Many thanks to the person who reminded me to post. I realize it's been a week since you've heard from me so from now on I'll actually schedule a time to post so I don't forget. Glad you like this stuff.

In Beaufort NC our crew gets the starboard engine running again, and we head out into the Atlantic, planning to sail direct to Jacksonville FL. However, heavy waves and high winds against us force us back into Beaufort and into the ICW once again.

One of our major problems navigating the ICW is depth. Remember S/V Blue Star is a catamaran and our depth finder is on the starboard hull. There may be lots of water under the starboard hull but the port hull could be almost aground. This was the situation in the small sandbar incident we had today. "Small" meaning we were able to get off the bar quickly by maneuvering with the other engine. We docked at Sail Marina for the night.

In addition to the depth problem we also have a 63' mast with a VHF antenna at the top, making for great excitement going under the 65' fixed bridges on the ICW as the antenna goes click, click, click against the bridge. Fixed bridges are my specialty. For us navigating the ICW is an 8-hour a day job with 2 people on duty, one at the helm and one following the charts and sometimes using binoculars to find the next markers. For this reason we prefer to go out to sea whenever possible.

The next day we closely avoided another sandbar and discovered there really is a Surf City. It's in NC. Some of you may remember the 60's hit song of the same name by Jan and Dean. In the afternoon a mattress we had put out to air fell into the water. Normally, not a big deal, just circle around and pick it up. Now, however, we had only 5 minutes until a bridge opening. We circled to port, retrieved the errant mattress and had it on board with 1 minute remaining until the opening. Docked for the night at Bald Head Island.

Next day we finally head out to sea with calm seas and winds from the northwest. Our crew caught a bonita so we feasted that night. Building seas in the middle of the night almost caused us our dinghy. It filled with water and flipped over as one pulley on the davits broke. We fixed the pulley and got the dinghy back in the davits. All secured, we continued on to Cape Canaveral rather than Jacksonville.

On our way we spotted a small fishing boat displaying a distress flag. Their engine had died except for going 2 knots in reverse. As they had no means of communication, we called the Coast Guard and got Towboat US on its way to them. We also gave them one of our 2 handheld VHF radios so they could keep in touch with Towboat US. We gave them our upcoming address in Ft. Lauderdale so they could return the radio to us. Of course we never really expected to see it again.

A fishing tournament at Port Canaveral nixed our plans to stop there so we continued on to West Palm Beach where we docked for the night and fueled up. The next day, May 28, we finally arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, 2 weeks after our scheduled arrival, to have air conditioning, genset, and watermaker installed.

To be continued.