We duly arrived back at the boat on 13th June with some spare rubber caps for our heat exchanger and a block of cheese that customs allowed us to keep.
The new fridge was working but wouldn't switch off on the thermostat, but we were assured this was normal until it reached working temperature. At least we could have cold beers etc and even ice- as long as the batteries held out.
I changed the heat exchanger caps and refilled the system with antifreeze solution, ran the engine and although the caps were leak free there was a small but consistent drop from the fresh water pump! Nevertheless we decided we had no option but to press on and keep topping up the water and hoping the pump would not fail. We left on the start of the ebb and went out of the Charleston inlet to sail the 220 mile up to Beaufort North Carolina. The conditions were good and we managed quite a bit of sailing in the first 24 hours in 8 to 15 knots. The wind then died and we were motoring for 14 hours before there was enough to sail by. I checked the engine water level but it seemed OK so a mystery over the leak. The marina at Cooper River did encourage a lot of growth and on leaving we noticed the depth gauge was not working. Not a problem on the outside passage but it would be if we were to use the ICW after Besufort.
We arrived at the inlet while the tide was still ebbing and had a slow and bumpy passage in and up to the anchorage which had plenty of room , unlike all the photos I had seen.
We managed to clear the depth sounder by dropping a rope over the bow and pulling it back on both sides towards the mast, then moving it up and down, like toweling your back, over the area where the depth sounded was. This actually worked and we have a depth reading again and so will make the passage to Norfolk up the ICW rather than round Cape Hatteras. We hope to leave Friday after the weather settles a bit