Infamous crane and chain (after he raised it)
We ate breakfast at the marina grille while Gene (dock hand) took our empty propane tank up to switch it out for us (he had offered yesterday). After breakfast we were fortunate enough to get to meet Richard and Oscar, two 4 month old mixed hound puppies that had wandered into the marina a couple days ago tired and hungry (ribs were showing). Well of course I had to sit down and love on them for a while, however Chip was reluctant to come out of the restaurant. He knew if he spent even a second with these guys, they would be on the boat and coming home with us. Richard was reddish brown while Oscar was cream color with reddish spots. I did not take any photos of these guys for a reason.......all of you would have said the same thing, "Awww how could you have left those cute little puppies behind???" Well think about this, two 4 month old eating & pooping machines on a boat for about a week.....hmmm.....not a good idea! (Now if any of you would like them, I'd be happy to give you the address of the marina) We said our good byes and cast off the lines. I could tell Richard and Oscar would miss us the most....as we backed away from the dock they were already on the other side of the marina jumping all over some other people....*sigh*...how soon they forget!
We reached the Sunset Beach Highway Bridge and were sad to see they had started construction on on a 65 ft fixed bridge to replace the pontoon bridge there now. This is one of the last bridges of its kind in America. As the bridge opened the tender came outside and waved at every boat that went through. As we passed by I called out and told him we were sad to see it (bridge) go, to which he replied, "yea me too, now I will have to get a job as a Walmart greeter!" Oh well, another small piece of history soon to be gone, and another grumpy ol guy at Walmart saying, "Welcome to Walmart, get yer shit and git out!"
As we passed the entrance to the Shallotte Inlet, we ran a ground. The ICW book tells you that this area is known for shoaling at times with swift currents and to be sure to stick to the channel. Well, the channel was miss marked with the green marker way over to the left and the red on our right (odd because up to this point the markers were opposite) but we trekked through the markers anyway.....there was a sand bar right in the middle. Chip was able to back up and get us off the sand bar and back in 11 ft of water. We got through the rest of the inlet and noticed an odd vibration on the port side. Could be a bent prop, or even worse, a bent shaft, or both! So we were now down to one engine and an 8 knot speed. To make things even worse, its a Saturday afternoon, most boat yards don't haul on Saturday or are even open! I got on the phone and called the first marina we passed, who gave us the number for a local boat yard, who was closed. We pulled up next to a guy cleaning his boat and asked him if he knew of a place. He suggested we call Southport Marina, we did, and they gave us the number for Charlie Perry at American Fish Company. Charlie was open and said if we could make it by 5pm he would haul us and check out the problem. It was only 2:45 and we only had 10 miles to go, no problem!
They haul the boat, and sure enough the port prop has two bent blades, one pretty bad. They take the prop off and take it in the shop...they can actually work on it there and don't have to send it out....great! Chip and I wandered around the yard while they worked on the prop. There was an old boat in the yard, made sometime around the 70's and Charlie said it was the first boat Jackie Gleason owned. It was a wooden sport fish boat, and the maker was Tiffany. You could tell this was once a gorgeous boat, that unfortunately was now ready for a bulldozer and a chainsaw. After they were finished with the prop, they installed it and we were on our way. Chip and I climbed in the boat and Charlie started up the engine on the travel lift. As he was backing up to position us over the water I happen to look up and I screamed for Charlie to STOP! (okay this is where it gets tricky) There was a crane next to the travel lift that the yard uses to load work boats with and the chains were hanging down right over the travel lift area, and just low enough that one of the lines from Chip's starboard outrigger caught the hook at the end of chain and as Charlie backed up, the chain pulled the line and it bent the outrigger almost in half. There was silence, then it was like a room full of Baptists when someone yells BINGO.....we all yelled "shit" at the same time! Charlie slowly pulled the travel lift forward while Chip maneuvered the line from around the hook. They had to pull the outrigger from its harness and carry it over to the shop to try and salvage it. Note: you can't repair an aluminum pipe once it has been bent. They did manage to straighten it enough to be put back in the harness, but it was a total loss, unusable. Charlie and Chip exchanged information and Charlie is going to have a new outrigger sent to us at home. So we get back in the boat, but this time before Charlie gets on the travel lift he fires up the crane and raises the damn chain so its not in the way. We are finally back in the water and pull away to continue on to whatever marina we can find for the night. Oh, and the prop......not much better. The boat has so much vibration everything was shaking, rattling and rolling. Next stop, Wilmington to find a prop shop. What an experience.
We did manage to find a marina in Carolina Beach, and have called a diver to pull the prop so we can take it to a prop shop to get straightened and have the pitch set. What a day!
Old Glory passing yet another speed bump on the ICW
