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I find myself in the all too familiar position of issuing an apology.  Our former plugin that maintained and sent email updates was written by a company called “Readygraph” unfortunately this “plugin” (really just a name for a behind the scenes app for a blog) hasn’t functioned properly since April.  The creators seem unconcerned despite my weekly emails to them and they have failed to do anything to correct the situation.

Due to this malfunction and subsequent lack of repair we have been forced to install a new plugin created by “Jetpack” which seems to be much more solidly written and should give years of reliable service. This is where my apology comes in…..currently there is no way to import the prior subscriber list, so if you receive this email update please take the time to re-enter your email in our new subscription widget (another fancy name for a sidebar tool) and your updates will go on without interruption.  We will try to import the whole list and as soon as that happens we will update this post.  Thank you for your patience !!

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So, when we last left our intrepid sailors they had departed St. Augustine and arrived in Fernandina Beach…….

We spent an uneventful night at the Fernandina Beach Marina and after carefully evaluating the weather forecast which was predicting East winds 5-10 shifting to ESE (East Southeast) at 5 – 10 later in the day and Seas were predicted at 3′.  Here’s the first lesson to take from that….the National Weather Service (NWS) is frequently wrong….the prediction of weather and the sea state, while generally very good, isn’t as exact an art/science as anyone might hope.  It’s a good idea to be always be prepared for something worse than predicted.  On nearly every occasion, with the exception of our first trip from Fernandina to Georgetown, SC, the forecast has been milder than what we actually encountered. We had debated moving the dinghy from the arch davits onto the deck but since the forecast was mild and we had made this passage before with the dinghy still hanging on the stern we decided to keep her there…..bad idea, but more on that in a moment.

Armed with this mild forecast, (and some advice from a local charter fisherman to go out with the tide) we decided to depart Fernandina as the tide was going out.  As we entered the channel between the Fernandina inlet jetties, the incoming waves were somewhere between 8′ and 10’…with a wave period of what seemed to be about 5 seconds…..not a fun ride….on the upside it took us over an hour to clear the jetties…..so the ride was long AND uncomfortable…..needless to say, we were not anticipating such a rough exit from this inlet.  I ended up wrestling with the dinghy in the rough waves inside the jetties, while Mike piloted, to avoid any damage. I later came up with a system of lines to hold the dinghy more stationary using the hoist as a way to tension the whole arrangement.

The upside was Kitty Hawk took all of that in stride without a hiccup.  Our last exit from here in May of 2014 was as smooth as glass.  Once we reached a point beyond the jetties we turned Northeast to reduce the hobby horsing of the boat.  This made the ride much better, but we then encountered what I can only assume was every single fishing vessel in the Fernandina and surrounding area fleets making a continuous two mile circle North to South and back again with fishing nets deployed.  We made our best effort to keep at least a quarter mile away from any of the fishing vessels, which added yet another hour of maneuvering to our timetable.  Most of the vessels weren’t monitoring channel 16, so verifying their navigational intentions was somewhat challenging.  The Captains that were monitoring channel 16 were helpful and assisted us with estimating the length of the nets being used by nearby vessels to avoid any entanglement.  According to one fishing boat Captain, the fishing boats are often short handed and once they pick a channel on which to communicate with boats they are affiliated with they frequently don’t scan 16 or switch back with any regularity.

Once we we cleared the fishing fleet the remainder of the day was uneventful.  The wind was more ENE (East Northeast and never shifted to East or much less ESE or SSE so strike #2 for the NWS) so, even though we had sails up, we were so close hauled that we didn’t get much benefit from them so we motor sailed. We also discovered that our wind indicator had somehow become bent and wasn’t completely accurate.  The upside was that despite the unfavorable wind, the seas were down to 5′-6’…..the NWS weather broadcast continued to predict East winds shifting to ESE winds at 5-10 which never happened……..

Here’s a short video of some of the milder conditions….at the end of day #2 of our offshore passage…..

IMG_0060

Since the weather was mild despite the somewhat rolling sea state and unfavorable wind direction, we decided to make the entire offshore passage to Cape Fear which took about 50 hours total.  we had planned a bailout to Beaufort that we could have easily made on the morning of day #2.

This was the Beaufort contingency…..

This was our general course for the two day trip…..while we were generally on a heading of 43 to 45 degrees the wind was coming from about 65 degrees as opposed to the forecast 90 to 135 degrees…..

During the second night, we saw three or four low flying jets firing what appeared to be flares or countermeasures as they streaked back and forth across the night sky.  As it turns out, we got the opportunity to see the Marine Corp night testing of the new F-35B fighter jets….pretty cool.

*

(*photo credit to Cherry Point Post)

Our arrival at Cape Fear was again (fortunately) uneventful and we made it all the way to Joyner Marina in Carolina Beach, NC…….coming up next….The Home Stretch begins !!

