The top part of the ICW(intra coastal waterway) was great. Wide channels with plenty of depth.
Below Beaufort, NC, everything changes.
Half an hour outside Beaufort we hit a ‘speed bump’ of shallow water. This was 100% my fault as I strayed outside of the channel by mistake. Luckily the bottom was all sand so no damage done.
Now let’s talk about those sandy bottoms. Sand is great for running aground, it’s soft and forgiving. If it’s only a tiny bit too shallow sometimes you can just push the sand out of the way to get through.
But sand is also prone to moving with the waves and current (unlike the sticky mud of the Chesapeake or the granite rocks of Maine), and this creates shoaling.
Jelanea draws 5.5ft, meaning our deepest point is 5.5ft under water. So really we like a minimum of 6ft of water, but we really prefer at least 7, and we feel much better with 8 or above.
Over the past 2 days of transiting the ICW we have had 0.1ft ‘under’ our keel at least 6 times. Not our idea of a good time.
The channels on this part of the ICW are much more narrow then the ones further north. They are typically maybe 30ft wide. Barely enough for a boat to pass at a safe distance.
The whole ICW also has a tendency to place buoys and day markers well outside the channel. So you may run aground even inside the markers. Sometimes the markers are smack dab in the middle of the channel as well. What?
Assuming you can deduce where the channel actually is, and stay inside it, you may still have to deal with shoaling.
Storms, winds, currents and tides can all cause the sandy bottom to shift around. Just in case the scattered channel markers didn’t create enough of a ‘Fun-House’ environment for you, the sandy bottom will oblige.
We have been using 4 different methods of navigation in order to not run aground. These include: our Raymarine chart plotter, with 2 year old charts; the Navionics app on our phones, the latest version of the paper charts, and the Waterway Guide Nav Alerts (accessed on our phones). Just tying all the data together to find the best paths is exhausting.
Our chart plotter is the best method we have of staying in the channel. For most of the ICW the channel is marked in white, while the shallower surrounding water is blue.
Navionics is best for user reported shoaling, and directions for how to get around the shoals. The information can be years old though, so it’s important to pay attention to dates of reports.
The paper charts are great for getting the overall picture of what is coming next. This is also the best source of land based landmarks to use as sight points.
The Waterway Guide Nav Alerts are great for getting the most up to date information. They also have great bathymetric images of the shoaling, which really helps us visualize where we need to avoid. The biggest downside to this program is it doesn’t have GPS to show us how close we may be to said shoals.
We have had many close calls, and overall it has had us on edge for the past 2 days. Add in the multiple bridges that only open every hour or half hour, and we have reached our tolerance level for this trip. We have one more 25 mile stretch in the ICW to transit tomorrow, and then we are leaving the shoaling, bridges and wacky channel markers behind and heading offshore straight to Beaufort, SC.
We have had problems with our dripless shaft seal since night one of owning Jelanea. You may remember that on our first night in Portland, ME, our stuffing box was dripping into the bilge. What a way to start boat ownership, with sea water making itself at home in your boat.
We were able to stop that drip fairly easily, by turning on the engine and putting the boat in gear we freed whatever was causing the drip.
Dripless stuffing boxes work by pushing a carbon stator against a stainless steel rotor the carbon plate is held in place by a rubber bellows that is compresed to create pressure.
Foreign material can get into the seal between the carbon and the rotor and create a leak. This is typically solved by either running the engine in gear, or flushing the system by hand compressing the bellows.
When ours started to leak while underway on Tuesday, we figured this was the issue and tried to flush the debris out. When it was fine for the next few days we figured we had fixed it.
But on Saturday we couldn’t get the water to stop flowing in, no matter what we did. After contacting our friends in Brio II and the manufacturer of our shaft seal, we decided that the bellows needed to be compressed more. They must have relaxed with age or been worked a bit loose over use.
In order to fix this we needed new set screws, that hold the rotor in place. As we were nowhere near civilization all day Saturday, we simply kept moving knowing the bilge was filling with water. Our bilge pump did a great job of keeping up and keeping our boat afloat.
We decided to stop in Belhaven, NC, mostly because there was a nearby hardware store.
