Lessons Learned

We spent yesterday morning pulling our props at SailCraft in Oriental.  

Why you ask?  We ran aground in Little River and knew we had damaged the propellers.

How you ask?  An error in judgment that all you couples can take a lesson from so you don't repeat our mistake.

Gary's mistake ended up being Gary listening to me....I admit it sometimes he tries to make me happy when that is not the best course of action. 

Jann's mistake was not listening to Gary.

You see, he had a plan that would have us spending 2 nights in a marina, when my plan was to save $$$ by anchoring. To me it's like when you get to a hotel at 9pm after travelling all day and have to pay to sleep instead of just pulling into a WalMart parking lot for free :-)

Of course this was "discussed", often in our "Bickersons" way of communication.  Much to our regret, Gary gave up and history was made.

  

The problem...the stretch between Bull Creek and Southport has NO decent anchorages.  Our timing was way off which put us north of Little River at 5:30 pm with four hours ahead of us to Southport.  I got on my trusted Active Captain site and found several people who had recommended the Bird Island at the Little River Inlet as a decent anchorage.  

The HUGE mistake was getting to the anchorage and then even trying to get into it, but at this point desperation was in the air.  We ran hard aground in packed sand which Gary was able to grind our way off of .  I honestly thought we were grinding right through the bottom at one point.  He was quite P****d at himself that he had even tried it, totally a  shoulda', woulda' coulda' moment.

ANYWAY....this money saving idea of mine ended up costing us....

3 nights in Marina's and a haulout, not to mention the repair of two props!!!! 

So I learned a lesson.....Listen to Gary

and Gary learned a lesson....DON'T listen to Jann

TAKE NOTE!

We spent Sunday night and Monday night in Whittaker Pointe Marina in Oriental.  We had scheduled a haul out at a nearby do it yourself yard for Monday but the wind was blowing so hard and rain adding to the drama that we cancelled until Tuesday.  We had planned to anchor like we did last time we were in Oriental but with the 20-25 kt. SW winds the water was so low we couldn't do it.  We had only 5 ft under us and with a 4 1/2 foot draw that gave us 6 inches.  Not going to work especially given the circumstances of our even being there.

When we  bought the boat it came with a spare set of props  Hallelujah!!  The pulling and reinstalling went without a hitch since Gary had the fore thought and where with all to have all the needed tools and in an hour we were trying them out.  They seem to work fine we picked up a little speed changing from a four bladed prop to a three blade but the jury is still out on whether this will effect our fuel consumption. Getting the props refurbished in Oriental would have extended our stay 3 or 4 days and since it is not one of our favorite stops we decided to wait until we get somewhere we would like to be for a week or more to have them repaired.

LOOKS GOOD!!

Oooh  NOT SO GOOD

PORT PROP  LOOKING NOT SO BAD

OMG....this is NOT good....



New 3 blade installed

After the prop change we made it to the North end of the Pungo River from Oriental on a dreary day.  In the last day and a half wehave travelled in the "big water", the Neuse, Pungo and Alligator Rivers, and the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds.  There isn't much to see but a lot of water.  We saw more boats today than we have on the entire waterway combined since Merritt Island and all but two were power boats.and they were all heading north.  Most of them were big and going fast and passing us with very large wakes.  A lot of discussion about the inconsiderate boater.  A very unusual day.

On the way at 6:30 am.  This should make you northerners feel better....it's cold here too!  Not like last time when it was in the 90's now!!

One of the two sailboats today

Tonight we are anchored in the North River just north of Albemarle Sound off of the ICW.

We really had a discussion about blogging about our grounding, (pride you know) , but,

it's all part of the journey....weak points, strong points...adventure.

So we're calling it a night......to borrow from you, Larry...Tie A Knot out.