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As I mentioned in my earlier post, we had decided to spend the Memorial Day Weekend in St. Augustine to avoid the increased boat traffic.  That turned out to be a great decision.  The powerboat traffic, at least in the area of St. Augustine was relentless from sunrise to sunset.  We were able to sit back, relax, dinghy into town for sightseeing and great food, with no added stress from navigating the flotilla of powerboats.

While we were in the mooring field, we met another CSY owner…Dave, a singlehander, on Windswept…(a CSY walthru model).  Talk about the small world theory…Dave was friends with another member of the CSY Owner’s group, Peter, with whom he had recently visited.  Dave wasn’t a member of the owner’s group but had heard about a project to get a re-creation of the bronze CSY “badges” manufactured. These badges originally adorned the forward companionway hatches on all CSY’s but over the decades were removed as souvenirs by owners who were selling their boats or lost during refits.

I asked Dave if he had been able to get one of these and he said that Peter had sent him some information about them but he hadn’t had time to follow up.  Dave wasn’t aware that I was the member who had the badges made for the owner’s group. I happened to have a couple of spare badges so I gave one to Dave.  He was very surprised and appreciative.

We departed St. Augustine at around 7am on Tuesday, May 26th and made a timely pass through the Bridge of Lions.  This was a good thing because the bridge doesn’t open for rush hour and we would have had to wait until 8:30am to depart.

We had a long (About 9 hours) but uneventful day trip to Fernandina Beach where we docked at the Fernandina Harbor Marina, topped off our diesel tanks and settled in for the night.  We had a great meal at the Salty Pelican Bar and Grill and then walked the downtown area. We had to stop in at the Palace Saloon (Florida’s Oldest Bar).

The Fernandina/Amelia Island area has a great small small town feel with a lot of original restaurants and also has an amazing hardware store for obtaining parts and small supplies to keep things in good repair.  The bonus is that all of these are within walking distance of the marina.

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We had initially planned to move Kitty Hawk from Melbourne, Florida to Oriental, NC beginning May 12th in an effort to avoid Memorial Day Weekend traffic.  Unfortunately, my associate who had planned to help, received a jury duty summons the week prior which necessitated his appearance on May 18th.  So, as sailors do, we altered our plan….(my friend, who has helped me move Kitty Hawk a few times, always says “sailors plans are written in the sand at low tide” it may not be an original quote…..but it seems to be fitting).  We delayed our departure to May 19th which put us traveling in the midst of the Memorial Day Weekend mess.  We decided to stay in St. Augustine at the end of day #3 for the entire weekend to avoid the power boat / maniac jet ski rider traffic debacle.

Our first day was pleasant enough….a short river cruise from Melbourne, Florida to Just North of Titusville with only two bascule bridges to contend with during the transit….the first bridge was the Addison Point Bridge (Formerly the NASA Causeway Bridge)……this is a twin bascule which means that the individual sides of the road operate independently.  It gave us a little worry when we found out that the southeast section wasn’t operational but we easily slipped through the half that was working properly.

We were fortunate enough to also see a launch from Cape Canaveral of an Atlas Rocket carrying what may be the next generation of “space shuttle”…

(A Bascule is a type of bridge that opens, usually like a draw bridge….they can be what is described as a two or one “leaf” meaning that either each side opens equally in two parts or one large span tilts upward to open the bridge. They can also be “twin” where the opposing lanes open separately.)

We anchored in a spot known as “Mosquito Lagoon” a nice, deep (8′), wide open area with no other boats. Ironically, we didn’t see any Mosquitos. We did however see this…..

We were anchored…just north of the marker for haulover canal bridge near where the chart mark for the “ditch” is on the photo of the chart…….we had just gone for a swim to check the anchor which was beautifully and deeply set into the hard mud and crushed shells of the lagoon floor….I felt pretty confident we were in for a good night’s sleep.  We returned to the cockpit, I checked the weather report and turned the VHF radio on.  We immediately heard a weather alert and discovered that an unforecasted pop up thunderstorm with gusts up to 60mph was headed directly for the area in which we had just anchored.  The breezes that bracket the Florida peninsula had apparently been battling all day, West of us in central Florida, pushing east and west for supremacy over the weather pattern.  In this instance, the East pushing winds won and drove the ensuing storm right at us.

We scrambled to secure everything we could, placed our backup electronics in the stove in an attempt to isolate them from any possible lightning strikes. I have read some articles that say a microwave works better since it is designed to keep radiation in and therefore out as well, but we don’t currently have a microwave on board so we went with what we had. We also started the engine and had it in neutral in case we needed to ease the load on the anchor with a little forward thrust. As it turned out, we didn’t need that since the anchor was so well set.