Of course, since we arrived on Saturday evening, the hardware store wouldn’t reopen until Sunday at 1pm. As most other things in this small town were closed all day Sunday, we were glad the Hardware store was open at all.
I had gotten the correct screw dimensions from corresponding with PSS shaft seal, who manufactured our stuffing box.
Once we acquired the correct parts, we set to work fixing the problem.
Each rotor is typically set with 2 screws, and then an additional 2 screws are sink into the same holes to keep the bottom screws from working their way out.
I had thought we only had 1 set of screws I each hole and removed them with an Allen wrench. We had marked the prop shaft with a sharpie to know where the rotor started. Our goal was to push it aft 1/4 to 1/2 inch to compress the bellows and stop the constant influx of water.
After removing the 2 set screws both of us tried to push the rotor aft to no avail. There isn’t a lot of space to get at the prop shaft, but we pushed with everything we had. Our hands, our feet, nothing would make it move.
Finally I decided to double check that there weren’t a second set of screws still holding it on. Sure enough there were. I removed those ones and tried pushing again.
Still no movement.
I checked that there wasn’t a third set screw (there wasn’t). Not sure what else to do, Ben got a mallet and a spare board. He squeezed himself under the hot water heater and somehow found enough clearance to swing the mallet into the board which was laid against the rotor. A few good swings and it finally moved a little over 1/4 of an inch.
The dripping instantly stopped. We could see another sharpie line on the prop shaft, most likely indicating where the rotor should have been set.
Monday, Oct. 21 – Annapolis, MD to Rose Haven, MD- 17nm Tuesday, Oct 22 – Rose Haven,MD to Tilghman Island, MD – 18.5nm Wednesday, Oct 23 – Tilghman Island, MD to Cockrell Creek, MD – 62.5nm Thursday, Oct 24 – Cockrell Creek, MD to Norfolk, MD – 60nm Friday, Oct 25 – Norfolk, MD to Buck Island, NC – 64nm Saturday, Oct 26 – Buck Island, NC to Belhaven, NC – 70nm
Monday was a short day because we were headed for Harrington Harbor South, a marina where our friend on Brio II were staying while they fix up their new (to them) boat. We also needed to do laundry, shower, and dispose of our trash and used oil. It was great to have the crew of Brio II over for dinner and to catch up with them. After dinner Leah took me to the grocery store to provision.
Tuesday was a short day because we got out of the marina later than planned, around 12pm, and not long after we left we realized we were taking on quite a bit of water. Our ‘dripless’ stuffing box was gushing water into our bilge. We were able to stop it by throttling back the engine to only 2000rpm.
Wednesday we headed south again, thinking we may have fixed the stuffing box issue. Typically the issue when water is coming in is that there is foreign material caught in the stuffing box, between the carbon plate and the stainless plate that are supposed to created a water-tight seal. But if foreign material from the water (sand, seaweed, etc.) gets caught it causes a leak. I had cleaned and flushed the stuffing box the night before. All day Wednesday we had no leaking problems while the engine was running, so we thought we were in the clear.
Nothing is ever that easy on a boat though. While we had no problem on Wednesday, or Thursday with the stuffing box. Come Friday, though, the problem was back. It was leaking only when in neutral or when the engine was off. So for most the day we were fine, as we were motoring all day. However we did end up waiting over 2 hours for a bridge and a lock collectively, and while we were waiting it was leaking again.
Saturday it got even worse. Not only did we wake up to boat covered in bugs that pooped green all over our deck, but it took us the whole 10 hour motor to get rid of 99% of them. There are still a few lingering over 36 hours later. At least they were midges and not mosquitos so they weren’t trying to eat us all day.
The boom covered in midges. Green midges poop on deck
We motored all day and it didn’t matter if we were in forward, reverse, or neutral, it was gushing water all day. Our aft bilge pump is a tough worker, and worked through the day to keep the bilge from overflowing. When we stopped for the night in Belhaven, we jury rigged it to stop leaking for the overnight. As we arrived on Saturday, and we are in the South, nothing opened on Sunday until noon, and the hardware store didn’t open until 1pm.Â
Our last adventure of six days of almost non-stop travel was about 2 ft from our dock for the night.
