First Days: Fun and Trouble


The first day out was amazing. we cruised over 11 and a half hours and made it 110 miles to mile marker 0 in Norfolk, VA on the Intercoastal. We stopped at Fish and Ships restaurant and bar where we met Jenny the bartender and had taco Tuesday and beers. It was a great day with no issues along the way. 

Day two proved to be a little more challenging. We were planning on changing oil in the morning before leaving, but couldn't get the pump out to work properly to remove the oil. So after a couple hours, we decided to move on and stop somewhere to get help down the way. Around 3pm we stopped for fuel, but ran into issues with the diesel full burping back up the fill. It took an hour an a half to slowly fill the tank. We were originally going to anchor out for the night, but decided to stop in Coinjock, NC for the night and see about help with an oil change in the morning. We found Brian Scott through is wife Candice at the Coinjock Marina Restaurant (which has the famous 32oz prime rib). After four hours, the oil change was done. Yes, the oil change took four hours and 7 GALLONS of oil for each engine. We left Coinjock at 1:30pm and were on our way again.

Day three we decided to make up a little bit of time and cruise 36 straight hours. We left Coinjock around 1:30pm after the longest oil change of all time. Everything went smoothly until around 6:15am about 2 hours South of Morehead City, NC. We lost oil pressure in the starboard engine and decided to shut it off. We let it rest a few minutes and started it back up, but when we did, it blew oil out of a capillary line that measures oil pressure, although we didn't know that is what it was at the time. Luckily that is an easy fix, but we had to backtrack 2 hours on the port engine alone back to Morehead City. 

We were lucky enough to find a fantastic diesel mechanic named Keith who came out asap to help us. Every place we called was at least a two week wait to even come out and look, so I feel super lucky and thankful that Keith was able to come help. He fixed the issue with no problem, but noticed a few other issues that needed attention. I know very little about diesel engines, so his knowledge and expertise was extremely helpful. He changed a couple filters and made some tuning adjustments and we were on our way. We lost about 12 hours of travel time, but the boat is in better condition and I am more knowledgeable about her inter workings. 

We left Morehead City and started day 4 and continued down the ICW. We planned on trying another overnight cruise, taking 3 hour shifts, to try to make up some time again. Everything was going well, until we made a shift change and I misunderstood which side of the channel the buoys were on. For those who do not know, there are red buoys on one side and green on the other. Depending on whether you are going upstream or downstream, a different color will be on your right or left. Well, I thought I heard red on the left, but it was red on the right and I drove us out of the channel and ran aground! We tried to get unstuck for about 20 minutes and the decided to call Sea Tow to get us back into the channel. While I was on the phone with them, giving the location, we noticed that we were floating, so the wind and waves had broken us free. Yay, or so I thought. Once we started moving again, I had clearly done some damage to the starboard prop and she ran rough. So we slowed down and looked for a marina with a haul out. The closest one we could find online with a lift was the Carolina Beach Boatyard and Marina. We limped 4 and a half hours and arrived at 2:30am and tied up to wait til the opened, hoping they would be able to help us on a Saturday.

Eric and the boatyard was nice and offered to haul us out and take a look. He and his team changed the props and zinc anodes and we were on the way. Definitely make a stop at Carolina Beach if you are in the area. Everyone is really friendly and town looks very cute.

With all the trouble we had on this stretch, we did see some cool stuff. Here is a video of a couple dolphins swimming next to us. The picture above was cruising through the Alligator River Canal at night. One of the most amazing sights I have seen and the picture is pretty cool also.



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