I then noticed the the people from Ariel had return to their boat.  I asked Jim to give me a ride over to their boat in his dinghy since mine was over on Factory Creek.  He told me to take the dinghy over myself because he didn't want to get involved in the confrontation I would have with the owner.  I said that I would stay calm and just talk to the guy.  Jim said he didn't think so and wanted to wait at the dock.  Well, I did remain calm for about 30 seconds as I discussed what had happened with the owner of Ariel.  What got me angry was that he insisted that it was impossible that he hit my boat and refused to look at the pictures that I had taken of the damage.  After calling him a name I won't repeat here, I pulled on the starter to in an attempt to speed away back to the dock, but Jim's engine in need of a tune-up refused to start.  After a minute or so, the guy from Ariel asked if he could help.  I replied, "NO!!!!" then finally got the engine started and sped back to the dock.  We decided to abandon the idea of riding to Wal-Mart and rode over to the Publix and hardware store on Ladys Island across the bridge as I tried to calm down.

When I got back to my boat I went below and got out a can of polishing compound and bottle SeaPower Cleaner and Wax.  I worked on the paint streaks for  a few minutes and was able to remove them completely.  The bow rollers would have to wait until I could borrow a vice and mallet to straighten them out.

As the evening came the skies suddenly grew dark and I turned on the VHF to here NOAA reporting a line of severe thunderstorms heading this way.  Normally I wouldn't be too concerned if I was in a good anchorage, but in this narrow creek there was the probability that I could drag either into the trawler tied to he dock to port or the mud bank to starboard if the winds were strong enough, so I called the Ladys Island Marina to take a slip for the night.  I pulled in my two anchors as fast as I could with the dark clouds bearing down on me.  I was exhausted when I finally got both anchors up because they were set really well.  I pulled into the slip just as the first gust of wind hit, but the dockmaster already had my bowline secured and I tied up without a problem.  It turned out the the strongest storms past just north of us and I would have been fine where I had anchored, but the slip was only $1/foot and I had a good time talking with John on the Gulfstar 38 in the slip next to me.  John was on his way back to Boston when he injured his knee and had been stuck on his boat for the last week.

Jim and I left the next morning and headed to an anchorage on Rock Creek about 15 miles away.  When we got there we found the anchorage badly shoaled and decided to move on and try for Toogoodoo Creek another 20 miles up.   The wind built to around 25 knots with gusts to around 35 and we were glad to arrive at Toogoodoo Creek.  We found the most sheltered section of the creek and dropped our anchors for the night.  Even though we had some protection from a bank of trees on shore, it was still pretty choppy.  We had planned to have dinner on Jim's boat that evening but I didn't want to mount the outboard on the dinghy or try and row over to Jim's boat with the heavy chop so we scrapped that plan.

The next morning Jim called and told me that he had been up most of the night trying to decide what to do about his engine mounts that had loosened and were now detached from the engine bed.  He didn't think that there was anything he could do about them at this point.  It seemed that Jim had ignored that problem until it became so bad that vibration had began to damage the coupling connecting the transmission to the prop shaft.  Jim decided that he would try crawl very slowly to New Bern, NC where he would get the problem repaired.  He wanted to leave tin the morning, but I wanted to stay at anchor since another day of 30 knot winds were forecast.  Jim said that he would proceed very slowly and that I would probably catch up to him in a couple of days.

The wind finally subsided the next afternoon and I left the next morning and headed toward Charleston.  I called Jim on the VHF a few times but got no reply.  I figured that he was too far ahead at this point and out of VHF range.  I arrived at Charleston and anchored in my usual spot on the Ashley River between the last range markers before the bridge.  I had maintenance scheduled, so before I went ashore I changed my engine oil and filter and both primary and secondary fuel filters.  Afterwards I took the dinghy in and rode over to Melvin's (I think it's called) for some freshly made pizza and then to Port City Java for coffee and free wireless Internet.  In the morning I got fuel at the city marina and was on my way.  I would have like to stay longer but some weather was on the way and the anchorage can be very rough in bad weather.