We ran aground. There’s a first time for every boat right?
In trying to see if the town dock was full (it was) as we tried to turn around to exit the town pier we ran aground. With the help of 3 fellow boaters, a boat hook and a lot of reverse, we finally got free. As we were backing up to leave the cut where the town dock is, one of our helpers mentioned that the side we were on, across from the dock, was fine to tie up on as well. So after backing 30ft behind the shallow spot, we tied to the pilings and called it a night.
We took the morning to wash the deck (in the rain) to rid it of midge carcasses, and to take a family walk to provision and work on Halloween costumes for the kids. Once we returned to the boat the rain came again, and we held off on trying to fix the stuffing box (attached to the large metal prop shaft) as the thunderstorm rolled through, for safety purposes. We have now fixed the stuffing box, and will be off again tomorrow morning heading for Oriental, NC.
More details on the problem with our dripless stuffing box and how we handled and fixed it in the next post!
We finally left Port Washington, NY on Saturday, Oct 12th at 7:30am. Slack Tide at Hell’s Gate was at 10am so we started making our way through the East River.
It was a gorgeous day and a pleasant ride through the city. There were a few other sailboats who had also left Port Washington traveling down the river as well.
Exiting the mouth of the Hudson was a bit rough, with 6-8 ft waves on the nose that were tossing us all about. Once we got off the NJ coast though, the swells calmed down for a much more comfortable ride. We motored down the coast of NJ all day and through the night. We did have the main and the mizzen up the whole time, and I pulled the Yankee out around 10pm so we motor sailed through the night, pulling back the engine throttle to allow the sails to do some work.
Sunset
Moonrise
Sunrise over the Atlantic
The original plan had been to stop at Cape May, NJ in the morning. We arrived outside Cape May while it was still dark and decided to just keep chugging along.
With 1 knots of wind we tried to sail into Delaware Bay, but the wind was on our nose, and the swell was big again, so we dropped the sails and motored straight into the swells and wind instead. We buried the bow a number of times as we crossed into Delaware Bay, but the further up we got, the calmer both the seas and the wind became.
We ended up going all the way up to the C&D canal to Summit North marina for the night. We were due for showers, laundry and a fuel filter change.
The next morning we got ourselves and our clothes clean, and changes the fuel filter for the 1st time. We then filled up on fuel and water and left the dock aroun 2:30pm.
As it was already late in the day we didn’t want to go far, so we headed for the Sassafrass River about 6 miles South of the end of the canal. Here we anchored fo the first time on this trip, in a beautiful spot!
We left the next morning around 8am for a short trip down to Baltimore. We really wanted to sail, and we tried, but there just wasn’t enough wind so after a couple hours of bobbing around we finally turned the motor back on so we could make Baltimore before dark.
We anchored right in Baltimore harbor, between two massive Marinas, and we were the only boat in the small anchorage. Baltimore gave us quite a show that evening!
We spent the next 3 days at this anchorage, rising out some heavy winds from the Nor’Easter that ravaged the East Coast. It was also time to change our oil for the first time.
Of course this ended up being more of a project than we anticipated, as we had no oil filters on board.
We tried to buy replacements at the local West Marine, Ben rowed to shore in the rain to get them even, but they just didn’t look right. Of course we figured this out only after pumping out the old oil and removing the old filter. All this the evening of the heaviest predicted winds of course!
We didn’t want to weather the storm without a workable engine, so after a failed attempt to locate an appropriate filter somewhere in Baltimore, we opted to put the old filter and old oil back into the engine, just in case we needed it overnight. At the same time I ordered 4 replacement filters on Amazon promised foe next day delivery to a local Amazon Locker.
We rode through the storm just fine, the anchor held tight, and the engine was not needed. Of course the filters got delayed and didn’t end up arriving until Friday afternoon, which waylaid our plans to leave Friday morning.
It did give us an extra day to explore Baltimore though, and we had a great time returning to a local park and checking out a pagoda we had read about.
We got the oil changed for real Friday, and got ready to leave Saturday. Since we were only jumping down to Annapolis on Saturday we weren’t in a rush to get out fist thing in the morning.
