Never having planned to
go to Maine, once there we thought we'd make the most of it. We
enjoyed the Bangor music festival and the Camden Windjammer festival,
but we couldn't leave without visting the wonderful Acadia National
Park at Mount Desert Island. It is a beautiful area, costs a huge $5
per week to enter the park, and this includes free buses linking the
hiking and biking trails. A bargain! It is often difficult for us to
access hiking trails, and requires a safe anchorage to leave the boat
while we trek up big hills all day, and MDI has just this at Somes
harbour
Somes Harbour anchorage
4th September 2012
44 21N 068 19W
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A foggy
morning in Somes Harbour
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This is a lovely little
bay. There is a private dinghy dock, but the locals tolerate visitors
using their dock, for a contribution to the honesty box. Its a short
walk up the lane to the road, and the bus is used to picking up
people in the layby, even though it is not marked as a bus stop. All
the buses have bike racks front and back, so you can bus your bike to
the trails, and avoid cycling on the surprisingly manic roads. Every
day we took the morning bus to Bar harbour, which is the hub for the
buses and trails, has supermarkets, bars, shops and the tourist info
centre for maps.
We bought a hiking map
for $5 and wore it out after a week. Gorgeous walks, lovely views,
and safe cycling. It was worth all the miles just for this one place.
The cycling is fairly tame on forest roads and carriage roads, shared
by the horse and carriages for the more sedate tourists who visit the
park.
Stu's
back, my usual view from my bike
Labour Day holiday
weekend (3rd September) is the end of summer holidays for
Americans, and the park was quieter as a result. The weather turned
quite quickly autumnal as well, though we had warm and sunny days for
our hill walking.
One tree
has decided it is autumn!
We were sad
to leave MDI, but knew we had a lot of miles to go south. We heard
bad news from Yindee Plus, that Sue had taken a nasty fall and broken
some ribs, so we decided to head back to them in the amazing Seal
Harbour gunk hole, and see how the patient was doing.
Seal Bay,
Vinalhaven 13 September
44 05N 068
49W
A really
stunningly beautiful, natural harbour, protected from all winds.
There are a few holiday homes around the bay, most of them closed up
after the summer. We took advantage of someones waterfront access to
park the dinghy, taking the bikes ashore to cycle a few miles to the
little town that serves the population of 1200 people. We did this
several times as there was no phone signal in the bay, and no
internet. Sue was coping really well on board and managing short
forays off the boat, so we just hung around enjoying the scenery and
gave moral support. It was very hard to tear ourselves away from this
pristine anchorage.
Vinalhaven
has a very large tidal range, and we were unaware how much we had got
out of the habit of accounting for tidal height when going ashore.
One day we parked the dinghy, anchored well off in deep water, with a
line ashore. We cycled into town for supplies and wifi.
When we came
back we were amazed how much we had misjudged it!
The dink
is perched on a rock high and dry!
Thought
we'd anchored the dink far enough out, but the anchor was high and
dry too.
We took the
engine off, and carried the dink to the water, loaded it up with
bikes and shopping. It was not floating very well, so we thought we
would wait for the tide to come in a bit.
So we sat
and watched the tide roll OUT, further and further. It was a lowest
spring tide of the year!! A tiny trickle remained in the deep mud.
There was no way of getting the dink to the water now, we'd just have
to sit and admire the sunset, eat the shopping, drink the beer and
wait for the boat to refloat. It was dark and chilly when we got
home!
Feeling
pretty stupid by this point!
Nice
sunset though
Time to move
on, even Yindee Plus were on the move, with Becca joining as crew to
help out.
Maine is
absolutely chocker with lobster pots, so we don't like to motor or
sail at night there, though many do and get away with it. We still
have vivid memories of being caught on that fishing net off the
Portuguese coast. It is the slow way south, coast hopping by day,
but we preferred to be slow and safe, retracing our route via
Boothbay Harbour and Gloucester.
Provincetown,
Cape Cod 25 September
42 02N 070
11W
The gay
seaside resort of Cape Cod. Shame we missed the bear festival earlier
in the year. Bears: ' a subculture of gay men who embrace natural
body hair' ! Bear week is the time to parade it for all to see
apparently! Check out the photo gallery if you dare:
Provincetown Bears
It was
too chilly and windy now for parading body hair. It blew old boots,
and we sat it out for a couple of days here. A flock of little birds
roosted on the boat, despite us chasing them off frequently. I didn't
mind them finding shelter from the wind, but they rewarded us with
bucket loads of crap over the decks, bimini, water catcher, yuk.....
