FINALLY on the move again. Dudley's Marina in Swansboro

WELL!  I wish we knew all the answers, but at least things seem to be working at this point.  The "magic" fix...a $13 resistor (+$57 shipping!) arrived Friday by noon and Dan switched it out with the old resistor only to find out that the old one had exactly the same OHM reading as the new one.  At least now we have a spare!

We decided to get a quick haul in the afternoon to change the pitch on the prop.  We don't seem to have the oomph we had before we changed to a lesser pitch on the propeller.  The yard guys said they'd use lines to move us around to the other side of the dock to move into the travel lift slip but if we had the engine going we could help  them along.  I started up the engine and immediately we heard a horrible screeching (and it wasn't even Halloween yet) coming from below.  The engine promptly quit.  I tried once more to start it with the same results, so they horsed us around and into the travel lift.  We were out of the water and back in in less than an hour and Dan made the change to the propeller.

We realized the screeching had been the alternator which had called it quits so the belt was screeching as it tried to turn.  This all happened at 4:15 pm on Friday afternoon!  Now what?!?  Luckily Bock Marine is amazingly accommodating and Kenny Bock called a "friend" who had a Starter/Alternator shop in Morehead City and he said he'd work on it if we could get it to him pronto.  Dan went to work and had it out in about 20 minutes and Kenny said we could take the Courtesy Car even though it usually has to be returned by 4:30.  We rushed to Morehead City and Robert "Bugs" Wertherington was waiting for us at the door.  He said he'd have it ready by 8 AM Saturday!

Sure enough we got a call from him around 8:45.  We checked in the office to see if the car was available to go get it.  It wasn't...but Nancy the secretary told us to take her car and off we went.  Dan had it installed and tested by 11:00 and we headed out.

It was great to be underway again and we didn't mind dodging all the small fishing boats along the way...busy Saturday.

 After leaving the Morehead City/Beaufort area we headed down Bogue Sound,  It's wide and flat and extremely shallow with several inlets to the Atlantic, but not for us.

You can see over the marshes straight to the Atlantic

There is nothing  stopping one from the Ocean except constantly shifting shoals here at Bogue Inlet.

Luckily we left late enough from Bock Marine to miss the strongest current running against us and we had a favorable current for most of the trip to Swansboro and arrived around 4:00 pm, much earlier than we expected.  We enjoyed our last daylight savings cocktail in the cockpit and watched the sunset across a new body of water.

Tomorrow we may just catch up with the rest of our group! ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Slow progress, we're north of Beaufort at Bock Marine---a working boat yard

Not the most auspicious start this morning...we couldn't get away as planned as the line to check out at River Dunes was a mile long!!  It seems everyone was ready to get moving!  As soon as we had pulled out of our slip, the engine quit!  That seemed to be the order of the day.  We limped along having to restart the engine every so often until we got half way down Adams Creek (against a strong current) where we stopped at Bock Marine.  For a working yard it has amazing amenities! Good wifi, a courtesy car, a pristine Boater's Lounge and a travel lift if we need it!

The wind managed to be on the nose all the way up the Neuse River and ALSO all the way down Adams Creek/Canal, so we had no hope of help from those expensive white sheets(our sails) we have rolled up most of the time!  We arrived here right around 2 pm and Dan promptly changed the oil in hopes that might help.  We also talked to the Westerbeke (our engine) people and have a part being overnighted from Massachusetts in hopes that this small wire may solve problems.  Tomorrow will see.  I finally went out on deck this evening to get some pictures of our not so romantic setting...

Our new home away from home

Lots of interesting vessels here

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I love sunlight through "Old Glory"

We're just south of the Core Creek Bridge.

The view across the Creek from us.

GPS is now UP and running on the Blog site.

Oops, I forgot to mention that we had to order a new GPS USB dongle to get our map up and running.  It arrived today and with Sam's help I got it installed and he worked his magic to get it to show our position in REAL TIME on the map.  As we head out tomorrow it should show our route and position as we make our way down the Neuse River, through Adams Creek and beyond.  Hope all goes well!  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

River Dunes Update

Gray skies, three trips into Oriental, lots of boat projects, both on Brunelle and Dan helped on several projects on Sevilla and Pinnacle,  but not any picture taking.  I did snap two shots of our updated, retro-retro fitted enclosure which held my attention for hours each day!  Fine tuning it has been time consuming, but we are so happy to have... except this afternoon the temp inside the enclosure was 86 degrees!  We had rain on and off all day and I was working on final fitting, so I couldn't take it off!

It may not look like much, but it definitely expands our horizons, and our living space!

