Catamaran Delivery, Days 8 and 9: Hempstead, NC to Bucksport, SC
Two long days in the logbook!
Yesterday, we woke up before dawn, on the coldest of our mornings yet. We were headed south from Hempstead, aiming for Southport, NC. Doing so meant headed down the Cape Fear River, and our destination was a slightly larger marina than the one we’d stayed at the night before.
The ICW is not, all told, a particularly difficult thing to traverse. There are challenges: skinny waters, various kinds of bridges, some confusing turns, and other traffic. However, it’s protected, so barring major storms it’s flat and safe. In an emergency, you’re 15-20 feet from land, in most areas. There are exceptions up north (Albemarle Sound, Pamlico Sound), but those are all behind us now.
It is instead somewhat monotonous. The “Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway” runs from Hospital Point in Norfolk, VA to Plantation Key, FL, at a length 1002.1 NM. For a boat traveling 6kts, that’s 167 hours under way, or - assuming an 8 hour day on the water, every day - 20ish days. Of course, that’s not quite achievable; not every day allows for that much distance to be traversed, and there are times when longer pushes will occur. On average, an end-to-end traverse takes about 3-4 weeks.
As of the end of our 9th day, we’re about 1/3 of the way through. We’re not going all the way to Plantation Key, and we’re going to potentially be going outside at some point to shave off time, but even so: this is a long trip. And it’s exactly what I wanted - extended time living aboard, learning how things work, figuring out what I do and don’t need when we move onto our next boat.
We also had another exciting night, in that we’d been having trouble with our shore power - this boat has two AC panels, and the “Line 1” panel - which controls the reverse cycle AC that we fixed the day prior was not functional when plugged in.
The symptom we were chasing was that only Line 2 would show incoming current. The simplest first step was simply moving to a new marina, thinking the issue might have been with the shore plug.
It wasn’t.
Next, we unplugged and switched the lines themselves, first removing the 30amp/50amp pigtail (most boats use one or the other; this boat has 2 30amp power inlets, and a 2-to-1 converter Y plug that allows us to use a single 50amp plug on the shore side). Again, no luck, and so much for the simple answers.
Next, we unscrewed and removed the Line 1 inlet on the boat, and inspected the wiring there. These had been removed when we repaired the leaking sugar scoop steps last week, and we thought that perhaps something internal had been caught or pinched; unfortunately, all looked fine.
Digging deeper, we removed the panel in the salon that covered the rear of the main electrical breakers, and checked if there was any obvious issue with the selector switch that converted the boat from generator to shore power. Also, of course, all fine.
As it turned out, the issue was a primary shore power disconnect breaker, hidden away in the aft compartment behind my berth, effectively behind the (now 4200-sealed) sugar scoop steps. Getting inside required removing my mattress and bedding, and then some screw removal, and lo: a large tripped breaker.
It feels like we’re coming to know this boat as well as I knew Wanderer! In hindsight, we could have dug for that breaker before we removed the inlet or breaker panel, as doing should would have been simpler, rather than physically tracing the problem up the line. Lessons in troubleshooting!
Departing at dawn, we motored all of yesterday to Morningstar Marina. It was, all told, a gorgeous day. Much of the morning was pretty much like any morning, but the Cape Fear portion was brilliant - beautiful trees, leaves still on them, and then a wide open passage down the massive river itself. While pretty, the day was pretty much like any day so far: some bridges to pass under, some traffic to dodge, and repeated trips below (well, inside) to fetch more layers in the cold air.
Morningstar Marina was close to a great little fish market, called Potter’s, and as the captain and his wife went to Walmart (ugh, but few alternatives here) to provision, I walked to the fishmonger and purchased some fresh sushi-grade salmon and tuna, which I later made into hand rolls for everyone.
I woke before dawn, at 5am, and took advantage of the showers before we set off for a second long day, the plan being to motor all the way across the South Carolina border and into the swamps north of Georgetown.
Along the way out, we spotted Elsevier - we had shared a ride to Piggly Wiggly in Oriental with them, and it was nice to see them tucked into a Safe Harbor marina, hopefully warm and cozy with their children and dogs aboard.
This morning’s excitement was found when passing a tug pushing a huge, rusted out barge. We didn’t want to get stuck behind it for the whole day, and our captain took the helm and piloted us past it, but there were white knuckles in abundance as we did so. A mistaken turn here would have spelled doom.
We passed under seemingly countless bridges today, and I took the opportunity to continue to develop my skill at the helm, hand-steering our way through the narrows, and we arrived before sunset at Bucksport Marina, which is tiny and feels like a place out of time.
I considered going for a run, but it was too late, ad the area a bit too far from anything to really make it seem like the right idea. Instead, I returned to the boat, and everyone retreated to their cabins for an hour or so. I spoke to Joy about the successful sale of Wanderer, and then headed back into the salon to cook for everyone. It was a quiet night, as we were all beat (and our captain actually fell asleep prior, and opted to catch up on much-needed rest instead), and a simple red sauce with Italian sausage carried the day.
Tomorrow should be shorter, as we stage in Georgetown, and will study charts and decide how best to proceed from there. For now, sleep, and finally weather in the 60s!