As soon as
possible we moved on, timing our arrival at the Cape Cod canal to get
on the magic carpet tide carrying us through at 10 knots. It was
still windy the other side, from behind, so we made up a few miles,
anchoring at the charmingly named Fogland on the rural side of Rhode
Island. It was a pretty little spot, surrounded by mansions and
farms, but we moved into Newport town to meet Kurt and Katie on
Interlude
Newport,
Rhode Island
41 28N 071
19W anchored among the moorings
In the
heyday of the USA, when entrepreneurs were making buckets of cash
building roads, railways, well, building the new country really,
there was no income tax. The richest people in America built their
summer 'cottages' at Rhode Island. These palaces or mansions are
vast, and inspired by the riches of European cities. For the
princlely sum of $18 each per house, they are all open to the public,
filled with the beautiful objects donated by the families in lieu of
inheritence tax. We made do with gazing at them from the sea in our
own holiday cottage. It was fun to catch up with Interlude, they were
waiting for the right wind to make an offshore passage all the way to
the BVI's. The quick way to get south – but we still had not
visited New York and Washington, so we carried on plodding south and
west ino Long Island Sound..
Mystic
Seaport Museum 1 October
41 21N 071
57.9W
The musuem
of America and the Sea. More than a museum, it is actually a small
19thC village. There are all the usual shops you would
find - a watch maker, cooperage, rope maker, hardware store. They
have actors in period costume, enacting the activities of the age.
There are whaling and cod fishing sailing boats to visit, ones that
actually did fish the Grand Banks. It is a working village as well,
and historic ships come here to be refitted or preserved with
traditional materials and skills.
The best bit
of all is for foreign-flagged boats, they offer a free berth for a
night, and free entrance to the museum/park. Bargain, and a very
eductional place to visit too, with free hot showers and a washing
machine we were in heaven.
Port
Washingon - access to New York City
Mooring 40
49N 073 43W
No reason to
visit Port Washington other than it being at the end of a rapid
transit train route to New York city and they generously provide free
mooring buoys for 1-2 nights. Many cruisers stayed here for up to a
week and did not get charged for their stay. It was pretty empty when
we were here, with a real end of season feel. It is a 20 minute walk
to the train station and costs $15 return each on the train, but you
pop up in the centre of Manhattan at Madison Square Gardens.
79th
Street Basin marina and mooring buoys
40 41N 074
02W 9 Oct 2012, $30 per night for moorings
We did
several train trips into the city to explore, before sailing around
the island of Manhattan, to 79th Street Basin, very close
to Central Park. We took at buoy there for a couple of nights, so we
could spend time out in the evenings, without a long trip home.
We loved the
city, and really enjoyed our cultural experiences there. Many museums
have a slot once a week where you 'pay what you wish' or free
entrance, and we took full advantage of these to see as much as
possible on a budget, even if the queuing was a bit tedious.
Times Square
– enjoy the bright city lights for free!!
Perhaps
the most photographed man in New York?
Empire State
Building
An expensive
view of the city at $25 pp Stu went on his own, and Steph went to see
the Picasso exhibit at the Guggenheim
Twin
icons of America
Frick
Collection (pay what you like)
A superb
collection of art in a private collection. For an industrial age man,
he had very good taste and filled his Central Park mansion with some
exquisite works, amongst them the Holbeins – Thomas More and Thomas
Cromwell staring out from the 16
th C. You could almost
reach in and stroke his velvet sleeves – so amazing.
Opera –
Othello
Sue and Mark
(Macushla) stood in line for cheap opera tickets and kindly got some
for us, as we were motoring up the Hudson River at the time. Rich
patrons of the arts subsidise seats at the opera on a daily basis. We
were in $200 seats for $20 – at the Metropolitan Opera no less.
Magic.
Cinema –
Wuthering Heights
Andrea
Arnolds reinterpretation of this classic, visually stunning – it is
a joy to see a decent film again.
World Trade
Centre memorial
This has
only recently opened. There was a competition for the design, and
'Reflecting Absence' was chosen from thousands. It really works –
you can't believe the towers once stood here, among all the other
skyscrapers which now reflect the skyline, it does seem quite a small
footprint. The water cascades down into dark, seeming bottomless
cubes, and the names of every victim are embossed around the
fountains. The museum has not yet opened, but you can peer down into
it to see how many stories below ground level the towers extended.