We ended up motoring most of the way to Annapolis, but did get in about 45 minutes of good sailing as we approached the harbor. We an hired in a pretty tight spot, next to a catamaran we had seen at the Goslings in Maine this summer. They have 3 kids aboard and toldus about some other boat kids playing at a local park. We went over to the local park and the kids got to play with other kids again! They had a blast. One of the boats we met is even headed to Beaufort, SC, so we will certainly see them again.
Now we are ridding out the next storm aboard Jelanea. It has been raining all day and is pretty chilly, so we are hunkered down aboard for the day.
We were in Port Washington, NY for 6 days as we waited out the heavy winds along the coast of NJ. We had picked up a town mooring, which for $25/night gives you the security of a mooring and unlimited use of the local water taxi.
We spent our first day in port cleaning the boat and hanging out with our Buddy Boat friends from Anjulia Sue, both on land and on both of our boats. The kids got along great, playing games and doing kid stuff. The adults talked adventures, and boats and plans for the future. It was great to be with a like-minded family after a week of being mostly by ourselves.
Day 2 was devoted to self care, showers, laundry and provisioning.
On day 3 we went into New York City. We took the Long Island Rail Road from Port Washington to Penn Station, and then the metro to get to the museum of Natural History. We wandered through the African Animals, Birds of New York, Mammals of North America and South Pacific Islanders exhibits. Tristan was not too impressed with the inability to interact with anything and we decided to head to the Museum of Mathematics instead. Our friends from Anjulia Sue showed up around this time, so we did look through the dinosaur and reptile exhibits with them.
Then we all went outside to have our pre-packed lunch in Central Park. The kids really enjoyed chasing the squirrels and pigeons in the park. We walked in the park for a few blocks before reboarding the metro to get to the Math Museum.
The math museum was awesome! 100% interactive, and everyone loved it. 2 floors of math inspired activities kept us busy for hours! We were so busy mathing I didn’t even get any pictures!
We left around 4pm, leaving our friends behind as they weren’t done exploring, and they were staying in the city that night. We got ourselves some NYC pizza before catching the metro and the LIRR back to Port Washington and our home.
It was a great day in the city.
Days 4 & 5 were days we didn’t leave the boat. The winds had really picked up, and we stayed on board during the storms. We needed a couple days to catch up on naps(for Trixie) and School (for Tristan) anyway.
We did struggle on Wednesday morning in the pouring cold rain to add extra lines to our mooring. The 20+ knot winds made it necessary for us to use the engine to release the pressure on the mooring line, but after about 45 minutes of trying we finally got it configured how we wanted. We rocked much less after adding the ‘snubber’ to the mooring ball.
We also got a few projects done around th boat, including adding water to our batteries. I never knew batteries(at least lead acid ones) have to be watered about once a month to keep the acid levels above the lead plates. Apparently batteries ‘consume’ water by breaking it down into hydrogen oxygen, so it needs to be replenished from time to time. We learn new things about owning and maintaining our floating home everyday.
Day 6 we went to land one more time. We found a wonderful park across the bay that the water taxi took us to. This park was huge! It had 3 playgrounds, a beach a(closed for the season) pool with waterslides, 4 tennis courts, 4 basketball courts, 2 padleball courts and a roller hockey rink.
We brought the scooter and the skateboard and the kids had a blast all day.
Port Washington was a good place to wait out the strong winds and storms, and we plan to stop in again on our way North next Spring!
We are 1 week into our journey South. We have made it as far as Long Island Sound, not quite as far as we intended to be at this point, but it’s been a great trip!
We departed Portland at 6:15am on Sunday, Sept 29th, and had surprise Bon Voyage guests at 5:45am. Ben’s sister Emily and our Nephew Malcolm came to say a final farewell. We had seen them just hour before at our ‘open-house’ on Saturday, when we had over 30 people stop by to wish us well. But Malcolm really wanted to say goodbye again and woke his mom up to make the 45 minute drive in to Portland to do so.
They got an awesome parting shot of us leaving our summer home.
The sunrise was beautiful as we headed out of Portland Harbor.
Day one was a beautiful sail down the coast of Maine. We did end up catching 2 pots on our way to the Isles of Shoals which caused some headaches. I’m a firm believer that every big journey starts with a complication, to get it out of the way early in the trip.
