THE CRUISE TO ORIENTAL
April 5, 2012
The idea yesterday was to move north ahead of a strong weather system predicting gale force winds for the area for Friday. Leave Beaufort, whip up the ICW into Adams Creek thence across the Neuse River and nest comfortably in Oriental, NC to ride out the gale. Total distance, even with our wandering is less than 30 nautical.
We left Beaufort a bit late but early enough to make the short cruise to Oriental, NC before sunset. A quick five minutes after leaving the dock we were slowly cruising around Radio Island toward the turning basin in Morehead City and the ICW route to Oriental. Just then a very loud alarm started sounding. It was the high engine heat alarm. I have been listening to the changing pitch of the exhaust for some time and knew it was only a matter of time until I had to change out the sea water impeller again. We deployed the head sail enough to get out of the channel and drop the anchor. Bear started the timer to see if I could beat the sixteen minute record change from Louisiana two years ago. It took twenty minutes this time. Guess age is taking a toll. Anyway, we were confident the problem was solved. It was not. The engine overheated again even though we had good water flow from the exhaust. It turns out that we have a leak somewhere in the anti-freeze side of the cooling system. I am thinking it is one of the 14 year old hoses on the engine. Fortunately, we have the entire set of spare hoses aboard. Guess that is my new top priority project. The overflow tank showed the correct amount of coolant on my pre-start check but that is a problem. Seems the green dye in the antifreeze has permanently marked the container and there was no extra fluid in it. We added water hoping the leak was small and that did the trick.
The temperature did not top 60 degrees and we were seeing over 25 knots of wind all day. Naturally, it was on the nose. We had one last challenge other than staring at the temp gauge all day. We had to cross a wide stretch of water just prior to making Oriental. It was four miles across and the fetch was very long. Thus we had three feet seas and a wild ride. Scurv had a baptism by waves and spent a great deal of time shivering in my chair. A unique thing is that wind has a greater influence, we are told, on the Neuse River, Pamlico and Albemarle sounds water depth than tides. So, Tow Boat US had a field day.
We made Oriental around 1730 and tied off in a 10 slip marina with hotel. It is “up a creek” and sheltered from the wind and waves. Turns out it is run by a fellow from Louisiana whose family last name is the same as the owners of the famous hot sauce from Avery Island. Some distant ties there.
Update:
It is Friday and are we glad we came yesterday. There is a real gale topside and rain everywhere. The high today will be in the high 50s with 25 to 35 knots all day and gusts to 45 knots. Guess we will spend most of the day replacing the hoses on the engine whilst Bear and Scurv enjoy the day with books and chew toys. The crew next to us has been doing this for eight years so there may be some good hints and great stories to be heard. You have heard the old saying “any port in a storm”. How true it is. More later-