If It Could Happen Today, Then It Happened

 

To say today was eventful would be an understatement. It started out uneventful enough. We were up and moving by 7 AM,and we had the anchor up a little before 8 o'clock. The weather was great, and we were heading out to sea for some good sailing.

Shortly after 9, we were heading south down the coast to Charleston. We were under sail, and the day was shaping up nicely. This when on for about 45 minutes. Then the first thing happened.

The only way to describe it was a loud snap and then a crash. One side of the dinghy davit came crashing down, and left half of the dinghy dragging off the stern. In the time it took to drop the sails, and get the dighny hauled up and secured, we had lost two boat fenders and some mooring lines. Once Bill had used his mountaineering skills to secure the dinghy (that thing ain't going nowhere), we circled back and we're able to retrieve one fender. We spent some time looking around for the second fender, but eventually had to give it up for lost. 

Bill resecured this, and it is going nowhere... ever! 

By now the wind had died down a bit, so we were heading south under the power of our diesel engine. Then the second thing happened. We had noticed the engine losing power, so Bob took a look at the engine and noticed some fuel issues. It seems that the fuel filter had some debris in it (never good). We made plans to go back under sail to keep some forward motion going, in case it became necessary to replace the fuel filter under way . As you the reader may have guessed it became necessary. The engine conked out just north of Isle of Palms, and Bob went to work. He quickly discovered that the problem was deeper than just the fuel filter. There was debris clogging hoses throughout the hoses leading up to the filter. Bob, in a move that was worthy of MacGyver, rigged a system where he pumped fuel directly from a fuel tank into a gas can, and from there it fed to the fuel filter. Richard Dean Anderson got nothin' on Captain Bob! That got us home.

Capn' Bob does open heart surgery on the black dog

Just to make it a perfect end to the trip, when we got back to the marina in Charleston, we couldn't shore power hooked up to the boat. That, however, turned out to be an issue with the marina that they need to fix.

Ft Sumpter always marks our return to Charleston 

Three weary sailors unloaded the boat, and drove off to Bob's house, another trip behind them. Some people are going to say to me, "I am sorry that all that stuff happened that ruined your good time". To them I would say, "All that stuff happened, and I had a great time!"

She waits until next time