The next morning we continued our new trend of early rising and departure and we were off the mooring by 6:30am. We had another beautiful sunrise, but not as nice of a sail. The swells were much larger and knocked us around quite a bit. The whole crew(save the Captain) donated the contents of their stomachs to Davy Jones.
After such a rough day, and checking the forecast for the following day, we decided to hunker down in Boston harbor for 2 nights. We picked up a mooring at Hingham Yacht Club for both nights, and enjoyed Boston in the distance for the sunset.
For our day of rest in Boston we went on our first land based adventure via public transportation. We walked 1/4 mile to a bus stop, rode the bus to Quincy Center, then took the Red Line to Downtown Crossing, switched to the Orange line to State St and then jumped on the Blue line to the Aquarium stop. The kids loved riding on the bus and train. We had a blast at the aquarium, and then reversed the trip to get back to the boat.
6am departure again the next day, bound for the Cape Cod Canal. We needed to make it there between 1-4 to catch the current flowing in the right direction. We had a beautiful sail in the morning, but had to turn on the engine to make it to the canal. We made it earlier than we expected and flew threw at 10-11.4 knots over the ground. The fastest we have gone on Jelanea yet. Of course it was under motor, and with the help of a 5.8 knot current. The canal took is under our first 3 bridges. Trixie was asleep but Tristan was up to experience the worry that the mast would hit the bridge. Our mast is 57′ off the water, the bridges were all 135′ tall, but it always looks close. Perspective is a funny thing. After making great time through the canal we headed for Mattapoisett bay to anchor for the night.
Up and out by 6am again the next morning, and we sailed off the mooring! It didn’t go exactly as planned, we ended up sailing into the bay a bit before being able to tack back out towards Buzzards bay, but we made it! The winds picked up considerably not long after and things went flying down below as some large swells hit us broadside. We sailed downwind out of Buzzards bay and then over toward Narragansett Bay. Then we had a decision to make. Should we push on further and see how far we could make it? Or do we head up Narragansett Bay?
With the heavy winds predicted for the following day, 30+knots outside the Bay, we decided to run and hide. It just so happens that Narragansett Bay is where I grew up sailing. It was fun to bring my family to my old stomping grounds. We headed 2.5 miles up the bay to Potter Cove, where I spent many a weekend as a kid on our 34′ Crealock ‘Whisper’. We picked up a mooring(it’s a lot like Maine here, use any mooring unless the owner shows up) and settled in for a nice calm night.
The next morning we set out to explore the estuary and beach that make up the cove. As our outboard is still out of commission, that meant rowing against the current to shore, but once we got there the trip along the shore was easy. We picked around in the marshes, and saw a bunch of fish and shells. There was a lot of splashing along the reeds as larger fish hunted smaller fish, and then the birds joined in on the feeding frenzy. The kids were thrilled to see so much life, and I was thrilled that they were seeing why I loved this place so much as a kid. We stopped on a small pebble ridden beach to explore by land a bit. We found tons of horseshoe crab shells, and a mizzen of lady slipper shells. We also found a lot of plastic trash unfortunately.
The spot of land we stopped on had maybe a 5ft rise, and once we reached the peak we were very thankful that we had decided to stay put for the day. The wind in the bay was howling!
We headed back to the boat, mostly ridding the current and wind out, and by the time we got back the wind had picked up even in our protected cove. We had been talking to another boat with kids aboard who was in Newport, RI and we decided to go meet up with them and Buddy Boat down through NYC.
The sail down to Newport was fast! We saw 27knot winds as we were leaving Potter Cove. We sailed the whole way, downwind, on only a double reefed mainsail, and we hit over 7 knots over the ground! It was still blowing like stink when we got to Newport and we luckily got a mooring on the protected side of the harbor. The 15-25knot winds kept up all night long even IN the harbor.
We met with our new friends, Matt, Bonnie, Ty(9) and Aila(7) and discussed plans for the next few days. They were planning to do an overnight through Long Island Sound to make it to Port Washington by Sunday morning. They were also trying to get to Annapolis for the boat show. We decided to bite the bullet and do our first overnight with them. Having a Buddy Boat nearby, and being in a harbor(as opposed to the open sea) sounded like a good way to ease into an overnight. Also the winds were predicted to be negligent after 11am Saturday, so we would be motoring most of the way. Not ideal on a sailboat, but easier to manage for our first nightime expedition aboard.
