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Griffin Update #4: Aground!
Inport, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Monday Night 2130, Onboard M/V
Griffin.
Football Boy made me write that headline! We barely touched the bottom! Honest!
We got underway at 0700 from Bow-fort, North Carolina and headed out the channel to the ICW. As we got to Morehead City, 5 miles down the waterway, our Nemesis "Just Us" pulled out from another Marina and took the lead in front of us again.
We cruised in company down the waterway, which in this part is between the mainland and a barrier island of sand-dunes. No speed zones to speak of so we clipped off the miles heading south.
One of the neat things the ICW cuts through is the Firing Range for the U.S. Marines at Camp Lejune. There is a 4 mile stretch that gets shut down when the range is hot, but fortunately they weren't shooting at us so we were able to scoot right through.
At the south end of the range we were overtaken by a beautiful, fast
Ocean Sport Fisherman. About 46' long, by the name of "Jay Gee".
As we milled around for 15 minutes waiting for a drawbridge to open,
we were able to peer into her main salon and see that they had the weather
channel playing on a wide screen TV. (Of course, since we have a 9" TV,
anything looks like a wide screen to us.) "Jay Gee" has a gyro
stabilized Satellite TV dish. And we thought we were cool with a laptop
and cellular modem!
When the bridge opened, we all blasted through, but "Jay Gee" soon left us far astern.
We were heading south with me driving, Russell preparing snacks and Andrew computing when we encountered the New River Inlet where the channel turns 45 degrees away from the coast, makes a 90 degree turn back towards the coast, followed by a 45 degree turn back to parallel the coast. At the 90 degree turn there are two other options to take. Inland, or towards the sea.
Well, I missed my turn and headed inland. When I realized my error, I turned around, slowed to 1,200 rpm and called for the other 2 to help me figure out our position. After 375 miles of following the marks leaving the red ones on the right side, like Pavlov's dogs I left a red to starboard when I should have left it to port.
I chopped the throttles when we touched the bottom. We banged twice but since the stern lifted with the engines out of gear we floated free immediately. We restarted the engines and drove to deeper water and headed back in the right direction. I popped open the cockpit hatch to check out the rudder sternposts and everything looked fine. No water coming in or other signs of problem.
I went back into the cabin and noticed that the bilge flooding alarm
light was on. You should have seen us fly, tearing down the sofa, tables,
etc to get the deck hatches up, expecting to see a flooding engine room.
Instead, it was bone dry but the bounce when we hit had jolted the bilge
pump float switch/flooding alarm up and it stuck against a stringer.
Thankfully, it was pumping air and not a flooding bilge!
We got back underway and seem no worse for wear for our latest adventure.
We were running along with the generator going so in addition to having fresh brewed coffee from "Mr. Coffee" we decided to use the microwave to have a hot lunch of Ravioli! A Coile family staple from Russell's old sailing days.
We were able to get ahead of our new buddy, "Jay Gee", even
though he has at least a 10 knot speed advantage, by using a ploy taught
to me by Joe Pisula, an old Navy Buddy, and frequent ICW traveler. Rig
your bimini and mast to drop quickly to get below 12' and go under restricted
opening draw-bridges without waiting. We picked up almost an hour by
doing this. One bridge was only 5 or 6 inches over my head when driving
from the flying bridge, which was kind of cool.
We did a very quick fuel stop at Wrightsville Beach, stopping for 50 gallons of diesel and getting back underway in 11 minutes! We were in a rush to try and make it to North Myrtle Beach before dark. We made it to the pier in the last gasp of twilight. The end of a long, exciting, tiring day.
While we were refueling, I happened to walk to the transom and saw water pumping overboard from a fitting I had never noticed before. It stopped after a few seconds. I scratched my head and pondered what this was. Then it started again. It stopped after 15 seconds. A minute later it started again. Yikes! The bilge pump in the rudder pocket of the bilges. WE'RE SINKING!
We went into our well rehearsed panic stations mode. Moved stuff around. Dove into the bilges and found that we weren't actually sinking! The fresh water feed line to the hot water heater had blown off it's coupling and all the fresh water in the boat was being pumped into the aft bilges. We turned off the fresh water pump and stopped the problem until we could fix it.
We cleaned up the boat, fixed the minor problems, and went out for a nice dinner. Now it's time to hit the rack and get ready for the further adventures of Griffin on the ICW!
Tired but Safe, and Reasonably Happy,
Jon, Russell and Andrew
PS: Andrew is doing fine. No headaches, nothing. Looks kind of gross, actually, as there in no bandage on it. We make him wear a ballcap in public.