Hard to believe they fell down just like that.
 |
The
Highline – a green urban renewal project – a walkway has been
made from a disused overhead railway line.
|
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Sailing
under Manhattans bridges on a misty October day
|
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A fireboat
escorts a battleship down the Hudson river.
|
After a week
in New York we were thoroughly exhausted, and we sailed down to Sandy
Hook to fuel up (Long Island sound is very expensive for fuel, so we
were running on fumes) and prepare for an offshore passage to the
Delaware entrance. When I say expensive, that is of course relative
to prices further south, not the UK. Diesel at Sandy Hook was
$4/gallon or just under 65p/litre.
At 0430 we
arrived at the Harbour of Refuge at the entrance to the Delaware
River, we had to wait for the tide to continue up the Delaware. I
can't describe how cold it was at that time of the morning, blowing
25 knots from the north. The boat felt warm when we came inside, but
was only 7C ! We lit the diesel heater and crawled under the duvet to
recover. These October offshore overnighters are no fun at all. We
wouldn't recommend coming up this way without some form of boat
heating.
We spent a
couple of days just riding the tide up to the Chesapeake and Delaware
Canal – it saves a longer offshore route, and down the Chesapeake
to Annapolis. Lots of cruisers had made it to the Annapolis boat show
a week before, and were still hanging around exploring the area. It
probably saved us a load of money missing the boat show.
When we
planned to visit the US east coast, we had intended to just spend the
summer cruising the Chesapeake Bay and all its little creeks. On the
way north it was way too hot to be enjoyable, and there is the risk
of hurricanes, thunderstorms, no good swimming and lots of
jellyfish, so we carried on north. Now, here we were in the middle of
October, too cold to swim, and running out of time to relax in
pleasant bays. Also, it was way past the end of holiday season, and
other than Annapolis, everything was closed.
Washington
DC
38 53N 077
02W Anchored 23rd October
A couple
more days down the Chesapeake and we turned up the Potomac river for
a 2 day run to Washington DC. We anchored in a little stub of the
river outside the Gangplank marina, and Capitol YC. We had the
Washington memorial in sight from the anchorage, and it was a 3
minute walk to the metro station, supermarket and bus stop. To keep
fit, most days we walked to and/or from the city (25minutes) as well
as spending all day on our feet in museums and galleries.
For $10/day
we parked our dinghy at the Ganglank marina, and had hot showers and
access to the laundry facilities there. There is a security presence
24/7, so our dink was very safe.
The famous
Smithsonian Institute is based in Washington. Large sums of money
were donated by Mr Smithson, a British scientist, to create an
'establishment for the increase & diffusion of
knowledge among men'. Even though he had never visited the USA, the
legacy was accepted and a charitable trust formed in 1836, and since
then many others have contributed. An American diplomat was sent to
England to collect the bequest, and he returned with 105 sacks
containing 104,960 gold sovereigns (about $500,000 at the time). Now,
all the Smithsonian museums have free entry and are totally
marvellous.
 |
Reporting
from the White House!
|
There are 11
museums on the National Mall, the pedestrian grass strip in the
centre of the city. We visited the air & space museum 3 times and
the Natural history museum 4 times – the best thing about free
entry, you can wander until your brain is completely full and then
return another day afresh for more. In each museum there are
docent-led tours (volunteer experts) who lead you around the exhibits
and teach you even more stuff! We came away with our heads very full
indeed.
My 3 most
recent reads were good preparation: Moondust (Andrew Smith) about the
12 men who landed on the moon; The Greatest Show on Earth (Richard
Dawkins) about the compelling evidence for evolution – loads of
fossils are in the Natural History museum; and The Story of Art (E
Gombrich) about how art evolved from cave drawings to modern art. If
only homework at school had been that interesting.
 |
Did this
really orbit the moon in 1969 and return to earth?
|
 |
Surely this
was made by Blue Peter, not NASA....
|
 |
Really
clever people explaining stuff...
|
 |
The
evidence for evolution; bat fingers, giraffe necks, horses feet. I
spent hours in the bones rooms, checking out heads, shoulders, knees
and toes, knees and toes.
|
 |
Lincoln's
Memorial
|
WWII
memorial – each star represents 100 American service personnel lost in the
war, but half as many again perished in the Civil War precipitated by
Lincoln's presidency.
 |
| We enjoyed all forms of art on display |
The staff of
the marina were a little strange but helpful. The second day we were
there they told us the marina was on it's hurricane watch protocol.
We were informed that the marina had been assessed and would not
withstand a Cat2 hurricane, once the full hurricane plan is underway,
at T minus 48hr, they stop taking new boats in and concentrate on
tying down the ones they have.
