We left South Harbour Village at 0630 on 30 October. It was
a bit rolly at first but once we were out of the influence of the Cape
Fear, it flattened. We had light northerly winds so we were doing
motor-sailing much of the next 31 hours.
When we pass Parris Island (Marine Corps Recruit Depot)
we think we are next to Port Royal marina. But it is still several
hours away. Port Royal Sound is really long body of water; especially
when we approach. We're not sure what the thing is near the pier;
almost like a big gramophone.
We arrived at the marina at 13:30 on the 31st. Rian helped
us for a perfect tie up. JW of SV Over Budget came by for a quick
hello. Jinny and JW have a home in the marina community and keep their
boat on the other side of the face dock. We got a tour of the house and
went out to dinner in Port Royal.
Mattie was glad that the noisy engine and sloppy
seas were gone. She promptly crashed in her new bed. She only threw
up once and made only one other mistake. She and the Admiral do not
like nights. The Captain is not too fond of them anymore, either.
Lots of eating and drinking with friends and fellow
cruisers. We had lunch two days in a row with Jim and Karen (formally
of SV Wanderer II and now of MV Liberty). One day we had lunch at
Luther's and the next at a small roadside local eatery. After Luther's,
we went to the Dataw boat yard where we saw Liberty. Nice compact
trawler! Next day, we headed for Hunting Island campground. Very sad.
The old campground has mostly gone from recent hurricanes. We also
attended the marina's annual customer appreciation dinner. Very nice
but folks left a bit early as it was getting cold.
And then there was the oil cooler. We lost a quart of
oil in less than 40 hours. We never lose oil. Lot of detective work
indicated that oil was leaking out the oil cooler. Dennis from Dataw
Marine came to the rescue. We got the part (easy) and Dennis and his
team replaced it (really hard). We really appreciated his fast action
on our problem. And yes, we are not losing oil anymore.
We left at 0810 from Port Royal on 7 November heading for
St. Augustine. Nice seas with a gentle breeze on our back (abaft our
beam). The good news was that we were no longer losing oil. The bad
news was the autopilot was acting up, and we just ate another alternator
belt. Spares are a good thing. During the early morning hours the next
day, an upper level trough was stirring up the atmosphere. Didn't look
pretty on the display but most of it passed North of us.
The next morning we saw the thunderheads to our
northeast. Glad we missed the mess. We were making good time and we were
several hours ahead of schedule. We entered St. Augustine inlet with a
fair current of .5 kts. Wow this is not bad (except for the autopilot).
We didn't get our favorite North field mooring ball as the boat ahead
of us got it first. Oh well, good to be here. But not for long. We
only stayed two nights. We did have time to see Jim and Laurie of SV Kismet
and lunch with Al and Sue of SV Galetto but we were on the move.
;
