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| Nice Homes Located on the River Dunes Property Overlooking the Marina |
On
Thursday, 16-August and Friday,
17-August we continued our very pleasant stay at River Dunes with relaxing
mornings on the boat. In the afternoon
Chelle again commandeered the courtesy car for shopping errands in town, while
Rick caught up with his Wheelhouse preventive maintenance list. He also spent at least one OCD hour running
and testing the hydraulic systems on the boat, attempting to verify there were
no more line leaks at any point in the extensive plumbing runs. (So far none found.) And we dismantled the wing engine’s Racor
fuel filter bowl to drain and clean it of some accumulated debris, and also
replaced its filter element as a precaution.
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| Sunset Peeking Through The Pines |
Unfortunately
we also heard from Mike and Mari that their service down at Jarret Bay was
taking longer than planned (sounds familiar, eh?) and wouldn’t make it back to
River Dunes before we departed. Perhaps
we’ll be able to rendezvous with them on the return trip.
Friday
evening we had dinner reservations at the marina’s Harbor Club (which is only
open three nights a week) for dinner.
But after being seated for 30 minutes with no sign of a waitperson, we
got up and went back to the boat. To be
fair there was a wedding event on the second floor and they appeared to be
grossly understaffed. And the next
morning when we went to check out there was a note waiting for us from the
dining room manager apologizing for the service issues, along with a nice
bottle of wine. At least they owned up
and tried to make amends.
Even
though the weather forecast wasn’t the best – calling for pretty good chances
of afternoon thunderstorms – that wasn’t going to change any time soon, so on Saturday, 18-August we got back
underway. Chelle manned the helm and
took us off the docks to continue the journey northward via the ICW, which on
this leg included segments of the Neuse River, Bay River, Goose Creek, the
Pamlico River, the Pungo River, and finally the Alligator River, where we
planned to anchor for the evening.
As
you might guess from that laundry list, it was by no means a straight line
course – we zigged and zagged our way through the North Carolina coastal plains. The river waters here are mostly chocolate
brown, and not particularly appealing to the eye….and there isn’t much to see
along the way. It was quite warm with
temps in the low-to-mod 90’s, and the winds were stiff all day, blowing 15 to
20 knots from the WSW, which made for some chop in the few open / exposed
areas, but otherwise was mostly a non-factor.
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| A Nordhavn 55, Chinatsu, Anchored Near Us in the Alligator River |
We
arrived at the Alligator River anchorage around 1800, dropped the hook and got
it set on the first try. It was a little
rolly with one to two foot chop on the bow due to the stiff breeze at this wide
bend in the river, but it was comfy enough and the anchor held with no
issues. Just a hundred or meters or so
from our drop position was another Nordhavn, an N55 named Chinatsu; Rick hailed them on the VHF and we had a long chat with
Richard, who was on his way south towards Georgia, with eventual plans to
cruise down the island chain to Tobago once the tropical season settles down.
We
had been lucky with the weather today, seeing no storm clouds of any kind, and during
the early evening that dry spell continued, but the radar imagery to our west
indicated that would change soon enough.
So we covered the fly bridge and closed up the boat, fired up the genset
and enjoyed the cool air conditioning for the evening. Around 2100 the storms moved in with a pretty
good drenching (free washdown) and a good light show, and the rain continued
intermittently throughout the night.
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| Threatening Skies at the Alligator River Anchorage |
The
morning of Sunday, 19-August arrived
with a low grey overcast, but the rain had ceased and we were still within the
boundaries of our anchor circle. The
winds had died to around 10 knots from the west so the rollers had diminished
somewhat. Chinatsu retrieved her ground tackle around 0800, and we did the
same just after 0900 and headed Ghost
Rider north towards Coinjock.
While
this portion of the ICW is about as boring as it gets on the “inside”, the upside
is that there are very few bridges, and most of those are tall enough that
openings are not required for passage.
The Alligator River bridge is one notable exception at a height of 14
feet, although the bridge tender had the swing open and waiting on us when we
got there, and we motored on. Winds
picked back up later in the day to the 15-20K range, but it was only noticeable
in the open waters of Abermarle Sound, where the stabilizers actually had to
work at it in the tightly spaced three foot rollers.
