Saturday, April 28, 2007 - Southport to Wrightsville Beach, NC

Up at 0630, filled water tank, rinsed Seascape, and off the dock by 0715. Favorable tides all the way to Wrightsville Beach, NC. Reached speed of 11.4 mph at Carolina Beach Inlet. Anchored in basin at Wrightsville Beach which is just two blocks from the ocean. There were three cruising boats anchored when we arrived and by sunset there were 12 or more.

We had some more trouble with the Delta anchor again. We thought we were dragging so we pulled it and changed to the Danforth on nylon rode. Let out 80 feet of line and set it hard. We had a wide swinging radius but we had enough room to swing. There was a lot of boating activity because it was Saturday. There appeared to be no speed or wake restrictions and boats were pulling skiers through the anchorage and around the anchored boats. The wakes got to be a real annoyance. The dinghy dock was continually occupied by powerboats dropping off or picking up passengers. In spite of the wakes and the boats we finally found a tenuous place to tie up. We walked a couple of blocks to a small beach grocery store and bought a few supplies we needed.

In the evening another Krogen came into the anchorage. After walking Sailor we motored over to meet the Krogen owners. The boat’s name is Sea Waltz owned by Bill and Clara Blanding

That evening when I started the generator I noticed that the aft bilge pump came on. When I checked the engine room I saw water spraying from the generator. It proved to be a loose hose clamp on the raw water hose from the heat exchanger to the manifold. When Dora started the generator it appeared to diesel and wouldn’t shut off. I moved the throttle linkage it finally died. When we tried to start it again it wouldn’t start and I heard a sizzling sound. I washed the starter soenoid and starter with freshwater and it started on the next try and ran fine.

If that wasn’t enough aggravation, I found the forward bilge half-full of water, nearly up to the thruster. I turned on the bilge pump and pumped it all out. I concluded that the additional fuel had put the bow deeper in the water and that the water was forced into the bilge pump discharge opening, through the bilge pump and into the bilge. I will install a check valve on the discharge hose as soon as I can but in the meantime, I closed the seacock. Needless to say it was a very tiring evening.