After cleaning up the mess from the oil debacle written about previously, we reevaluated our options for the trip south. A massive high pressure system had moved in so things on the outside calmed considerably. Our previous misfortune cost us a day which now put us through the South Carolina inlets over the weekend. If you aren’t from the area you have no idea what “fishing for spots” is all about. Read here for a little of the “flavor” of the sport.

Two years ago we went through Shallotte Inlet and the small fishing boats were packed solid in and all around the channel. “I’m not doing that again!” We decided to make the run outside to Charleston.

We had to back track 4 miles to the Cape Fear River. Charleston would then be 130 nautical miles away. Not wanting to hit Charleston at dark we calculated that a late morning departure would get us there at dawn or thereabouts.

Seas were relatively calm with only 2′ wind waves and negligible swells. We put up the mainsail but got very little push from the light wind. We settled in at an easy 6 knots with 60% power. Dolphins greeted us along the way and that is always great fun. As soon as the camera came out they’d disappear.

About an hour before dark the Coast Guard came on the radio with an announcement of a “10 mile wide debris field” somewhere 20 miles offshore from Myrtle Beach. OK, what’s a “debris field”? We got the coordinates and plotted a point on our chart plotter. You guessed it, it was right on our rhumb line (an imaginary line on the earth’s surface cutting all meridians at the same angle, used as the standard method of plotting a ship’s course on a chart) and off course we would be there well after dark. Great! I call the Coasties and ask what kind of debris? I was already imagining a dozen or so containers from a ship floating just under the surface. It seems a boat sunk the day before and all its junk was floating around. I was advised it was a hazard to navigation but given little else to go on. How fast was it drifting? Which direction? What kind of stuff? Oh well, we drove right on through and saw nothing.

The wind died and the seas went glassy other than the swells. Rather pleasant, so I went to bed and slept! I think Mary is a boat magnet. When I nodded off there was a white light at least 10 miles off. When she woke me it was almost on top of us. I don’t understand the philosophy of commercial fisherman. Set the autopilot, go below for whatever reason, to hell with everyone else, they’ll get out of the way and that’s what we did. If we hadn’t it would have run right over us.

As daybreak approached the wind shifted and filled the perfectly trimmed mainsail. We throttled back and made the Charleston ship channel just after dawn. We motored into the harbor and dropped the hook for the rest of day and night adjacent to the City Marina. The next day we moved over to the Maritime Center on the East Bay side. I spent the day unplugging the overboard discharge thru hull for the head and cleaning up the mess (don’t ask). It seems those pesky oysters were also “in” the thru hull as well as outside.

We had dinner with our friends from Wisconsin who live here now. We look forward to a great time while here.

Sometimes bad things could be really worse.

Today was a short day from Wrightsville Beach to Southport at the Cape Fear River. We’ve been trying to hit all the trouble spots at high tide or thereabouts. Carolina Beach Inlet showed significant shoaling. My blood pressure spiked just thinking about it. Our next spot would be the inlets of Shalotte and Lockwoods Folly at the border with South Carolina. Deciding to stop for the day, we pulled into St. James Marina south of Southport. If we continued we would arrive at the trouble spots at low tide. We’ll do them in the morning or so we thought.

St. James Marina is VERY nice and at $1.05 per foot (with BoatUS discount) a real bargain. It is associated with the St. James Plantation Resort. We arrived at 1300 and had a very good lunch at the grill. After going back to the boat I decided to give the boat a good rinse. I had hardly started when Mary called from below. “You may want to see this before you get too far with that cleaning.” I went below to see what the problem was. “I think one of the oil jugs is leaking. Look at that mess.” Hmmm, if it was leaking from the jugs it would be clean oil not black, I thought to myself. I opened the side hatch to the engine compartment and there was all everywhere. Mary opened the companionway hatch and she confirmed that the engine bilge was full of oil.

Well to make a long story short, there was a hole in the end of the oil filter. Very odd. We had fortunately pumped all the oil out of the engine just as we had docked. Had we gone offshore several days before, what might have happened? Had this happened several hours early today we may have cooked the engine. As it is we feel very blessed that this didn’t happen any other time then when it did. I have cleaned everything up and tomorrow will stay an extra day to make sure that there are no new surprises.