Foggy morning sortie

Last night was clear, temperatures remained in the 60s and the air was still. I predicted fog on the river in the morning. I was right.

Visibility was very limited  at 0730 today.

South Carolina looked spooky from the Georgia side of the river.

The water temperature was 55F. The air temperature was 61.

From a quarter-mile away, the I-520 bridge appeared as just a phantom in the distance.





The soup thickened approaching downtown. We could hear outboard motors. A rapidly moving pontoon boat, showing no lights, materialized about 50 feet off our starboard bow.

The driver appeared surprised to see Ms. Bettencourt. He waved.

Other motors were heard nearby. We came about and fled downstream -- at 3 knots-- groping along the South Carolina bank.

The sun became barely visible above Red Buoy 100. (Click a photo to enlarge).










Just drifting, we eventually fetched up on a bank at the mouth of Horse Creek, a little tributary flowing out of Mill Valley in Aiken County, SC.

A spikey deadfall blocked passage up the creek. A breeze sprang up. And the air began to clear ...













... so Ms. Bettencourt backed out and motored downstream in a long, lazy loop back to her home dock on the Georgia side. She was secure in her berth at 0900.

Total cruise time 90 minutes. Present visibility is unlimited.

No destination (maybe not)

I noticed yesterday that there were no cattle on the dirt beach at N33.24.434, W81.56.228. This discovery is in keeping with my New Year's resolution which calls for paying more attention to the journey than to the destination. I am learning that what you see and experience when you're not focused on the end of the trip,  is often gratifying and sometimes surprising.

For example, here's an interesting place on the Georgia side of  the Savannah River. I nosed Ms. Bettencourt up to the bank here because I wanted to look more closely at the cypress tree in the middle of the picture.

Loggers took most of the cypress trees from this area 75 years or so ago. Today's cypress trees must have just been saplings then.

Anyway, when I drifted up close to this tree, there were at least a few surprises: First, I thought that the Spanish moss, which I had not noticed from afar, was draped rather nicely. Then I saw the mostly-overgrown stone riprap on the bank. Where did this rock come from? (You can probably see it better if you click to enlarge the photos). The riprap has been there for a long time. The stone appears to be granite. In some places it is applied symmetrically, bringing to mind the ballast stones around River Street in Savannah. I have also seen stone applied like this between Front Street and the Mississippi River at Memphis.

Another surprise was the depth of the water so close to the bank. I was expecting to touch bottom, not drift through nearly 30 feet of slow-current fluid.

The bottom number on this instrument is the surface water temperature. The air temperature was in the 40s.




Another noteworthy sight from my afternoon meander included the beginnings of an accumulation of buzzards on this power line transmission tower.

By dark, this tower will be nearly black with birds. I wonder what attracts them to this roost? In other seasons I have seen them select a transmission tower directly opposite this one, on the South Carolina side of the river. There's a power plant over there...

...that would be hard to miss even if one were passing by in a hurry. Perhaps the birds find useful thermal air currents around the plant's smoke stacks.

Incidentally, this is a South Carolina Electric & Gas plant that converted from coal to natural gas a couple of years ago. It's about a mile downstream from my dock. I still get black soot deposits on Ms. Bettencourt's top and decks when the wind is from the south, though the accumulations are not as thick and gritty as they were when the plant was coal fired.

This railroad bridge is a few hundred feet upstream from the power plant. There is another just like it near the Augusta waterfront and several more cross the river between here and Savannah. This type is called a single leaf bascule bridge. The gray structure you can see rising above the bridge tender's cabin is a giant block of poured concrete. The concrete serves as a counterweight, allowing a very small engine to do the work of raising and lowering the span.

I am told these bridges are tested from time to time and that they still work, though their days of housing bridge tenders and opening for barge traffic are but a distant memory. The railroad may have run out of paint some time ago too. I imagine clouds of rust enveloping the bridge when a freight clatters through.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bettencourt continues her  pokey progress, generally southward, through most of the afternoon. I have one of the side curtains rolled up to make it easier to shoot photos and to exhaust whatever carbon monoxide might be generated by my propane heater.

It was somewhat less than toasty warm in the cabin, but the little heater kept my feet warm enough.

I found myself wondering if this guy's feet were cold. Would he be longing to capture supper, then get back to the nest and sit on his feet? I think this is a juvenile little grey heron.







Eventually, Ms. Bettencourt comes  to a place where she can go no farther: The Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam, which requires an appointment for opening.

Since we had no destination, no appointment had been made. Nothing to do, but turn around and go home.

This means there is now a destination. I suppose this also means destinations are concepts cruisers can only try to ignore.

