Windy, cold but sunny here on the water in New Bern. The boat was doubled lined mid slip due to wind storms lately so dropping the lines took a while. The BEST purchase we ever ever made was our wonderful headsets!! They call them "Marriage Savers" and I believe it! No yelling just reasonable talking as Walter directed me (on fore deck) from the helm & I asked an occasional question about which line, etc. Now if I can just convince him that we should wear these around the house! :-0
I have been a bit nervous about coming and going to our slip at the Northwest Creek Marina as it is surrounded by shoaling and some places are only 1 to 3 feet deep. But Walter kept us right in the deeper channel as we departed. We ran the engines up to clear out the black smoke but later even at only 8kn I thought it too fast as our wake was still seemed wide and deep. But it is just a big boat! Almost too much for just two people to handle considering one is a bit crippled with a very bad sprained right hand...me!
There was one line that had to be hauled in very fast as we were leaving the dock... and I pulled the wrong end to start with but quickly found the right one and pulled like crazy...Walter could not go slow for me to do this as the boat would have been blown against the piles... whew.... we were off!!!
Walter had forgotten to turn on a few things and could now not let go of the wheel. So with the headsets on I could sit on the floor in front of the AC panel in the salon and get instructions as to what switch to move up or down. This again helped with switches on the helm just out of his reach.
We played around a while checking the deviation on our boat's compass...point the bow in the North, South, East West directions to check it... almost right on for the north direction! Slightly off for others... these differences have to be written down and remember as we learned in our navigation class. The deviation must be figured in when charting your course along with the compass rose variation. Really not a big deal IF you do it! :-0
Then it was time to return to our boat slip. As we got close Walter told me to call the marina and ask for some help docking. I didn't even know where the radio was & when I found it I ever so clearly began talking my best “Ive-done-this-all-life” voice into the back of the mic!!!! But after I turned it around as Walter showed me then began the fun discourse....
GA: "Northwest Creek Marina this is Miss gg"
Marina: "Miss gg please change to channel 68" (I was suppose to acknowledge this but forgot! & just changed channels... the one we were on is the coast guard channel & it is okay to call on it but then you need to change the channel to which ever one is told you) GA "Miss gg requesting help for the newbies to dock" Marina: "Roger that Miss gg, will meet you there".
The poor man had to wait a while as it took us 4 tries to get the boat out far enough to make the backward turn into the slip... the wind was blowing so hard and we have "sails" with the fly bridge and the sun deck now surrounded in plastic. It quickly moved us about. But I am so proud to tell you that we didn't hit the dock once... this is success to us! :-) High five time!
With my bad right hand I found I could not loosen the telescoping boat hook which I needed to grab the lines off the piles.. Walter had to leave the helm once or twice to help me and I wish this was not so but it will be several months before the hand is healed completely. Fortunately he was at this point in the slip and had idled the engines.
All in all I think I gain some much needed confidence today. A very good thing cause when Walter went below to the engine room after our outing he found that the stuffing boxes for the propeller shafts had a steady stream of water flowing into the boat! He already knew they and the rudder stuffing boxes near the master cabin needed re-stuffing. This is something along with several other things that will be done at the haul out. We left all the sump pumps on just in case and he immediately called the haul out place in Oriental. The boat will be hauled on Monday at 2p and in the mean time Walter will check the boat this weekend. It is so to speak a slow leak but not really a leak... okay that's what I was told but I am calling it a LEAK!!
So on Monday we will make our first real trip.... I get to chart it so Walter says... but when his grade on the final comes back in Aces then he can do all the charting! However, I am excited about doing this to see if I can actually get us to a certain place on the chart.. .around all those buoys and markers recognizing them as we go.
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