The good news was the wind had died down to about 30mph gusts….the rain was very heavy and all we could see was the amazing number of lightning strikes all around the boat. The weather service report later said that there was an averge of 170 strikes every 10 minutes associated with that cell……it was a stressful 45 minutes until it passed.  Kitty Hawk did very, very well.  The anchor held perfectly despite several 180 degree turns as the storm passed over us and the wind shifted accordingly.

We got a good night’s sleep after all….

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It’s funny how the human mind works…..you get into a habit or routine and it becomes second nature, it can be almost comforting to engage in sometimes meaningless practices.  Then there are those that exact a price when you forget them or neglect to make them consistent.  Take socks for instance, innocuous enough, right? Well, I learned the hard way once, after what must have looked like a tumultuous sledless sled ride, a scene from Home Alone, or a half hearted attempt to break my tailbone, that bare socks can be a dangerous set of footwear on a boat.  I think the exception being those “treaded”, rubbery socks like they issue at the emergency room, which is ironic since the other kind can send you there.   Recently, when returning to Kitty Hawk after about a month away, I kicked off my offensive “street shoes” on the dock (mistake #1) and hopped aboard to get things turned on and ready for my stay leaving my socks on (mistake #2).  Well, one step into the forward companionway and “swoosh” went that leading sock clad foot….down into the salon..the left foot decided to stay in the cockpit…….fortunately, for me, I have this other, more ingrained habit of holding onto the lip of the hatch with at least one hand as I descend the stairs….that saved  me….granted I was doing the most awful, uncomfortable airborne versions of the splits with my right hand on the hatch and my left hand wrapped around the side of the opening (which tore most of the skin off my ring finger knuckle….ow) .but that beat a broken ankle or a concussion……..I initially learned this sock lesson the very hard way by breaking my pinky toe while wearing socks on deck about 18 months ago….that took months to heal so you’d think it would have made a more lasting impression, but no.

Yesterday, I almost repeated what I like to refer to as another  “lack of friction” incident while working on our house water pressure pump. The pump had decided shortly after my first shower to stop supplying water pressure despite running at full speed.   Ours is mounted on the forward bulkhead of the engine room and basically inline with the center of the diesel….so, not overly convenient to reach or remove.  It had been a long 5 or 6 hours in the engine room, it was about 85 outside and about 95 in the engine room.. I was drenched in sweat…..I think we, as a species, take the lubricating effects of sweat for granted.  I’m convinced that this solution, especially when mixed with any combination of fluids or sludge from the bilge, could easily be used to slide an elephant uphill while said elephant was seated on sandpaper. As I was trying to extricate myself from a pose that would have impressed any seasoned Yogi, I opted to wipe my hands (and other sweat laden extremities) off after I exited the engine room…bad idea….I had a rag right there….I had taken it into the engine room expressly for that purpose……… I knew I was a sweaty slick mess just looking for a place to have an accident….but I forged ahead….eager to end the pretzel torture of the engine room……slipping off the edge of the diesel where I was pushing myself upward, I nearly lost some teeth as my slicker than snot left hand lost contact with the edge of the diesel and my right hand was full of tools…..the only thing that saved me was the angle at which my leg was wedged between the diesel and the bulkhead….lucky but somewhat painful.

The troubleshooting, removing and reinstalling the rebuilt water pump was an exercise in patience and self control that ultimately ended in success …..I’d like to express my gratitude to Mike at American Pump in Melbourne, Florida for a very affordable and quick (four hour turnaround) on rebuilding the pump for me…..apparently, it’s a pretty simple thing but I had a LOT of other projects to complete in a short time for our pending departure North to NC. Mike was also kind enough to answer after hours troubleshooting advice via text message.  So, a big thumbs up to American Pump (321-724-2972) if you’re in the area and need quick, reliable service on a rebuildable pump!!!

Here’s my advice on house pressure water pumps…..if you hook it up, it runs, you have sufficient water in your tanks,  and you can’t find any air in the system or a leak that would prevent pressure from building ?  Let it sit overnight or for a few hours and then turn it on again…..apparently, the pump may take some time to allow the pressure from your tanks to displace the air inside the pump that it cannot remove itself with the self priming feature.  That two or three hours of tracing lines looking for leaks could have been better spent…..say, trying to catch a snook for dinner…!!

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Hello again.

We have 16 new subscribers for April so far and the good news is we will be having the “small gift” raffle for anyone who signed up or signs up in what’s left of April…so, if you visit in April be sure to subscribe or comment and get in on the raffle so you are eligible!!! Subscribing gets you one entry and each comment gets you one entry also…..I’ll just be drawing the email address out of  hat at the end of the month…..pretty high tech, I know….

Thanks for subscribing and commenting !!

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