Very cheery
news we thought. Still lots of hurricanes and storms had formed and
dissipated throughout the season, and come to nothing on the east
coast, so we carried on going about the business of sightseeing with
this worrying news in mind.
We
considered all options for other marinas and going back down the
Potomac to find a narrow winding creek to shelter from the storm, but
decided that staying put with 2 anchors out was as good an option as
any. We spent a couple of days preparing for the worst, taking down
the foresails, stowing all the deck gear, putting chafe-proof gear on
lines on both anchors, hoping that the forecasts were wrong. The
worst times were, firstly, deciding where to place ourselves for the
blow, but once we'd done that we could concentrate on getting our
preparations done. Secondly, watching the barometric pressure plummet
as the 'Frankenstorm' approached the coast, without knowing how
likely the meterologists had got the forecast track right. At one
point it was headed straight for us. After all, as Hurricane Sandy
fused with a huge Nor'easter on its way north, it was supposed to be
unique – how can you forecast a 90 degree turn if it's unique ?–
but the models were right, it did exactly that and New Jersey and New
York bore the brunt of it. The reconstruction is still ongoing 2
months later.
Insurance
companies write clauses into our boat policies which force us north
of 30 or 35 degrees from 1 June to 1 November (with some variation
between companies), but really Irene last year and Sandy this year
prove that latitude and dates are irrelevant. This year the hurricane
season started in May, before the NOAA hurricane watch centre is up
and running for the year. Sandy came along very late in the year, and
well north – a tropical storm in winter weather clothes. Mad
weather!!
Well, we
spent most of the storm on the phone, internet and Skype catching up
with people who wondered where we were, so we didn't have too much
spare time for worrying. It was great to chat to everyone too. See
previous blog entry for what happened during Frankenstorm.........
We left
Washington behind and headed down to Portsmouth, Virginia, rejoining
our northbound track. This time we took a right turn and headed into
the Great Dismal Swamp canal and national park, an alternative route
of the Intracoastal waterway only taken by pleasure boats of 6' draft
or less.
The canal is
still maintained by the US Army Engineer Corp and is a very pleasant
narrow meander through the back country. A couple of locks maintain
the depth, though we bumped along the bottom at times, probably over
tree trunks in the sandy bottom. Not only is the canal free to
transit, but so is the park and several pontoon berths along the way.
We did see
real live bear......poo. A couple of very tame bears posed for their
photos in the visitor centre.
 |
Great
Dismal Swamp Canal bears
Autumn has
followed us south!Now all the trees are golden
|
Elizabeth
City
Free dock 36
17N 076 13W
This town
calls itself the harbour of hospitality. Not only do they provide
free waterfront space for visitors to tie up, but the visitor centre
lends bikes for free and there is a shuttle bus to the supermarket.
We met up with a large bunch of Canadian cruisers headed south for
the winter.
As we left
Elizabeth City a Coast Guard RIB followed us down the channel. It was
a cold, grey blustery day and Stu felt sorry for them out on the
water in training, so he gave them a cheery wave. We were sailing
along with full sail up, doing maximum speed in flat water. It didn't
stop them coming alongside and indicating that they wanted to put 2
guys aboard for an inspection.
Although we
knew it was possible that the USCG can inspect your vessel at any
time, we are the only foreign-flagged boat we know that has been
boarded. We had no idea what to expect..
For cruisers
coming to the US, here's the full report I sent to our little fleet
of cruisers up here – feel free to skip it if you like.
Coast Guard visits Matador
We were leaving Elizabeth City, still in the river, a couple of miles from being out in the 'open' in the Albemarle Sound. There was a steady stream of boats, power and sail going south that morning - no idea why they picked us out, but we seem to get a visit in every country we are in!
The CG was like a large RIB with polystyrene foam for sides. They indicated that they were going to come alongside and put 2 guys aboard, told us to keep our course and speed - at this time we had full sail up in 20-25 knots downwind, but thinking about reefing for the sound before it got a bit boisterous. First they asked if we had weapons on board. No, we don't.
I went below to turn off the cooker (I'd been cooking breakfast) and diesel heater and do a few pre coastguard visit things below while they were doing their high speed board. Like tidying up...
No 1 sat in the cockpit and did papers, asking questions.
No 2 wanted to be below and was told to look around,with his little list in a book (we think he was the trainee)
First job 'for their own safety' they wanted us to show them the bilge area and the engine compartment so they can see we are not sinking or on fire. Glad I turned off the diesel heater!!