Destinations may be inescapable. I must accept the idea of  destination if  I am to be home for supper.

Chasing a leak

Ms. Betttencourt's hull is desert dry. There are no water leaks. But the engine presented a different situation recently. There was an air leak somewhere in the fuel system. Diesel engines won't start with air in the fuel system.

According to the log book, I had "cured" this problem five times since I changed the primary and secondary fuel filters on November 22. The work involved checking for leaks in every possible location, tightening stuff and bleeding air from various engine orifices. Each of these fixes resulted in easy starts upon completion, followed by failures to start a few hours later.

Of course, after each "cure" I confidently put the middle cabin back together. This is the point where fruitless fixes get to be really tedious. It is not easy to get to the engine on this boat.

Three cabin deck panels have to come up. The seat must be disconnected and folded back. The forward cabin bulkhead must be hinged forward. Only then may the engine box cover be lifted up and aft to expose the power plant.

Anyway, after lunch yesterday, I started on fix number six -- by opening everything up -- again.

I began at the fuel tank and re-checked every connection. Fuel pickup.  Lift pump. Primary filter. Secondary filter. Injection pump. The air was heavy with the smell of diesel fuel. Why is that?

This clue led me to a location outside the engine box where the 10-micron Racor primary fuel filter is mounted. There should not have been diesel fuel in the bilge under that filter. But there was.

While I had checked the fuel line connections to the filter head fitting multiple times, it had never occurred to me that the filter cartridge itself might be leaking. I had apparently failed to fully tighten the cartridge when I installed it in November. It would leak fuel with the engine running, then suck air as the engine cooled after shutdown. Not a lot of air, but enough to make starting problematic.

I hand-tightened the filter cartridge another half turn, bled air from that point through the injector pump and at each of the three injectors. The engine started easily. That was yesterday. It also started easily at 0800 and 1400 today. Maybe fix number 6 is a success.

I will wait until tomorrow and start it at least a couple of more times before I declare victory and reassemble the middle cabin -- yet again.

Meanwhile, cruise plans have become uncertain. My friend Major can't get away in January and other cruising buddies are previously committed.

Maybe I'll just stay home and repaint the dashboard and the middle cabin.

Boatkeeping duties diminish

Sigh!  Our 47-foot fiberglass houseboat "Tybee Island" will be leaving our dock for the last time in a couple of weeks. She is going on to a better use as a working vessel for the Savannah Riverkeeper organization.

We had the boat surveyed earlier this month and the inspector scored it in excellent condition. It looks and runs like new. We will miss it.

But a part we won't miss is the continual upkeep required to maintain a vessel in top condition. There was a time when repairs, cleaning and improvements were mostly fun and satisfying activities. But in the last few years, all that became just plain work. Our interests turned away from luxury camping on the water.  We were using the boat very little.

For a 25-year-old boat, it is but a short step from disuse to decay.



I expect to be involved for a time in helping the new owners understand the boat's various systems, mechanical needs and maintenance routines. I have also volunteered to teach the Riverkeeper's boatkeeping crew how to safely operate the big boat in the somewhat restricted waters of the Upper Savannah River.


 We feel pretty good about finding an excellent new mission for the Tybee Island. But, it's still kind of sad to see her go.

A hard day for the kingfisher

I have been watching this bird, which turns out to be a Belted Kingfisher, much of the morning. I can't get close enough to get a photo, but a picture I found on the Cornell Ornithology Lab website portrays her perfectly.

Cornell  Ornithology Photo

It is unusually raw, cold and windy here today. But the bird continues to work. Sometimes perched, feathers puffed up, on the weather vane; sometimes on a piling; often skimming inches off the river's surface, always looking for something -- presumably something to eat.

She is noisy too. She has a rattling, chortling, officious kind of call, issued both at rest and in flight. I can see only one of these birds around our dock, so maybe this one is seeking a mate or broadcasting a warning.

Anyway, witnessing this bird's work ethic in action made me feel more than a little guilty. Though the temperature is only in the 40s, cold, wet, windy weather slows me to lethargy.

But bird-driven shame finally propelled me to boat work.  I winterized Ms. Bettencourt's pressure water system.

This did not require a lot of effort. Just disconnect and shunt the water heater's in and out water lines and drain the water heater tank.

Then use the pressure water system pump to drain the bow tank. With the tank empty, disconnect the water system feed hose and stick it into a jug of RV antifreeze.

Turn on the pump to distribute the antifreeze through water lines, faucets and the fresh water head plumbing. Turn off the pump and close the drain cock under the sink.

