Wayne's World Excellent Adventure

Vessel Name: Apollo of San Diego
Vessel Make/Model: Hunter 37 Cheribini Cutter
Hailing Port: San Diego
Extra: An account of my winter 2018 sailing to the Caribbean
10 June 2019
22 March 2019 | Ft. Pierce, FL
31 December 2018 | ICW
18 December 2018
18 December 2018 | Dismal Swamp
14 December 2018 | Oriental, NC
Recent Blog Posts
10 June 2019

The FL Keys

22 March 2019 | Ft. Pierce, FL

ARRGGRRG!! The Good, Bad, & Ugly of Boat Yards!!

I'm sorry I haven't posted lately, but not really anything to say about the repairs & up grades other than ARRGG I hate all the time it takes to get anything done. Worst part is I have to get in line behind all the other work their doing.

09 January 2019

I’ll cross into Florida tomorrow!

Jan 9th, 2019

31 December 2018 | ICW

Happy New Year to All!

HAPPY NEW YEAR’S TO ALL!!

18 December 2018

Me bundled up too

New Jersey to Oriental, NC

14 December 2018 | Oriental, NC
I left Lockwood Boat Yard on Nov 30th with Matt Weaver as crew at 2 PM bound for Cape May at the south end of NJ, arriving 10 AM on an uneventful passage off the Jersey shore.
The head was clogged & the engine was acting up, so we fixed these probs on Sunday. After running the engine for 10 mins after changing the fuel filter it started leaking coolant like a hose!
Monday the Marina Service center was contacted to replace the fresh water pump. Low and behold their were no pump assemblies available anywhere in the WORLD! This Yanmar 30 hp engine was discontinued about the same time the boat was built, 1984. And factory parts are not made anymore or any aftermarket parts available for this pump.

I tried pulling the pump for an overhaul, but couldn't so the service mech. finished the job and had to pull the heat exchanger also to get it off the block. During this time Matt had found a specialty pump service in Oregon that could do the job and have the pump back to us via FedEx on Fri AM, we left at first light Sat. for Norfolk, VA and arrived at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay about 4 AM.

The large ship traffic was intense from here to the Navy Yard in Norfolk, we had about 6 ships cross our path or overtake at one time or another and had to go outside of the channel twice to avoid their paths. The whole time this was going on we had 6-9 ft seas to plow through.
Finely made it to the Waterfront Marina in downtown Norfolk in late afternoon.

The next day we headed to the Dismal Swamp Canal which saves 12 miles off the eastern route through Coinjock, VA. and is a smoother ride. The Great Dismal Swamp is just that, nothing to look at but dead & dying trees along the banks. Going through the locks at each end is easy when you're the only one, can be hard if 5 or so boats at once!

We anchored at Goat Island in the middle of the Pasaquotank River due to darkness and had a cold but uneventful night there. Then on to Elizabeth City around the bend and on to the Albemarle Sound and docking at the Alligator River Marina for the night.
The Alligator River Marina is and interesting place, think of a gas station in the swamp with a short order grill and a few slips & one pier, that's it, period!
We got fuel & a fried chicken dinner with several others travelers on the Inter Coastal Waterway and left early for Belhaven on the Pungo River. A very quaint little town & marina where I was able to get the holding tank pumped after 3 stops where their equipment was broken!

All along the trip so far we'd had intermittent engine problems with the engine slowing to an idle speed before coming back to normal. We'd changed fuel filters and bled the system of air twice, but no change. Now we're in Oriental, NC with the best factory mechanics working to see where the problem is, but no luck so far.

More to come later with pics too,

Wayne
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Created 22 March 2019

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22 March 2019
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