Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com
As planned we pulled out of Elizabeth City bright and early Sunday morning and headed down the Pasqotank River and out into the Albemarle Sound. Aside from Sunday, weatherwise we would enjoy a great stretch of weather with warm sunny days and cool nights all the way to Beaufort.
The Albemarle is a very large and shallow body of water and one not to be taken lightly. Optimally, you want to travel on the sound in light winds from the north or south. Winds from the east or west set up big nasty waves due to the fetch involved.
Winds were from the north in the 15 to 20 knot range - from the correct direction but a little higher than we would have liked, consequently we had three to four footers most of the way. Our destination was East Lake, just east of the Alligator River where we planned to anchor just south and in the lee of Durant Island. Along the way we encountered many dreaded crab pots, one of them a little two closely. The winds had increased to 25 knots and we were sailing with just our jib when “thump” - and then the brakes came on. We had picked up our first crab pot. Neither of us had seen it coming but there was little doubt. Your options in this situation are pretty limited. You can attempt to get it off the shaft using the engine and our shaft mounted line cutters or you can go swimming with a knife and cut it off manually.
We started the engine and noted that it was really bogged down when in forward gear. Brian shifted into reverse and revved the engine and the line cutters did their job. The shaft spun free and out in our wake bobbed the tell tale white float. It really wasn’t beach weather with temperatures in the low 60‘s with a lot of wind. Thankfully we did not have to go swimming in the cold jellyfish infested water. Instead, we continued on to our anchorage and spent a peaceful evening in about 9 feet of water.
The next morning, we headed back out to the Alligator River and turned south and through the Alligator River Bridge. At the south end of the Alligator River you enter the Alligator - Pungo River Canal. This is a very pretty stretch of water with one challenge for us - the Wilkerson Bridge. This is the lowest fixed bridge we will have to get through at 64 feet. If you recall we need 62 feet in order to clear the top of our mast and the antennas and sensors mounted there. Two feet to play with right? Not necessarily. If the water levels are higher than normal that wiggle room is reduced accordingly. According to the tide boards at the base of the bridge the water level was down about 1/2 foot giving us that additional clearance. We approached the bridge slowly and went underneath at about half a knot of speed so that if we did hit we could hopefully back off before we did a lot of damage. It was very close but we made it.
We anchored overnight with a few other boats at a very pretty anchorage just off the south end of the canal and enjoyed the sunset.
Tuesday morning we weighed anchor and headed out to the Pungo River for a short time before pulling into the Dowry Creek Marina primarily to pump out and refill our water tanks but as long as we were there we topped off our diesel tank as well. It appears that the vent line to our waste tank may be clogged. Brian will have to figure out a way to clear this line as it makes pumping out a long and tedious process.
We left the marina and cruised along the river before turning into Goose Creek. We followed the creek south east and anchored in a widespot near Gale Creek just north of the Neuse River. Cellular service had been spotty the past couple of days but surprisingly we have been able to find open wifi signals everyplace we have been thanks to our Wirie AP device.
We have continued to have difficulty with the Racor filter on our generator leaking diesel fuel. We have traded emails back and forth with Racine Riverside who installed it and have come to the realization that the filter is plumbed on the wrong side of the fuel pump. This was pursuant to Fischer Panda’s Installation Manual which has since been changed. The fuel pump produces more pressure than the filter is designed to handle - thus the leaks. We need to have the system replumbed and intend to have that done in Beaufort, North Carolina late this week.
We left the anchorage Wednesday morning and had a pleasant cruise along the Neuse River - more a lake than a river, before entering Adams Creek. We followed this east to Core Creek where we stopped briefly at a floating dock at Jerrette Yacht Sales. The purpose for this was for Corey from Trident Marine Services, the local Fischer Panda Dealer, to climb aboard so he could take a look at the generator plumbing and we could decide how to proceed. We were parked behind two big brand new expensive sport fish type boats that were for sale and we expected someone to show up from the yacht dealer and kick us out but that didn’t happen. We were there for about an hour.
We followed the creek another five miles to Beaufort - Morehead City, North Carolina where we are docked at the Morehead City Yacht Basin and where, sorry to say, it looks like we may be stuck for a while. We are watching Hurricane Sandy very closely and it appears at this point that the storm will affect this area sometime late Saturday and into Sunday. It is too early to tell to what extent the storm will be felt here and we’ll know more as it gets closer. In the meantime Sweet Escape is tied to a very large and very robust floating dock system that should have no trouble handling a lot of storm surge should that occur. We’ll keep you posted.
Check our albums page for more photos from this time period.
No comments:
Post a Comment