You can't see our bilge for water tanks, and they were content with a quick peek in the side of the engine bay.
He asked if we had a fixed fire extinguisher in the engine room ( we do, automatic)
They wanted boat papers, passports, phone number.
They wanted to see the following:
Personal flotation devices for number of people on board
A throw-able flotation device;
A sound making device - he wanted to hear it too. We have a pump up air horn which we wondered if it is not USCG approved, but it seemed to satisfy them once we got it working after an embarrassing pause, then he nearly jumped overboard;
A copy of the collision prevention regs ('international?' I asked -yes)- I couldn't lay my hands on it directly, and fumbled around looking in the bookshelves -they got bored and moved on from that;
Other fire extinguishers - they said it did not matter if they were not US approved, because we are not a US flagged boat;
Asked if we had an oil policy notice and a garbage policy notice - we do have home made ones, thanks to Yindee Plus. He looked at them but didn't read them;
He asked if we had a standard Y valve arrangement on the holding tank. We said yes, and he wanted to see it. I'd slipped a pre-prepared zip tie on it minutes before, and he was happy with what he saw. He didn't check the sea-cock or try to pump the toilet; He asked what training or qualifications we had. Stu reeled off a list, and they didn't ask for proof. Stu mentioned 23000 miles at sea.;
He kept asking if we had access to the internet, not necessarily at sea. Not sure what the relevance of that was;
The trainee was still going on about 'numbers' but he was told by no 1 that we don't need them as we are foreign.
He then gave us a yellow copy of his form to keep, which shows that we were inspected and did not have any violations or warnings.
I would have asked more about fines and violations, but we really just wanted them off the boat asap, and we were glad to see the back of them, even though they were very professional. We were navigating at high speed with 8' of water either side of the narrow channel - it was kind of hard to concentrate.
They left and didn't rip the toerail off with their boat, unlike the Spanish CG.
Any questions, email me, and if you want a copy of the oil or garbage notice I can send you one but say thanks to Yindee Plus.
Looking at the yellow paper now, there is a list of possible violations:
Numbering
Certificate
Document/Official Number
Personal Flotation device
Sound Producing device/
Bell
Fire extinguisher
Backfire flame control/
Ventilation
Marine Sanitation Devices
Installed Toilet and no MSD Installed
Pollution placard not posted
Garbage placard not posted
Waste management plan vsls>40'
FCC SSL Not posted/available
Operation without FCC SSL
Nav/Anchor lights (Sunrise-sunset only)
Visual distress signals (Sunrise-sunset only)
Negligent Operation
Intoxicated Operation
Unsafe conditions creating especially hazardous conditions
Overloaded
Fuel leak
Accumulation of fuel in bilges.
Before you ask, I don't know what FCC SSL is.....
Suffice to
say they were professional and polite, but no doubt we would have
incurred a stupid fine if they couldn't tick their boxes. In Turkey
you can be fined for polluting the water with oil or sewage. In the
US you can be fined for not having a sign stating your oil, garbage
and sewage disposal plan, or for not demonstrating the operation of
your poo handing tank.
It doesn't
matter if you know the collision regulations like the back of your
hand, you must have the idiot-proof chart on hand. The inspection
focussed on having the correct paperwork, rather than actually what
we were doing. I doubt any person irresponsible enough to throw oil
into the sea, would be in any way deterred by a sign in the boat
saying he shouldn't do it! The regulations are cheap and easy to
abide by, so just do it. By the way, you are also supposed to carry a
copy of your boat papers in the dinghy at all times, and have
lifejackets for all passengers, a light and a sound making device.
Instant fine if caught without – don't say we didn't warn you.
From
Elizabeth City we would have liked to visit Roanoak, and the Outer
Banks – the string of islands that make up Cape Hatteras. However,
the water is shallow, the wind strong and wintry and we were warned
that these communities 'roll up the streets' at the end of summer,
and there is little to see or do there out of season. Given unlimited
time, we would still have visited, but more worrying events were
unfolding. For the last 3 oil changes, Stu had been finding tiny but
increasing amounts of swarf in the oil strainer.
 |
Shiny bits
– but not where we like to see them!
Most engines
don't have a strainer and the bits would have gone unseen into the
oil filter and into the bin. But we couldn't keep ignoring these
bits, even though the engine was working perfectly. The oil pressure
was fine, no smoke, no noise, no knocking – nothing to suggest
anything was amiss. Knowing there were friends and expert engineers
at Jarrett Bay, we pulled in hoping that it would just be for a night
or 2 to track down and tackle the problem.