The
weather forecast had called for afternoon storms once again but we saw
none. The overcast kept the air
temperature in the low-to-mid 80’s most of the day until we got close to Coinjock,
where the skies cleared a bit and the sun heated the air back up into the
90’s. But we were docked up by 1530,
washed down by 1630, and settled in with cocktails shortly after that. The one thing Coinjock Marina is noted for –
other than its convenient alongside docks right on the ICW – is their prime rib
dinner; so we ordered up a 32 ounce slab of meat and split it between us, and
it was indeed delicious. Unfortunately
we ended up eating it on the boat, as we had developed another sight gauge fuel
leak on the port side main tank that required fairly consistent attention. But we got it mostly under control (e.g.,
manageable for the night) and were hoping that once we got to Atlantic Yacht
Basin (AYB) we could engineer a permanent fix.
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| Enroute to Coinjock....Not Much to See Along the Way |
Overnight
thunderstorms traversed the area and washed off any salt that we
had missed with the hose. But as of 0930
on the morning of Monday, 20-August we
got a break in the action, so we departed Coinjock around 1000 and continued
our trek to the north. It was only a short
jaunt to AYB and we were hoping to beat the next round of afternoon storms….which
we luckily did.
The
downside of this short part of the northbound ICW – apart from the narrow
waterways and rather dull scenery – are three low bridges, which happen to be
spaced such that we ended up waiting an average of 20 minutes for an opening at
each of them. Fortunately the wind and current were nominal, so station keeping
just short of each bridge was not particularly challenging. The other noticeable change was the amount of
vessel traffic between Coinjock and AYB, with an assortment of USCG cutters and
barges heading mostly in the opposite direction. Fortunately all were responsive to the radio
and we had verbal agreement each time on how we would pass each other.
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| We Had to Wait on a Few Bridge Openings Enroute to AYB |
The
good news was that the water was nearly mirror like and flat calm, as opposed
to the sea conditions on the outside, which were mostly four-to-six feet at
short intervals. So the trade-off on the
inside was quite acceptable.
We
pulled up to the AYB docks just before 1500.
We knew from previous experience that their dockside shore power was
only 208V, so we had called ahead to reserve one of their boost transformers
(which takes the 208V and jacks it up by a small percentage to around 220V, which
would be good enough for Ghost Rider’s systems
as long as we carefully managed the power draw.) We docked up, hooked up and washed down in
short order, and settled in for a mostly relaxing night with dinner
onboard. Rick had to change out the
absorbents which were keeping the sight gauge fuel leak at bay, but that was
the extent of our evening work.
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| Ghost Rider Tied Up Alongside at AYB. Note the Portable Boost Transformer at the Lower Left. |
It
rained again overnight – talk about an annoying pattern – but the morning of Tuesday, 21-August broke dry if
overcast. Showers were still forecast
for the area, but the longer range outlook was definitely improving. Our goal for the next few days was to repair
two issues.
First,
the port side main fuel tank’s sight gauge had developed a nasty leak, this
time at the top, which didn’t manifest itself until we had topped off the tanks
and the fuel level rose above that point.
Unfortunately it was leaking both from the upper sight
glass o-ring and at the upper shutoff valve, which is a bad combo. That means we may have to pump fuel out
of the tank until the level draws down below that point else we could have a fuel gusher in the engine room. And since we recently topped off all tanks we currently have no tank to which we could transfer.
Second, the hydraulic steering ram had also developed
a leak at the piston seal; while not a dramatic one, those things only get
worse, and it’s never a good idea to ignore a potential steering problem or even failure. So that will need to be rebuilt or replaced with a new unit.
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| A Sick and "Bandaged" Fuel Sight Gauge (Wrapped with Oil Absorbents). We Tightened the Two Top Nuts to Reduce the Rate of Leakage, but New Parts Are Required for a Real Fix. |
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| The Leaky Steering Ram....Note the Brown Stain Underneath at the Piston End of the Unit. Not Good. |
So....we now sit at the docks at Atlantic
Yacht Basin. We are in their queue for the repair work, but currently
don't have a time line estimate (and parts will be another crap shoot.) But
since we're not on a schedule, and it's forecast to rain for the next two days anyway,
it's not like we're losing time. We'll have updates on these issues in the next blog.
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| Our Track from Up the ICW to Atlantic Yacht Basin in Virginia |