As I write this we are in Long Island Sound, it is 5:00am and the City lights are directly in front of the boat. Ben is sleeping on the cockpit bench opposite me. We are about an hour outside Port Washington harbor which will have us arriving exactly a week after we cast the lines in Portland at 6:15am last Sunday.
We left Newport at 6:30am, and got in a bit of nice sailing before having to turn on the motor. We have been motoring since around 3:00pm Saturday afternoon.
The plan going forward is up to the weather. We wanted to make it to Annapolis for the boat show, but Mother Nature may have other plans for us. The wind and waves along the NJ coast look nasty for the whole next week. We may be camping out in the NY area for the whole second week of our trip.
While I will be bummed to miss the boat show, I’ve never been to NYC as an adult, and there is plenty to keep us occupied between boat projects and exploring the area.
The last few days have been a whirlwind of projects, errands and friends and family.
We did our big provision run. First we made a list of meals we planned to make. Second we made a list of all the ingredients we would need to make all those meals. Then we made a list of things we already had in the boat. Then we crossed the list of things we needed for the meals with the list of things we had, and we came up with a big shopping list.
Tristan came to the store with me, and its a good thing he did. The cart was chock full with one section left to conquer. We grabbed a basket and filled that to the brim as well.
We also got a lot of projects done. I finally fixed the hole in our bimini, where there was a view hole to see the mainsail from the helm, but the plastic had broken out months ago. I created a removable view hole, as we have found that we enjoy being able to stick our heads through the hole from time to time.
We got the Yankee headsail up again, which involved another trip up the mast. We had to bridge the distance between where the Yankee reaches up the fore-stay and where the top of the furler should sit (so it doesn’t wrap around the stay and chafe through again.) The distance was almost 4ft! We then purchased some Dynema line, and spliced one end to attache to to the furler, and spliced the other end onto the top of the Yankee sail. This way we will never have to go looking for the piece of line if we ever take the sail down again. It is attached until we cut it off. Dynema is so much easier to splice than the double-braided halyard I spliced last time! Dynema is a single braid line, but is built with over 9000lbs of tensile strength!
Then came the project we didn’t except. The leak in our propane line. We almost had to delay our departure because of this. We couldn’t leave without a means to cook all the food we had just bought. We needed to fix the propane line. The old line had been spliced together. Our tanks sit on our back deck because they are too big to fit into the ‘propane’ locker. The boat came with two 10lb tanks, that do fit in the locker. The previous owners had kept the original tanks, but also added two 20lb tanks on the back deck. Since these tanks don’t fit in the locker, they then had to run the propane line through the deck, into the locker, to the regulator and solenoid. This meant splicing the line together, as neither of the fittings on the end of the lines would fit through the hole.
Turns out the line was 1/4″ spliced to 3/8″ spliced to 1/4″. Right at one of the splices was where we found the leak that we hunted for after the smell of propane permeated our cabin. While we first thought we would just replace one part of the line, we ended up replacing the whole thing. We did have to splice it again, to get it through the deck, but it no longer leaks and we can cook again! Success!
The other major project we had planned was getting our outboard motor working again. Despite taking apart the carburetor completely, cleaning the spark plugs, and getting new gas, we did not have any success with this project. So we are leaving the dock with a no non-functioning outboard motor. We have oars, and the kids gained a new affinity for rowing, so we will be fine.
We had an open house today, where we invited anyone who wanted to say goodbye, or sea our boat, to come down and do so. We had a steady stream of people from about 10:30am – 5:00pm. It was wonderful to get to see everyone one last time, and to show off our home to those who had yet to see it.
This is not goodbye – but see-you-later to Maine and our of our friends and family who are here. We are off on an adventure – but we will be back.
Our first aid kit needed a full overhaul. The kit that came with the boat had meds that expired in 2006, a few bandaids – and a skin stapler. That was it.