Jarrett Bay
Boatworks, 20th November 2012
North of
Beaufort, North Carolina.
34 48N 076
41W
Jarrett Bay
has fantastic facilities for boats and engines and all sorts of work
is done here. The core business are the sports fishing boats, whose
engine services cost $20000! It's amazing that they are at all
interested in our puny horsepowers and cheque books. However they are
as friendly and helpful as can be. The owners of these boats are in
another league. It costs $1000 in fuel to go out fishing for a day –
60 miles out to where the marlin live. The engines guzzle 100 gallons
an hour. Mindblowing, eh?
It is 8 miles to the nearest bar or restaurant – the perfect
getaway for recovering socialaholics!!
Over several
days, and either side of Thanksgiving, many people came and gave
their expert advice and assistance. The engine was turned on it's
side to access the sump and larger shiny bits were found.
It appeared
that one of the bearings was breaking down, but as more and more of
the engine was taken to bits we could not find a single bearing that
was not immaculate. Pretty amazing for a 34 year old engine, proving
that Meryl the Merc was well over-engineered.
Heads were
scratched and many experts consulted in the yard and back in the UK.
The biggest spanner and wrench imaginable were defeated by the pulley
at the end of the engine and there remained no choice but to haul the
engine out of the boat for further surgery.
While Brian
and Gaston at Performance Diesel took the engine to bits, we sourced
the parts for rebuilding the engine. All the original parts were
still available from Mercedes, and most were even found within the
USA, even though none of the engineers had ever seen a Mercedes
engine here.
They found
the cause of the problem – one lousy bearing, possibly some water
contamination of one bearing from the engine refit 8 years ago. Or
maybe it wasn't made as well as the other bearings – the Friday
afternoon bearing.
It looks
just like a cookie cutter doesn't it? I thought I might have it made
into a bracelet – it's expensive enough – but Stu says it will
give me lead poisoning.
We had a
couple of days of confidence crisis, and started looking at new
engines. However, the new ones look smaller and lighter than my
sewing machine and didn't fill me with confidence. It's a whole can
of worms to re-engine, to match the propeller, alternator, charging
systems, control levers – a 6 month project to choose the right
engine and do the installation right. As all experts agreed that
Meryl still had years of good service in her, inside she looked
hardly used, we continued with the rebuild. The cost of the parts
to rebuild was a measly £380. The labour costs are the killer, so
Stu is doing as much grunt work as he can himself.
Not a single
stage of this drama was without its snags, and we even had to load
Meryl into a truck and drive her 60 miles inland to a machine shop
and engine rebuilders. Here 3 engineer clones who operated at the
pace of the most meticulous snail, machined the new camshaft bearing
to fit the hole, and tested it in the back of the truck (it was in a
box to protect it from road dirt). These guys build racing car
engines, and really know their stuff. You could eat your dinner off
the floor, it was so clean and tidy. Its a shame that young people
are not learning what these guys do, it is a whole generation of
expertise that will be lost forever when they go. I have big respect
for what they know,and what they can make work. They were so
meticulous, considering every move before they did anything - it
saves costly errors. I wouldn't like to be standing behind them in a
fire though. |I can just see that the first response to Fire Fire
would be to bend down and carefully check their shoe laces before
making their way to the carefully calculated nearest exit. But what
confidence they inspire.
|
The lovely
shiny truck was lent to us by a really nice guy, for the duration of our stay. He
also gave up his Sunday to help us left the engine onto it's side.
Thank you so much Toby and Jessie, hope you get out and start living
the dream soon! Our friends have been running around all over for us, and bringing oysters and shrimp and other delicacies to keep our spirits up.
So many
fabulous, generous people have helped us out here, we will always
have fond memories of North Carolina, despite the engine woes.
Well, Meryl
was lowered back through the hatch onto her engine mounts yesterday,
with no millimeters to spare. It will take a day or so to reconnect
the spaghetti of wires and pipes, and then the moment of truth –
will she still run perfectly again with no noise, smoke or nasty
knockings?
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| Engine bay spaghetti |
 |
| Meryl comes home |
If so, we
stand a chance of heading south to the Bahamas before our visas
expire on 12th January, only 600 miles away at sea, but a
lot more down the ICW avoiding the nasty weather that forms from Cape
Hatteras. It is the birthplace of the depressions that head across
to old England all winter.
Look out for
our winlink position changing, then you'll know that we are on the
move again, hopefully without the assistance of Towboat US.