As I was motoring along about four hours north of Charleston, the engine suddenly died without warning.  It has never done this before and I was quite surprised by this.  I quickly scanned the gauges and tried to restart the engine but it wouldn't start.  I ran up to the bow and dropped my anchor.  The first thing that I suspected was a problem in the fuel line since I had just changed the fuel filters in Charleston.  I tried starting the engine again and noticed that the temperature gauge was now in the red and there was no water flow from the exhaust.  The engine had overheated and stalled.  I had been keeping and eye on the temperature gauge and it had been fine with no sign that it was running hot.  This was not good.

 A few sailboats that had been behind me passed and asked if there was anything they could do and offered a few suggestions.  I thanked them and started looking for a blockage in the cooling system.  After checking the water flow from the raw water inlet to the exhaust elbow, I tried starting the engine again after I observed that the engine temperature had dropped.  This time it started and  ran the rest of the day without a problem.  I assumed that there had been a blockage in the cooling system that had cleared itself when I began opening connections while tracing the problem.  I arrived at the South Santee River at around 5 pm and anchored for the night with three other sailboats.

The next day I kept an eye on the temperature gauge all day during the 35 mile run to Bull Creek off the Waccamaw River.  The engine ran fine all day with no sign of overheating.  I was still concerned since I had not found a definite cause for the overheating but could only assume that the problem was resolved.  Bull Creek is one of my favorite anchorages on the ICW so it was easy to sit back and relax with some wine and enjoy the scenery and forget about the engine problem of the day passed.

I left Bull Creek early the next morning because I wanted to get to the free dock at Barefoot Landing before it filled up.  Again I kept an eye on the temperature gauge as I motored along.  Everything seemed fine until about five hours into the day when the engine suddenly died again.  I quickly deployed the anchor and checked on the problem.  It was the same as before.  The engine had overheated and stalled.  I let the engine cool down then tried starting it again.  It started, ran fine and the water flow was good.  I decided that I would replace the thermostat when I got to Barefoot Landing since I had a spare.  I continued on at reduced engine speed.  I got to Barefoot Landing at about 1:30 pm and found plenty of room at the dock.

The next morning as I was visiting with Cambia the catamaran behind me at the dock, we noticed a boat that had just left the dock was getting very close to the bridge while waiting for it to open.  We looked through the binoculars and saw that he was right up against the bridge fenders and it appeared that he had damaged his dinghy davits and solar panels.  He seemed to be pinned there against the bridge.  After a while TowBoat US arrived threw him a line and began pulling him away from the bridge.  When they got him back to the dock a bunch of us walked over to find out what had happened.  The owner told us that he had suddenly lost his steering while turning in circles as he waited for the bridge to open.  He quickly got the anchor down but it didn't bite until he was already up against the fenders.  "It could have been worse.", he said, "My mast almost hit the bridge."  After checking the steering cable he discovered that it had jumped out of the steering quadrant because it had gotten loose.  He said that it was a new cable and had stretched after he installed it.  He estimated the damages to be about $5,000.  The dinghy davits were bent.  Two out of the three solar panels mounted on the davits were destroyed, and the bottom of his dinghy was cracked.  Surprisingly he had a good attitude about it and didn't appear all that upset.

I stayed at Barefoot Landing for three days since rain and thunderstorms were in the forecast, but before I left I rechecked the cooling water flow and replaced the thermostat with a spare.  My next stop would be the anchorage at Pipeline Canal in Southport, NC.  I traveled again at reduced speed and had no trouble with the engine.  I anchored in Pipeline Canal with two other boats.  In the morning I rose just after sunrise and noticed that the two other boats were already gone.  It was then I remembered to check the tide tables for the Cape Fear River.  They must have left before sunrise in order to avoid the maximum ebb tide which was about 3 knots at 10:00 am.   I was too late and decided to wait for low tide which was at 1:30 pm in order to catch a favorable tide up the river.  In the mean time I rode into town and stopped at the library, Wal-Mart and a NAPA store.  When I got back to the boat it was time to leave, so I pulled up my anchor and headed out towards the Cape Fear River.  I had time it well and had favorable current that pushed me along nicely.  I still kept the engine speed low because I didn't want to overheat here.  When I turned off the river into Snow's Cut I hit the current from the from the Carolina Beach Inlet and slowed down considerably, bit I still kept me engine speed down.  I arrived at Wrightsville Beach and anchored.  There were several boats already anchored.  Among them was Ariel the black ketch that had hit my boat.  I anchored far away from him.

