Autopilot from A to B

Autopilot out

M. steered Journey for over six hours on Friday, May 23rd on the Wadmalaw River, the Cut at Church Flats, Stono River, Elliott Cut into the Ashley River past old Charleston to Isle of Palms Marina. Below I tore the boat apart removing the autopilot course computer located behind the instrument panel at the navigation station, the fluxgate compass, located low in the head locker amid ship, and the twenty feet of attached cable between the two that is hard wired to the fluxgate compass and runs beneath the floor boards.

A series of phone calls, including to our friend John at Voyager Marine Electronics in Essex, MA, led us to the Raymarine company representative for Norfolk who led us to the key guy at Raymarine who repairs autopilots which all resulted in us shipping these goods out by express mail from Isle of Palms Friday afternoon to be returned, hopefully, a week later to the electronics shop in Norfolk.

Luke, a newly minted, high-school graduate heading to Clemson University, working at the Isle of Palms Marina volunteered to drive us to the post office and grocery store. He told us how Isle of Palms long-time residents are fed up with short-term rentals of ocean front property. They want longer-term residents, Luke said, because they want a deeper sense of “community”. There’s that word again so packed with longing. People know that you have to stay put in a place to build it. That’s why the sailors we’ve met, whose permanent address may be a post office box in Florida, hang on moorings or in slips in one place for weeks at a time, staying put to deepen connections.

Valuing

At the end of long days we yearn for the treasured communities of family and friends. Yet, we already speak of the loss we will feel when this journey has ended three or four weeks from now. It is too early to be clear about the things we most value and what we most fear about returning to lives of wrist watches and worldly goods. We certainly treasure its clarity and simplicity. Our work is to safely navigate this boat and make progress towards new destinations. Achievement is as clear as points on a chart. We like the newness of each day brought by our intimacy with nature. There’s joy in spending day after day outdoors, using muscles to achieve something more than outlasting a timer on a gym treadmill. There’s the friendship and security from offering and receiving over and over again genuine and surprising hospitality. There’s the pleasure of sharing our experience and deepening relationships with guests and experienced crew. There is the joy of making this venture as partners. There is rhythm to our routines in getting underway, making passages, anchoring, and trouble-shooting. We rediscover again and again the treasure of our companionship and deep love for one another.

We left Isle of Palms at 6:45 May 24, ground our way against current and a strong head wind 73 nautical miles to anchor at 6:55 in Cow House Creek a few hundred yards off of the spectacular Waccamaw River. It was peaceful after no rest the night before at the Isle of Palms Marina where a nearby restaurant that featured live music until two a.m. Earplugs and fatigue kept us asleep until about three when strains of radio station playing country-western music penetrated both. We tossed and turned and thought it was likely entertainment for the restaurant clean-up crew. I finally roused myself, pulled some clothes on and went out on the cockpit to find the restaurant was silent. The music was coming from the balcony that surround the marina store directly in front and above Journey.

This is a confession. I went to the balcony, stood on a chair and disconnected the positive lead on two outdoor speakers. Blessed silence, a little more rest and out of there at six in the morning.

Father and son

We were alone on the waterway with the sun rising, until a modest outboard passed us carrying a boy and his father going fishing. The be-spectacled father turned the boat away from us into a creek with the confidence of one who knows the good spots. His face wore pleasure. The boy, perhaps ten to twelve percolated, sitting and then standing in front of the center consul of the boat, his hair a muss, blowing in the wind, saw us and gave us a huge wave that said I’m here, I’m here with my Dad going fishing.

The picture they offered made less taxing the 78 nautical miles of going against current and strong wind to Cow House Creek anchorage at statute mile 383.

Against the current

We are masters at going against the current, all day and did it again on May 25th. Current tables that pop up on the electronic charts bare little resemblance to reality. Current ran one to two knots on our nose all day with a headwind, so we ground our way east-northeast along that curve in the coast towards Cape Fear, unable to make more than five knots over the ground, crossing into North Carolina and wanting to swat at the swarm of power boats loosed from their hives for the Memorial Day weekend. We made South Port, NC, at 7:30, having traveled for 13 hours to cover 79 nautical miles through the water and reach mile marker 309, progress of 86 statue miles.

We walked to find dinner a few blocks away where we were told there were a couple of restaurants on the old waterfront. A big crowd milled outside of one of them where a woman was taking names and told us it would be an-hour-and-a-half wait. We wondered if it was worth it when a woman overhearing us assured us it was. She was a native of Des Moines, Iowa, went to Iowa State and had recently retired to the area. It’s a small world yet again.

We put in our names and were told to go inside and help ourselves to beer and wine from coolers. It wasn’t too long before our name was bellowed out and we were shown to a table, told to leave something on it to show that it has been taken (we left a cell phone) then to get in line at a counter that fronts the kitchen and order your food, grab another beer and wine from the cooler and sit down. Soon a waitress again hollered our name and served shrimp and rare tuna that were exceptional. When you settle the bill, which is the slip of paper they had written your order, you tell them the number of drinks and it’s added to the tab.

South Port deserved more time to explore than we wanted to take. One of Journey’s drinking water lines sprung a leak which required a walk to the Napa auto/marine store (first one of those that I’ve seen) about a mile away from the marina to get 25 feet of hose. It’s a gracious town. Its front porches are an art form with wicker furniture, lamps, tables, wall decorations and people. The Waccamaw Bank window has a carefully painted, permanent sign that reads: “We Hang Local Artists.”

