Day two at Port Royal
28 May 2017
• Port Royal Landing Marina, Port Royal, SC
by Mike/ another hot humid one
Alrighty then.
We have committed ourselves to another day here at Port Royal and have occupied ourselves in doing boat chores that you can only do alongside, such as, making use of abundant running water to clean the salt off the deck. I also fixed the old Force 10 BBQ so we now have two Qs on the boat for those occasions that we entertain crowds. I also looked at the starting system and lo and behold it seems to have fixed itself. Also it looks like Tony and the guys at the Deltaville Yachting Centre who installed the engine did all the right things so the actual cause of the problem remains a mystery. Now, at least, we have a spare battery in case this happens again so I won't have to jump from the house bank. We did try out the macerator for a while when we were offshore so it may be that was enough to pull the lower 12V down for a while.
We also have some local Intel about when we leave tomorrow. If we go out Beaufort Sound as I originally thought I will be heading backwards for as much as ten miles before we can turn to make northing. However, if we head briefly up the ICW, and go out St Helen's Inlet we will be traveling mostly to the north. Further research obviously required today in preparation for tomorrow's departure. That research has indicated that there are some shallow bits of the ICW between here and St Helen's and as one cruiser pointed out for the ten miles offshore to clear the Beauford shoals the distance of our objective of Southport of Beauford NC makes this really insignificant.
I have also been looking at the long range forecast and from Monday forward it would appear that there will be little to no wind so it will be predominantly a motoring event. Not my dream date to be at sea but much better than 30+knots and confused seas.
Oh, and remember the overturned boat with deployed liferaft that we came upon off Tybee Island? We have an update. It was a shrimp dragger and although it is only educated speculation, it is thought that it was caught up in a water spout that happened when we were hearing all of those thunderstorm and tornado alerts. There was a crew of three aboard and since they weren't in the life raft that we saw, the Coast Guard gave up the search after four days and unfortunately assumed that the crew had been lost. After that length of time the possibility that they were able to have found their way ashore was so remote as to be impossible. And unless they had somehow managed to be picked up by a passing ship and will be left off at their next port of call they have to be assumed to be lost.
Sad.
I would expect that if they were indeed caught in the water spout then the end would have come very quickly. Our sympathies to the families of the crew and we are very grateful that we, ourselves, had heeded our little inner voice and stayed inshore.
I also looked at the 30A Freedom 20 shore charger which hadn't been working since we put Nelleke back in the water. I suspected that the problem had something to do with the fuse, so I took it out and tested it. It hadn't blown, so I had a look at the terminals and everything had an oxidization sheen about it so before reassembling it I took an emeryboard and cleaned off all the contacts. Now we will see.
We made a couple of trips into town using the courtesy vehicle and bought provisions and even a few things from West Marine including a pivot shackle for the anchor that almost came loose. Now we have a greater degree of confidence that we won't lose it overboard in rough weather.
We have also discovered that we do indeed have to call in to Customs and Border Protection every time we stop on this trip. We had thought that was the requirement, at least it was in the past, but after our conversation with Officer Hurst in Fort Myers since he was the one that we would be speaking to for all of Florida from St Lucie Inlet north and he didn't want to hear a thing from us until after we had left Florida. So technically we should have been calling in from Sapello Island onwards.
Oh well. We confessed. We were forgiven. We were also given a 1-800 number to call every time we stop to report in which is good for the whole trip north. For other Canadian cruisers following us, that number is 1-800-973-2867 and ask for the duty supervisor for the location you are in. You have to do this every time you stop, even if at anchor and have no intention of going ashore. I guess that will keep the citizens of the surrounding communities safe from marauding Canadians.
We are ready to go tomorrow if the weather holds. So, if you don't hear from us for a couple of days, fret not. We will be underway coming home.
And congratulations to Julia on her first communion. That only happens once which is what makes it special.
Comments