We had brought some basics aboard with us, more bandaids, triple antibiotic ointment, cortisone cream and a slew of medicines. While this had served us well for living at the dock, we wanted the security of having more available should we need it.
With a big trip around the corner, it was time to flesh it out a bit more.
Waiting to be organized.
To come up with what we wanted in our kit we consulted a few different sources.
The Voyagers Handbook
Voyaging with Kids
Cruisers Forum
Fellow Cruisers Blogs
There was a lot of good information out there. Much of it was aimed at offshore voyaging, which we will do someday, but for now there was a lot of higher level stuff we decided we didn’t need.
Among the things we decided to not stock right now were most of the surgical supplies (suturing kits, hemostats, injectable lidocaine) and many of the prescription medications. Mostly things that one might need to be able to do if injured in the middle of an ocean. Since we will be coastal cruising for this whole trip, we will be able to access land-based medical help if it is needed.
It took me all night to figure out the best way to organize everything in the bags/containers that I had available. I tried to group things in a logical way to make using the supplies as easy as possible.
Once everything was organized it looked much neater….
From left to right we have:
Medicines – White Basket – Tylenol (Childrens liquid and chew-able and Adult pills) Ibuprofen (Childrens liquid and chew-able and Adult pills) Cold & Medicine (Childrens liquid and Adult pills) *Not Pictured (in another white basket) *Benadryl (children’s) *Claritin (children’s) *Sudafed (Adult) *Coldcalm (children’s and adult) *Mucinex(childrens) *Netti-pot and saline packets
Travel First Aid Kits (bags are still on their way) one will go in the cockpit, and one in the dinghy/ashore bag Bandaids Tylenol (kid and adult doses) Triple Antibiotic Bacitracin Zinc Oxide Hydrocortisone Cream Sunscreen Antiseptic Wipes
Extra Supplies: Things that came in large packages and will be stored for replenishing Tongue Depressors Rubber Gloves Cotton Balls Gauze Pads
Small Bags in the Middle of the table: Foot Care – Foot fungus creams Sea Sickness Care – Sea Bands and Dramamine (kids and adult) Dehydration Care – Pedialyte powder packets Ear, Nose and Throat Care – Otoscope, Tongue depressors, Nose Drops, Ear Drops
Sprain, Strains and Trauma – Orange EMS bag Braces – ankle, knee, elbow, wrist Ace Bandages Instant Ice Packs Trauma Sheers Gauze Rolls Finger splints Triangle bandage Emergency Dental Kit Rubber Gloves Skin Stapler with 35 staples (came with the boat still packaged) Ibuprofen (child and adult)
Wounds & Burns – Blue EMS bag Witch Hazel solution Hydrogen Peroxide Wet Wipes 3×3 gauze pads Epsom Salt Rubber Gloves Cotton Balls Stretch Gauze bandages Bag Balm Syringes (for wound cleaning) Betadine Medical Tape Tylenol (child and adult)
First Aid – clear first aid kit box Bandaids (Large, Med, Small, Steri-strips, Dot, etc.) Triple Antibiotic Ointment Bacitracin Ointment Hydrocortisone Cream Mole-skin Gauze Pads Medical Tape
First Aid Books Wilderness Medicine Field Guides – 2 *Wilderness and Rescue Medicine Textbook (not pictured)
Other things we have aboard that aren’t pictured: Sunscreen Aloe Vera Bug-spray
I think we are well prepared for any of the most common injuries and sicknesses that might occur on our month long trip. We plan to be within 20 miles of shore every day, and anchored/moored/docked every night. While we will not always have cell phone coverage, we have both a short and long range radio aboard should an emergency occur.
We are quitting our jobs, saying goodbye to our friends and families, homeschooling our 3rd grader and heading South in the midst of hurricane season in 2.5 weeks.
And people thought we were out of our minds for wanting to winter in Maine on a boat!
What started as a joke, quickly turned into a viable plan to drastically change our lives – again. We decided that the money we would spend to get our boat ready for a Maine winter would be better spent using our boat as its meant to be used.
With little to no knowledge of the Southern coast, we had no exact destination in mind. We researched a few marinas on the coast, and ultimately decided to join some fellow Mainers in Beaufort, SC.