Passage making with Troubadour

On the 26th we did current right. A guide said leave South Port an hour before high and you will ride with the current up the Cape Fear River and have slack in a nasty little stretch called Snow Cut where the ICW departs the river. It worked. We reached Wrightsville Beach and reunited with Nancy and Ed on Troubadour for the first time in more than three weeks and now we travel north together. They’ve rented a slip starting June 15 in Hingham, MA to be close to children and grandchildren. We hope to be in Maine by then.

We had a weather window to go offshore on May 27th between Wrightsville Beach and Beaufort, NC (BOE-furt) and took it. We were on a broad reach with jibs poled out the entire way with winds building to twenty by the time we reached the Beaufort Inlet, 72 nautical miles in 12 hours and reached mile marker 204. It was tough steering in following seas, but Journey is a good downwind boat.

On the 27th winds turned northerly and we made a short trip of 30 nautical miles to Oriental, NC and revisited for the third time the restaurant where we celebrated Roland’s birthday now more than a year ago that seems an eon ago of experiences. And now I travel these same waters for the third time, after transits on Roland’s Cat boat and the passage south last fall.

These are inland seas and can be nasty. We left oriental on the 28th to tack up the Neuss River in building northeasterly winds short interval, three foot waves. We were pounded down to two knots velocity made good on our course and decided to motor until we made a sharp turn west and sailed and motored the rest of the day. This is a spectacular cruising ground. The Neuss, Pamlico river and sound, and Albemarle sounds and their many tributaries are vast, interconnected and offer beautiful anchorages. There is very little shore development. There are duck blinds and clam pot buoys and docks on isolated creeks with moored shrimp boats. One “Mac-beach-house” stood out ridiculously.

Stage set

When you ghost along a creek under sail, the banks go by like a moving diorama slowly enough to lock on a particular scene. One appeared after a long run of bank, trees and nothing else. The proscenium was lush green trees, the stage a tall grass clearing. On stage right sat a bright red bucket next to one of those metal framed folding chairs from the sixties where the seat and back are suspended canvas. On stage left an old multihued, square-fronted Chevy truck appeared to be lying in the tall grass. The star in stage center was a black woman walking from the chair to the truck, likely to fetch another prop, a fishing pole or lunch cooler. She wore a wide-brimmed, bowler-topped straw hat, pedal pusher slacks, a loose white blouse. She was slender. Her shoulders rounded. Her back curved. Her gait was stiffened by knees that didn’t bend easily. I was too many rows back to see her face, but I so wanted to visit with her. How’s fishing here? What do you hope to catch? Do you live far? I wanted to sit and listen to her long story of life in this low, lush, brackish-watered, still-isolated land of coastal North Carolina. I yearned to know more about this fishing day of hers, how it passes in loneliness or solitude, in need or sport, in sorrow or peace? How is the third and final act playing out for her?

I spoke with Lee Tang earlier in the day. He is head autopilot repair guy at Raymarine who fixed our course computer. It wasn’t reading the fluxgate compass. It will be at the marina in Norfolk when we arrive Sunday night. He didn’t dump all of the previous settings and I should be able to reinstall it without a dealer calibration. Let’s hope.

We anchored in Slade Creek off of the Pungo River. Ed and Nancy launched their dinghy to take their loved, ancient dog Scully to shore and came by for a glass of wine and we talked more about this world of boats, anchorages, repairs, fatigue, and joy and our intertwining stories.

Big Leak

Yesterday, May 31 we noticed the bilge pump was running a lot! That’s never good and it wasn’t. A dive into the starboard locker revealed that water was spraying out around the billows on the shaft seal. We had crossed Albemarle Sound into the North River with a strong following wind with the jib out and motor on. The team leapt into action. M. sailed us with the jib within the confines of the narrow, dredged waterway channel. I went back into the locker with tools. It appeared that the stainless plate between the coupling to the transmission and the rubber billows on the shaft seal had moved forward. Undid the set screws and tapped it aft, and, even though I couldn’t it move, sea water no longer leaked in.

We sailed the rest of the way with Troubadour shadowing us to our planned stop at Coinjock Marina at mile marker 49 where Ed and I looked further and noted that the shaft slides aft one to two inches when the engine is in reverse. We don’t know if this is good or bad, but one does not want the shaft to fall out of the boat. You sink. Last fall Troubadour needed a major repair at Atlantic Marine at mile market 11 and that is where we will be tonight, and have arranged for that other repair, the autopilot, to be taxied from the marina in downtown Norfolk to where we will be tonight. Stay tuned.

A to B or C, D, E.....

The four of us had dinner together last night and reflected again on the lessons of these journeys. Remember those thoughts from the Chesapeake last fall on learning how to live not driving from A to B, but rather being open to where wind and events take us? Since we got back on the waterway I’ve been the old A to B person locked into reaching Maine by June 15. As we talked, we realized that nothing is bad about a day or two or three or whatever it may take to sort Journey out and be sure she is safe for the passages home. We’re never fully in control in setting a trajectory, no matter how much we might think we are. In these last chapters of our lives we are without a doubt going to be in even less control than when we were younger and the unexpected challenges are going to be far more daunting that a problematic propeller shaft. This journey keeps teaching, but I’m not learning and thank God for the patient tutors on board and in Troubadour.