A Second Chance
02 June 2015 | Cape Lookout, nr Beaufort, North Carolina, USA
Vicki - Weather - Air 25C/77F, Water 24C/75F, Showers
Time just keeps marching on and in the blink of an eye 8 months has slipped by since we last stepped foot on board our lovely Vanish. We certainly didn't mean to be away that long but it was discovered that Maynard had advanced prostate cancer. He became critically ill after a botched biopsy and nearly passed away from septicemia last year. After this event, we found one of the world's best prostate doctors in Brisbane, Australia, Dr. John Yaxley, but he told Maynard to wait 3 months to recover from this deadly blood poisoning before he would remove his prostate. His recovery from the prostatectomy went perfectly and after a further 3 months we were ready to head back to the US. Maynard is now back to full health and feeling better than ever and ready to live his life to the fullest. He is a shining example of how important it is for all men to have regular check-ups and follow up on any numbers which are too high. Find it. Fix it. Move on.
The 2015 cruising season started again just two weeks ago for us as we prepared Vanish for this year's voyage north. During our time away, Mike oversaw all maintenance and various projects, one of which was to fit brand new carpet to the salon, master cabin, bridge and steps up to the bridge. Whilst we love the timber flooring, we love the warmth and comfort of a wool carpet and find that the maintenance is still extremely low as long as no one parties too hard. We decided on 100% Tip Shear Wool Bloomsberg Ivory. Whilst our antifouling is still good after two years, the PropSpeed had completely worn off both props and running gear which had quite a lot of barnacle growth. One day we were once again eating at Cilantros Mexican restaurant and noticed a few fellas at a nearby booth wearing t-shirts with the Domineys Machine and Propeller Shop prop logo. Turns out, they are one of the largest marine propeller shops on the east coast and are located of all places, in Brunswick, Georgia. They put us in touch with a diver from Jacksonville, FL named Ollie Price who polished both props to perfection.
I have to say that without doubt, the Brunswick Landing Marina in Brunswick, Georgia was the perfect spot for us to leave Vanish for such an extended period of time. At Christmas, Mike decorated Vanish with a ton of Christmas lights and we actually won the Christmas Light Competition, a hotly contested event in the marina. The marina sits in a channel only at best 200 feet across with virtually no current, just tidal rise and fall. A large expanse of marshland is on one side and a park area and quiet town is on the other side. People leave their yachts and cars here for months/years with little fear of hurricanes or freezing or snow. We experienced a few close calls with lightning but this is common in an area with such storm activity. Each day we would see either turtles, manatees, dolphins and hordes of fish and flocks of beautiful birds out the window on our T dock. We hired a rental car so it was easy to visit the local fabulous restaurants at Fox's Pizza, Cilantros Mexican, and especially Pam Pam's the best cupcake bakery anywhere.
Within a week, we'd completed the provisioning and Maynard had found a weather window for our trip. As we hadn't anchored out since the previous year, we spent our first night a few miles south of the marina in St. Simons Sound off Jekyll Island so we could thoroughly check all systems before heading out to sea. We encountered a couple of issues on our two day trip up to Beaufort, North Carolina. One of them was a small leak in the portside generator which was solved by replacing the raw water pump with a spare. The next issue we had was during the second day on a routine afternoon watch with seas of 2 - 4 ft when our stabilisers stopped working with no alarm and no warning. We usually run with just one engine during sea passages and have set up the boat to have an hydraulic stabiliser pump attached to each engine. Our starboard stabiliser pump had failed and we were running the starboard engine at the time. The difference in having no stabiliser was pronounced although not hideous as the beam seas were small.
Numerous calls were made to Vic at Naiad to help diagnose our problem. Vic suggested checking all the electronics such as fuses, solenoid etc as the mechanical side of the system seldom fails. After failing to find any electrical problems, we simply switched engines knowing that they are independent and we found that the portside engine worked perfectly suppling pressure to the stabilisers and we then decided to diagnose the problem later once we got to port. This stabilised the boat and gave us time to analyse the problem once we reached the anchorage. It pays to have two of everything.
We were lucky that the seas were kind and as we weren't in a great hurry, we went into the Cape Lookout anchorage near Beaufort for a few days of well-deserved rest and relaxation after our 308 mile journey. While we were back in Australia, Mike severed his achilles tendon while playing basketball in March. He has had to endure surgery and subsequent physio to be able to do this trip with us but he is now wearing his moon boot less often and can do 100% of all that's required to help us. We spent a pleasant 4 days swimming and sailing in this idyllic anchorage, one of the very best on the east coast of the USA and are now heading up the ICW to pay a visit to a CAT dealer for a day or two. Life is very good on Vanish.