are 30-40 miles offshore there is someone else out there too. We talked quite a bit on the radio to pass the night away and help stay awake. Andre has sailed quite a bit and always solo. He sleeps for 20 minutes at a time while the auto pilot is steering.

We arrived at the St. Mary's river inlet around 0500. I didn't want to do a night entry, even though I had been through this inlet before and it is an easy inlet to enter, so we hove to for an hour and a half outside and just north of the inlet to let the sun come up. Once in we tied up to one of the mooring buoys at the Fernandina Harbor Marina. We will stay here a couple of days to rest and make plans for continuing.

Here is a short video I took while we were about 30 miles off the coast from Savannah Georgia.