The next morning I left early to beat the restriction at the Wrightsville Beach Bridge.  I got through in good time and made it to the next bridge just before it's scheduled opening.  The boats that had left just after me didn't make it and had to wait a half hour for the next opening.  I had to increase my engine speed for a while in order to make the bridge and I overheated again about a mile past it.  I dropped my anchor again and waited for the engine to cool before I got going again.  The boats that had not made the bridge all caught up to me and passed me before I got going again.  I got to the Mile Hammock Bay anchorage in Camp LeJeune at about 1:00 pm  and anchored.  I was the first boat there.  The three boats that had passed me when I had overheated, all continued on towards Beaufort or Morehead City.  I wanted to stay here at Mile Hammock for a couple of days because a strong Nor'easter was forecasted to roll through the next day.  About an hour later an Island Packet 35 named Moorish Idyll came in and anchored nearby.  I hoped that the anchorage wouldn't get crowded with the storm approaching.

In the morning before the storm was forecast to arrive, I rowed over to Moorish Idyll to ask if I could borrow a cell phone.  I had reserved a slip at BridgePointe Marina in New Bern and wanted to let them know that I would be delayed by the weather.  They invited me on board and I called the marina.  Afterwards we talked for a while and I went back to my boat.  The wind started to pick up that evening and continued all the next day.  It built to 30 knots with gusts to 45.  Moorish Idyll and I were the only boats anchored here so I didn't have to worry about another boat dragging into mine or vice versa.  My anchor held well and the next morning I found that it had dug in so deep that I had trouble getting it up.  I now know that Mile Hammock Bay is a good spot to ride out a Nor'easter.  While I had been waiting for the storm to approach, I decided to remove the thermostat altogether,  hoping that it would run cooler.  I continued the rest of the trip to New Bern running at 1500 RPM and without a thermostat.  I had no further trouble with overheating.

The next day I anchored in Cedar Creek off of Adams Creek north of Beaufort, NC.  I usually like to at Beaufort, but it was a Saturday and I expected it to be very crowded.  I would also have a shorter run to New Bern the next day.  I anchored in Cedar Creek at around 5:00 pm.  with two other boats.  About an hour later while I was down below cooking diner a small power boat came by and stopped near the boat.  I came up on deck and said hello.  The boater wanted to tell me that he was from Smithtown, NY which is a few miles from Huntington, my homeport.  He said that he had moved down here 9 years ago al loves it here.  I talked with him for a few minutes then excused myself so that I could finish cooking diner.

May 8, 2005 - New Bern, NC

The next morning I headed out into the Neuse River and turned west towards New Bern.  The wind was from the north at about 15 to 20 knots and I had a nice sail for a while.  I was doing over 6 knots with full main and partially furled genoa.  The pleasant sail ended when I had to head north at the bend in the river.  I was dead into the wind so I had to furl my genoa and motor the rest of the way.  There was a substantial chop through this section of the river, and since I was motoring into it at only 1500 RPM, my speed was cut down to about 2 knots every time I slammed into a steep section.  It got better as I got closer to New Bern and I arrived at the marina around 3 pm.  Bill the dock master on duty helped me tie up as I pulled into the slip, then gave me summary of the marina and facilities.  They had nice wide floating docks, a courtesy car that you could use to go to the stores etc., all they asked is that you replace the gas you used, an ice machine, and air-conditioned showers and lounge.  All of this was only $165 per month plus electricity for a 35 ft slip.