Ms. Bettencourt is now ready for the whatever winter weather happens around here. If the temps get into the mid-20s, I'll hang  a light bulb in the engine box. But that is not needed now.


The bird, meanwhile, is still skimming around, nabbing an occasional minnow and making a hell of a racket. According to the bird book, when her day is done she will go home to a burrow in the riverbank.

Though it has been suggested that I make a start on Ms. Bettencourt's new curtains, I'm headed back to the rocking chair by the hearth and the gas logs. I was sitting there earlier, reading a novel, when I  happened to look out the window and see that bird.

She's still working. I'm not.

Finessing the port-side docking

I  have been spectacularly unsuccessful in multiple attempts to back Ms. Bettencourt into the inside slip at our dock on the Savannah River. I have been searching  for a key to achieving this maneuver, but I have consistently failed to coax the boat to go backwards upstream in the direction I desired.

Yesterday, an idea occurred: "Why not come in bow-first and spin her around to a port-side docking under power?"

Right after that, there came a second thought: "It's not like I have never hit a piling before...."

Think about rotating a 25-foot boat 180 degrees under power in a 35-foot rectangle of eddying river with pilings and rocks nearby. I tried anyway. And it worked. I have been practicing and I have gotten reasonably good at it.





Entering the pocket (right) and lining up for a scary-close approach to the riverbank.










A sandy shelf extends out about six feet from the rocks, then the depth drops off  to 10 feet. Ms. Bettencourt draws two feet. We did not touch ground on this approach.

Beginning the turn, wary of the piling on the port quarter, with the current trying to move the boat sideways to starboard.

Backing and filling to get lined up.

The bow finally turns. Port quarter smacks a piling, lightly.

This is where I boat-hooked  a spring line previously laid out on the dock, leading the line to a cleat on the port quarter. Going astern on the spring line brought the port side to the dock...

Dia Bettencourt photos

...where I was able to step out, complete the mooring and declare victory. (Click to enlarge the photos and see the look of relief on my face).




It was fun figuring out how to do this maneuver. But constantly changing river current and wind, plus the tricky eddy in the pocket between the dock and the rocks make this kind of docking too troublesome and risky for every day use.

And, this is not a 5-second ski boat turn. My approach-to-docking time was about 10 minutes -- hardly a "smartly-done" docking evolution.

Reeking of diesel; nearly ready to cruise

The job of replacing the fuel gauge sending unit inside Ms. Bettencourt's diesel tank is about 99% finished. The remaining 1% consists of finding and installing a screw I dropped in the bilge.

I abandoned an earlier plan to wait until the tank was dry before beginning the work. Installing the new sender with a nearly full tank wasn't too messy, though it will probably take a few days before I get the diesel smell off my skin. Actually, it may be a week or more before the smell goes away, since I still have to replace the cartridge in the primary fuel filter.

Soon, the boat will be fully serviced and ready for her next cruise.

Meanwhile, I took a day off from Ms. Bettencourt work today and went on Safari.

Safari is the name of Albin-25 #2050, which is owned by my new friend Steve in Greenwood, SC. While Steve's Albin is more than 1,000 production hulls newer than Ms. Bettencourt, it has had a hard life until now. The previous owner had converted it to a ketch rigged motor-sailor before he fell ill and died. The boat was stored and not used for a number of years before Steve acquired it.

Safari is definitely a fixer-upper now, but she came to Steve with a brand-new Yanmar diesel engine and drive train, and most other major systems are in order. He has begun the restoration and I have offered to help.

I was impressed with Steve's boatyard work space. He has erected a 10 x 27 foot canopy over Safari in his back yard.

I think this is a neat idea. This is just the kind of temporary cover I will need when I repaint the topsides and repair a few fiberglass cloth bubbles that have arisen on Ms. Bettencourt's new top.

We have a perfect place for such a temporary structure on a piece of land we own adjacent to our home. Soon, I will be on the hunt for a similar canopy rig.

(One possible complication with this plan is the fact that Ms. Bettencourt sits about 18 inches higher on her trailer than does Safari. I will have to find a work-around for this problem).

But, all that will have to wait until after Ms. Bettencourt's next cruise, which is now moving toward definite dates sometime next month.

My friend Major and I plan to trailer Ms. Bettencourt to Savannah and put her in the water there. Then we'll cruise northward for a few days visiting Beaufort and Charleston, SC. Our plan is to tuck in most nights in comfortable marinas with dockside electricity and restaurants nearby.

Unfortunately, I continue to dither with the new curtains project, so we will be using the curtain rods as towel  racks and our towels for privacy curtains yet again.