After a calm night in the Pungo Creek anchorage we pulled anchor about 8.00am this morning and made full steam ahead for Oriental. We had a good day on the waterway and the miles passed easily enough. The rain held off although we had grey, cloudy skies all day. We made it to Oriental by 3.00pm and negotiated into our assigned slip at Deaton Yacht Services in time for a cup of tea. I have to say that we have been very impressed by the service here. We had been tied up for less than 30 minutes when Peter from Seacoast Electronics was stepping aboard to help sort out the depth sounder issue. I have to thank John Deaton for helping get Peter on the job so quickly. It turns out that this was one of those situations where it paid many times over to bring in the professional. Peter was able to determine that in fact it was not our 30 year old control unit that was bad but rather the 2 year old transducer! Sadly, this means it is not a cheap or easy fix. We will have to be hauled out to replace the transducer and of course we have some odd ball transducer that Peter does not have in stock. Thankfully he has been able to order one which should get here on Thursday. We are also having a new control unit put in as well as we just don't trust the old one any more. So we are on an enforced lay over for a couple of days. I suppose it serves us right because we had been looking at the forecast and planning on leaving Beaufort for an offshore leg on Thursday - obviously that is not going to happen so we will just have to wait and see what comes later in the week.
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Comments [5]
http://www.echopilot.com/fls_bronze.htm
it is on our to do list next haul out.
slainte emerald!
Colin, I have heard that every dolphin (etc)that swims ahead of the boat sets off the alarm to the point thatone puts black tape over the light/alarm etc.
more like a trick, curses re the depth sounder.
Hopefully all will end well, enjoy your weekend,
weather is supposed to turn to rain sat into sunday.
Your pictures as always are stellar, be well.
Bruce
ps the parking lot is filling with many boats, not
a happy time of year.
We were up early this morning and pulled away from the dock with just a tinge of regret - rain is forecast and it is tempting to stay tied up with access to shore power and hot showers. But off we went, once again surprised at the strength of the wind having been protected in the marina. But once again the wind was behind us so we were able to unfurl the headsail and make good speed South. At one point we were overtaken by a deluge of rain but it didn't last too long and we were left with overcast skies but thankfully not too cold. On previous days we have been amazed at how many boats there are heading South - big, small, sail and power but we saw very little traffic today, presumably because of the weather.
Once again the depth sounder was absolutely useless, so that is it - we are headed to a boat yard tomorrow to replace it. We have gone back and forth and realise that although we have done fine in this stretch of the waterway we would be having severe anxiety attacks if we were in shallower water. And we want to be able to head into some of the more remote anchorages where an accurate depth sounder is vital.
Tonight we anchored in Pungo Creek (our third time here). We have had a lovely supper and are warm and dry, although it is raining outside. Tomorrow we are headed to Deaton's Boat Yard in Oriental.
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Sorry about the depth sounder, but totally agree withthe decision...for here and in the Bahamas. I wanted to go see the horses on the Island across from Beaufort, but the outboard failed. 1.3 boat units latter it is purring away and we have seen 11 horses!, trala.
Tomorrow, we head on the INSIDE and should get to Wrightsville beach Thur. nite. We will be lisgening for you.
C&T
We left the Broad Creek anchorage this morning after a good nights sleep, only disturbed once when the wind suddenly started gusting from the North (as opposed to the South). This caused a shift on our anchor and much clanking of chain and creaking of snubber. I jumped up and stood in the cockpit for a while but it was apparent all was well and we were not dragging our anchor, nor were any of our anchorage mates. We had some discussion this morning as to whether it was advisable to leave or not as 20+ knot winds were forecast and we had to face crossing Albemarle Sound with it's reputation as one of the roughest stretches of the ICW. We decided to leave and pulled anchor once it was light enough. Almost immediately the depth sounder started to do it's "thing" and give us totally random readings! A depth sounder is one of those things you think you can manage without.....until you have to manage without! We don't like not having a depth sounder one little bit! Thankfully we were able to follow our "breadcrumbs" out of Broad Creek and once we got back onto the magenta line that is the ICW, navigation was very straight forward. Once we left the anchorage we could appreciate how much protection we had had. Thankfully the winds were behind us and so we were literally surfing across Albemarle Sound. Once we crossed the Sound we had a discussion of our options and decided to call it an early day and head into the Alligator River Marina. What a great choice this turned out to be. We arrived nice and early in the day and were the first ones in. This meant I got first dibs on the washers and driers and managed to get four loads done before other cruisers started appearing. In the meantime Tom gave Osprey a well deserved rinse off. The weather is slowly deteriorating with rain forecast for the next few days. Hopefully we will be able to push on despite this.
Cruiser's Notes: Alligator River Marina, convenient location just before the Alligator River Bridge. Bargain at $1 a foot. Very friendly and helpful. Good showers and laundry and like Pete from Prim said - "don't use the drier on the end"!
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We have enjoyed a lay day here in Broad Creek. As forecast, a front came through today bringing 20 knot southerly winds with 28 knot gusts. As our next step is to cross Albemarle Sound (in a southerly direction) and as that stretch of water is notorious for kicking up a bad chop in strong winds we felt no need to try it. We have been lucky in that we only had a very brief shower and otherwise enjoyed a warm, sunny day.
We did spend some time fiddling around with our depth sounder which has been giving us some erratic readings - this is very disconcerting in the skinny waters of the ICW. The control unit is very old, the transducer is only two years old, so we suspect the control unit. We even have a spare unit but when we hooked that up it was even less useful than the original one - so much for being prepared with spares!!! Tom cleaned up some connections so we are hoping that will do the trick. We really don't want to have to put in a new unit - so fingers crossed. Otherwise, everything else is working and we have had a lovely day tucked up in our little world aboard Osprey.
Another amazing sunrise today!
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If I painted a sky like that people would dismiss it as chocolate box ! what do they know?
Much love
Dad
XXX
Steve
CORN
