2001/2002 Charleston to Kings Bay
11 October 2011 | Kings Bay, Georgia
capn andy/cool
I made it to Brunswick and got lost, as my charts don't cover the entrance to the intracoastal south. While searching for the inlet it got dark and I nearly ran aground before anchoring. Of course this morning it's foggy so I still don't know which way to go. I have some pictures to download from my camera and I will need to stop somewhere to use the AC adapter for that. Time to invest in an inverter. Also my phone has had another failure, no sounds from it, yet I can use it for data access to the internet.
Well I've gone and done it again, aground again. Like the Willie Nelson song, "I'm aground again, just can't help being aground again...". This time though it's different, but similar. I'm surrounded by green intracoastal waterway markers, which indicate I'm right where I should be. The GPS shows me right in the middle of the channel. Too bad the starboard hull is now about a foot out of the water. I don't think the Army Corps of Engineers actually put a channel here anyway. It's enough work putting in those green markers, how could you ask them to dredge the channel. It would probably fill in with silt right away anyway. Just put in those green markers and go home and call it a day.
At least I don't have to worry about putting out the anchor or wondering where I'm going to stop for the night. Only in this case I have to get underway after dark to get somewhere where there IS a channel. I don't have to worry about getting run down by another boat. Maybe a car or one of those swamp buggies.
I'm north of the submarine base at King's Bay, Georgia and I am surprised to find the JTides computer program has King's Bay as an entry. It says I have a couple of hours to low tide and will probably be afloat between 8 and 10 tonight. Very handy, and I hope it's correct. Time to make tonight's pasta dish and break out another bottle of Livingston Cellars famous cheap cabernet. Tonight will be Aunt Millie's meat flavored sauce with extra mushrooms from a can with no label (due to frequent flooding).
It's obvious the tide is going out with a vengeance. The boat has taken on a list to port and I shut the motor in case it's water intake comes up high and dry.
When I got underway this morning nothing happened when I shorted the terminals of the solenoid to force the starter on the engine. The solenoid is bad and not an easily obtained item. The battery tested as completely dead. The other two batteries were a bit low, one from powering the bilge pump recently, the other from powering computer, etc., but it had been receiving a charge via speaker wire jumper cable from the engine's battery. Even after I swapped it into the engine battery's spot and tried to start the engine, there was nothing. I found sparking from the engine's electrical cable to the battery, even with the ignition turned off. There was some sort of short in the engine's electrical system, which would be disastrous. However, I started the engine by automotive jumper cables right to the starter from the "fresh" battery. I half expected the alternator to fail from some sort of short, but once things ran for a while I hooked all the batteries together with jumpers so they would all charge together. Now at the end of the run I've disconnected the engine from the batteries. I noticed there was no sparking from the wires with the ignition off, so it may have been from moisture or salt water. This morning was foggy and everything was wet.
I want to recommend a couple of products for those contemplating an adventure like this. One is the Mustang Ocean jacket that my brother Barry gave me for Christmas or birthday a couple of years ago. I never used it before, but it had some excellent features to provide protection against hypothermia both on deck and in the case of falling into the briny. It has a built in safety belt to clip onto a jackline during rough weather, flotation, and a serious rain hat that instantly makes you feel cozy and warm in cold weather. There are clips for things that must be secured and waterproof pockets all over. It's red with glowing safety stripes, so that if you do fall into the water you may be more easily spotted. Another product that has proved valuable beyond its cost is 60 mm Russian binoculars, available on the internet from russia4all.com or something like that. They were less than a hundred dollars and make 7X50 binoculars look like toys. I can read buoy numbers in near dark and make out shoreline details when it wouldn't seem possible. The magnification is twelve and that makes it difficult to hold a steady image in choppy weather. They have ruby coated lenses and it's possible to make out color in the dark with them.
A side note to Ernie, the original builder of the boat. The boat doesn't trim out as planned, but squats a bit, making the painted waterline high at the bow and below the actual waterline at the stern. The scuppers in the pilothouse, which may have been installed before deciding to make the cockpit a pilothouse, are at the front of the pilothouse and ship water when it's rough. The pilothouse sole is now tilting backwards and the water flows aft to the aft end of the house, then drains below into the compartment below the house, then fills that compartment and begins filling forward from there. I discovered this when I found lots of water in the aft part of the hull and after pumping it out, plugged the scuppers. No more scupper water, but now any rain water that comes in the pilot house doors still forms a little pool there. The boat is wetter in rough water than my Oro was, but she's fine nonetheless.
The idea of using a bow thruster seemed OK, but now I've found I can handle her by using full throttle to get her moving a bit with full rudder, then back off the engine and she'll turn quickly in a small space. I want to make the engine articulated, maybe with the rudder or perhaps with a separate steering control for it. That's all it really needs. The bow thruster tube, not sure whether I should just close it off or not.
Very high and dry now, maybe a foot and a half on the starboard hull. The water level is still dropping but will return soon.