Down the AICW - Near Oriental NC

wow....  I just realized it's been along time since I posted to this blog... I guess we've been busy...  
We did finally get away from Great Bridge VA...   Brian and Sheila got their boat sorted out, after being away from it most of the Summer 2011.  We did some shopping (provisioning) while there.... and some small projects... 

We did get to see Bill Rice, and his friend Paul on Paul's katy-krogen trawler, "Bull Dog Sally". Nice visit.

dean - paul - Bill on the p/v Bull Dog Sally at Great Bridge, VA

It's now November 8th... and we've had one more delay... with the replacement of the main engine's heat exchanger.   We started to get "HOT" water in the bilge... (very unusual, and not a good sign)... but the good thing.. the engine was still COOL.... which obviously meant that the raw water pump was pumping sea water through the engine block, and with a pressure that exceeded the 7 PSIG of the radiator cap....  (we had a solid stream of hot water exiting the overflow tube from the cap fitting... at over 1400 rpm of the engine.   ;(

Heat Exchanger - Sea water cooling.

So..we ordered a heat exchanger (TAD1405) from Trans-Atlantic Diesel, and it arrived in Washington NC the next day.... Morris and Elizabeth Thorpe brought it down to us at Belhaven, NC.... and we installed that next day... Friday.

Completing that day of being "social butterflies".... we had lunch with Earl and Kathy Payne-Davis... (S/v Seeker).  They were visiting relatives in Fayetteville NC... about 1.5 hours away, and decided to drive up and see us....  wow... NICE!

So... today (Saturday) we took off from Belhaven, and motor-sailed to the South River, across the Neuse River from Oriental NC.   Tomorrow we'll be in Beaufort, our normal point of decision making.... (whether or not to jump off-shore to Charleston, SC, and St. Mary's GA).

So...we'll now check the weather and sea conditions....  take care.