Leah and John have spent multiple winters aboard their Nor’West 33 ‘Brio‘ in Maine. Last year they added a tiny member, Zephyr, to the crew, and decided they were done with Maine winters aboard. I reached out to Leah to ask where they had landed for the winter.
After researching the marina where they had wintered last year, and making sure they had space for us this year, we had our Southern destination set. Lady’s Island Marina in Beaufort, SC will be our winter home.
We are leaving Sunday Sept 29th and plan to take about a month to make our way down the coast to South Carolina. We have the first 1/2 of the trip roughly planned out, with stops at Block Island and New York City as we attempt to make it to the Annapolis Boat Show by October 10th.
After the boat show, and a side trip (by car/train/bus) to DC, we plan to take it easy through the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) watching the weather like a hawk to steer clear of any scary hurricanes that might be headed our way.
We will be having a send-off party of sorts on Saturday Sept. 28th. Not a formal affair – but if you are in Portland (or want to make the trip) we will be at our marina (Fore Points Marina) all day – working on last minute projects and giving tours of our home, and saying “see you later” to friends and family. Please stop by if you can!
Also – we created t-shirt and sweatshirts on customink.com if you want to get in on the first run of Jelanea Crew shirts. BUT YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY to order them! We have to close the order on Friday so we can get them before we go. You can have them shipped to us for free if you plan to stop by the send-off party to pick them up (or if we will see you on our trip South we can bring them to you).
We have been having trouble with our headsail since we got the boat.
Sometimes it worked just fine, and other times it was REALLY hard to pull out or to roll back in. We had a yankee cut sail on the roller furling, so its a pretty small sail that shouldn’t take a lot of power to unfurl or to furl back up.
Yet we kept having problems with it.
When we got back from our week long family trip we knew it was time to investigate. We broke out the bosun’s chair and up the mast I went.
Once I reached the top I saw the problem right away. The halyard for the fore-sail was sheared almost all of the way through. The cover was completely cut, and the core of the rope wasn’t far from failing.
The problem….
The halyard had been wrapping around the fore-stay every time we tried to unfurl or roll in the sail. This chafing had eventually caused the rope to rip apart.
Views from the Top of the Mast
I helped the sail turn as it should, still at the top of the mast, so we could fully unfurl the sail in order to pull the sail down to the deck. Ben released the halyard and pulled the sail to the deck.
We had been wanting to try out the big genoa anyways, so we thought this was a good occasion to switch sails. First we had to fix or replace the halyard. Rather than going through the hassle and expense of replacing it I decided to try to create a new splice in the part of the line above the chafed part. There was just enough space left to do the splice we needed. After a lot of frustration with the fids (splicing tools) we have, and 3.5 hours, I finally got the splice done!
A Splicing Gallery
On Sunday, before heading out with some friends, we pulled up the big genoa. This sail is HUGE. Compared to our small Yankee sail, this sail is a monster.
We got it up and it looked like it was sitting right at the top. There is a metal piece where the halyard is attached to the top of the furler. The sail is attached to the bottom of this piece. The top is supposed to spin around the furler as the sail is pulled in or out to keep the halyard in one place, but allow the sail to spin around the furler. This metal piece catches on a black plastic cap to keep the halyard in place.
The problem when we had the Yankee up, is the black cap was set for the Genoa, not the Yankee, which is much smaller. So the metal piece was nowhere near the cap to keep the halyard from spinning with the sail.
Our first weekend out with the new Genoa went great, and the sail worked exactly as it should! We were psyched.
Now, as I write this, a week later, we are back to the drawing board. As we were out today we suddenly couldn’t pull the Genoa back in as we tried to tack.
One issue with how big the Genoa is, is that in order to tack around the staysail, we have to furl the Genoa in almost all the way as we tack. Except it would only furl in about 1/4 of the way before it stuck.
We aren’t sure what the problem is, but we ended up having to douse the Genoa to the deck since we couldn’t furl it in. So now we still have a problem, and a deck full of Genoa. The plan is to pull out the manual for the furler and see if we can figure out what is going on. Updates in a future post.
Then we plan to put the Yankee sail back up, after lowering the black cap to the appropriate height and hopefully we will have a fully functional headsail again.