River Dunes is a unique place with lots of charm and potential and must have someone with deep pockets funding the whole thing.  The harbor we are in doesn't even show up on some maps as it was dug out of the land creating a perfect hurricane hole with loads of amenities and ambiance.  We've enjoyed the cruiser's dinners where we have met old friends, made new ones and eaten great food!  We will be both happy and sad to leave here tomorrow. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Touring Oriental

What a dirty trick, I tell you to check our progress on the two maps Sam has added to the blog and we haven't moved!  We signed up for the courtesy car River Dunes has available and headed to Oriental.  Oriental isn't all that big, so most of the stores are the "Express" version.  We visited the West Marine Express, the Walmart Express, and an amazing little BIG hardware store.  As we drove in Kathy was looking at the map and mentioned Oriental had 2 banks, two grocery stores, one pharmacy, etc., etc. and 17 marine stores!  We got our shopping done and then went down to the harbor to look around.  We spied another C-400 and realized we had just received an email from Andy Shanks who had joined us in June for the C-400/445 rendezvous telling us to be on the lookout for Magic, so we stopped and chatted with Tim and Diane Leighton who are also heading south.

We puttered around all afternoon and various boat projects...there are always boat projects! and then joined our group for the cruiser's supper up at the Harbor House here at River Dunes.  We had remembered them from five years ago, but they had gotten away from it our last time through so we were glad they brought them back.

It's quite a good deal, dinner is $12 and includes soup, salad, potato bar and dessert...all you can eat.  The bar is open for wine and beer.  We will probably visit again tomorrow night!

We were all set to wait for Pete to return from Delaware, but now the weather is also telling us we should hang out here a few more days.  Rain and wind are on the way, and some of it seems to be remnants of Hurricane Patricia all the way from Mexico!!  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

River Dunes

Last night I planned to title the post" River Dunes....but not"  because we were asked by RD if we could put off coming in until Sunday as this weekend was members weekend and much of the facility was closed.  We came anyway, but anchored about a mile past the entrance to River Dimes up the creek. ...And then, no signal!! So I'm writing tonight instead.

I couldn't get the moon and the tiny cottages that line the entrance channel to River Dunes in
the same frame, so had to improvise.

The trip from Belhaven should have been a snap, but we seemed to have dirty fuel or some sort of blockage because the engine would just suddenly slow and shut down every so often.  Dan would go down and mess with the fuel filter and get it going again, but we sent the rest on and limped along until we got to Hobucken where a small fleet of shrimpers tie up and where diesel is available.  We filled up (tank was only half empty) but we didn't have any problem after that.

Once we were anchored ( the trip was 32 nm) everyone came over to Brunelle for cocktails.  We sent everyone home with a "favor".  Dan had stopped at the hardware store in Belhaven and bought a box of fly paper tubes because the flies had moved in with a vengence, so everyone got their very own roll of fly paper!...we're currently on our second strip.  The first filled up rapidly!

We enjoyed a lovely sunset and then Dan delivered everyone back to their own boats.

Dan was up in time to get a picture of sunrise this morning (Sunday)...amazing how similar it is to last night's sunset!  Just a little quieter.

 

By 10 am we are told we could come in and take a slip so we went in first so Dan could go back out (by dinghy) to help Kathy bring Pekabu III in.  Pete left early this morning in a rented car to head back to Delaware to be there while his mom has eye surgery.

Dan spent the day getting boat cleaned and I cooked a dinner that we all shared up at the Manor House.  It was closed but they said we could use the screened in porch and had we a  lovely time.  We have been rejoined by Pinnicale.  They had gone east from the VA cut because their mast is too high for some of the bridges.  

I know most blog readers are following because they get an email each time we post, but the blog itself has been activated a bit more by our trusty administrator/son, Sam, and there are two ways to see where we are,  One is the Marine Traffic map and the other is the SPOT map.  Check it out if you have time!  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Belhaven has signal!

We awoke to a very misty morning.  It was also very dewy!  So, while Dan and Pete took the dogs ashore Kathy and I started wiping down everything on deck!  Dan took his camera because he had commented  the evening before how beautiful the trip ashore had been.

As they left, we hoped they would be able to find their way.  Pete took his iPad with the GPS
to help navigate.

By the time they returned the fog had burned off and we had the cockpit and dodger windows clear and dry.

By 9 am we were ready to back track to the entrance of the Alligator River/Pungo River Canal
and head down the Pungo River to Belhaven.

Ragtime and Sevilla had stopped and anchored at the entrance to the canal and were already on their way by the time we got underway.  The trip was only 32 miles so we were anchored off of Belhaven by 2 pm.  We rafted again with Pekabu III because Dan wanted to dive down and check our prop.  We don't seem to going as fast as we expect to be going.  Pete and Kathy hit something submerged right after leaving the Dismal Swamp and it has caused their steering to become very tight, so Dan offered to take a look at that too.  We dinghied ashore to take the dogs and to check on the other two who took slips at River Forest Marina then headed out to set up the hookah system for Dan's dive.  The air temperature was in the 70's, but the water was in the 50's so he put on his wet suit for the dive.  The tannin in the water made it nearly impossible to see anything, but he scraped our prop and determined there wasn't anything obvious wrong with Pekabu's rudder.  We had a time fighting flies and were driven below early.  

We spotted very little wildlife  along the canal today, a few kingfishers and this eagle.

~~~_/)~~~M&D