Besides Hurricane Debby, not much has been happening here in Oriental so far in August.
Rub Rail Repairs
I spent a few days repairing and polishing the four rub rails on Serendipity. There are two on each side: one at the toe-rail level and a shorter one midship about 1/2 of the way down the topsides. They are teak with stainless steel and bronze strips, respectively. Some of the screws had come out, and the stainless ones had some rust.
Fouled Bottom
In addition, the water here seems very conducive to growth. I’ve been having to get Serendipity’s bottom cleaned every two weeks, and the diver is still taking barnacles off each time. In addition, the topsides1 look horrible, with gunk and stains about 1/3 of the way up. I’ve never had to clean those before, but will have to figure out a solution before I depart in three weeks; I don’t want them looking like that when I start cruising. The tricky thing is that the stuff that cleans it well can damage the boot stripe2. So, I have to research that some more.
August Heat, Prevailing Winds, & Departure Date
The days we didn’t have wind were quite hot (although not anywhere near as hot as Tampa’s August)!
Fortunately, there have been very few days without wind. Instead, we’ve been still having nearly constant winds between 10 and 20 knots every day out of the south. This is nice in that it keeps everything feeling cooler, but because it’s coming from the direction with the most fetch (across the Neuse River), it causes constant motion of the boats like mine along the south side of A Dock. The forecasters don’t seem to be able to get it right here; the winds are always about 50% greater than forecast. And almost always from the south.
This may cause me a problem when leaving at the end of August. Strangely, there are no tides here. Instead, water level is determined by which way the wind is blowing. When the wind is from the south, it pushes the water up and out of Pamlico Sound to the north of us, causing the water levels to drop a couple of feet here. The opposite happens with a north wind. I arrived with a north wind, and my depth sounders were reading 6.4″ in the marina and my slip. My draft is 5′ 8″, which indicates that with a southern wind blowing, the water will be too shallow for me to depart. Since the wind has been from the south 90% of the time I’ve been here, that worries me. I have a slip reserved at the Norfolk Navy Base on September 7th to embark Nicole, and it’s a 5-day trip up there (if everything goes right). So I will plan to be ready to leave around August 29th or 30th to take advantage of any favorable north winds (and to give myself some leeway on the way up for weather and mechanical issues).
New Leak
During a recent rain storm, I also discovered a new leak in the boat. đ This one is dripping from the headliner near my V-berth hanging locker. That means that it will be nearly impossible to find since the water is likely coming from somewhere far away and just running along the headliner until it decides to hit something and start dripping.
I’ve had a long-term V-berth leak that is coming from somewhere on the foredeck, and despite days of troubleshooting, I’ve never been able to find the source. The only solution seems to be re-bedding everything on the foredeck to ensure that nothing is letting water in. Unfortunately, my foredeck is full of stanchions, windlasses and associated toe switches, saltwater flush fittings, cleats, a staysail pendant and chainplate, bowsprit bolts and a few other things. It will be a huge project, much of which will require someone above and someone below deck to work on, which is why I’ve been putting it off for two years. I hope that project–whenever I get to it–will also solve my second leak. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to wait until rainy season is over to start pulling all that stuff apart.
Marina Bottom Cleanup
A barge appeared off the dock one of the days with a group of Hispanic workers on it. It soon became evident that they were there to retrieve some of the underwater obstacles that had been preventing use of about 25 feet of the outer wall of the dock. Most of this debris were fallen pieces of the swinging wave-attenuation wall on the outside of A Dock. There were also some metal poles and other things that were pulled up.
The funny thing was how they retrieved the junk. They evidently chose the youngest guy to just jump in the water, in his shirt, jeans, belt, shoes and socks (no snorkel, no mask, no fins), and somehow tie a big steal cable around these items sunk in 10′ of water! But, they got it done!
Finally Accepted by the Other Sailors in the Marina!
So, I previously mentioned the group of other sailors here and how I’ve been getting to know them. Well, my acceptance among them took a huge leap the other day! Most of them knew from discussions, that I had a son who was also cruising, working his way down to Guatamala. There was only one person here that I had remembered from back in December when helping Nicholay move his boat down south, and that was a guy named Monty. But, we had only met briefly then, and I realized when I arrived this time that he didn’t recognize me.
A group of us were sitting on the marina’s deck the other evening just hanging out, including Monty. I had been tracking Nicholay’s progress, and noticed while sitting there that he had finally arrived in the Rio Dulce after a very long and challenging trip. I mentioned that I was going to call my son because he had finally arrived in Guatemala. Turning to Monty, I said, “You may remember him. Nicholay?” At that point, all the heads turned towards me as Monty replied, “Your son is NICHOLAY?!” I nodded and suddenly everyone was talking about Nicholay and how cool he was. Then they said, “Okay, you’re cool now!” (by association, I guess). Not the first time I’ve gotten a boost in the sailing community because I’m “Nicholay’s Dad.” đ The real bonus though, was after that, they told me where the secret community beer stash was located. lol
The Betting Pool
They also introduced me to a betting pool they had going. It started with Monty asking me, “Do you want to get in on our pool?” I replied, “Well, I’m not really into sports.” He said, “It’s not about sports” and looked around with a knowing grin at some of the others who laughed.”
So, there is a liveaboard here named Jersey Jim. A very nice guy, and very cute in a skipper’s cap/open shirt/Bermuda shorts kind of way, always with a grin. He’s also very much a drunk, always with a beer in his hand, regardless of the time of day. He also tends to get trashed and pass out at random places around the marina. Stories abound of finding him in the bathroom stall, in the lounge, in the bushes, and various and sundry other locations, passed out and having to be helped back to his boat by his fellow boaters. He’s a “good” drunk, but is almost always drunk.
He also has diabetes. Bad diabetes. Like he’s already lost some toes, diabetes. But, as you might imagine, isn’t really doing anything to help himself in this regard so it keeps getting worse and worse. In fact, he’s now lost feeling in one of his legs.
So, it turns out, after they all gathered the courage to admit it to me, that the betting pool was which month Jersey Jim would loose his leg!!
(I chose December. Fingers crossed!)
- The sides of the boat from the deck to the water. âŠī¸
- A painted or taped stripe that separates the topsides from the bottom of the boat. (Not visible in the shadows in the above photos.) âŠī¸
