Ready for Georgia

11/9/16
Beaufort, SC
Position: 32 25.704N, 080 40.871W
Posted by Bill

We departed our slip in Charleston around 7 AM on the 7th, timing the slack tide because the current is so difficult to deal with in the Charleston rivers. We moved across the Ashley river and dropped anchor to wait out a bridge closure on Wapoo Creek. The bridge there is closed from 6-9 in the morning and again from 4-7 in the evening to deal with rush hour. We opted to anchor for a few hours versus drive around in circles. That day we ended up in Mosquito Creek, in position 32 33.403N, 080 26.866W, about 2/3rds of the way to Beaufort. We found out why the creek got it’s name…no-see-ums and mosquitoes the size of small birds! It was a gorgeous anchorage in spite of the bugs:

In the middle of the night, I got up to check on the anchor and was treated to a sky full of so many stars that it looked like a TV screen with bad reception.

The next day we used the tide to get through a notorious shoal area called Ashpoo/Coosaw Cutoff and made way for Beaufort, which we had considered skipping. About an hour after we were underway, Matt called on the radio and reported that he had a major oil leak on Sofia Jeanne. He was able to make it to Beaufort and get a spare part delivered a day later, so we hung out for a few days on mooring balls, enjoying the downtown area and doing boat maintenance…of course. He got his part and made the repairs today, and we did some passage planning over happy hour drinks. We are now ready to push south in to Georgia. For the trip thus far, the tides have been very well aligned for us to traverse the shoal areas. Not so much for Georgia. We have 3 major shoal areas facing us and high tide is late in the day. It will be a little slower for us in this next week timing the tides and our stops. Also, the days are getting shorter. We will try to make it to St Augustine Florida by the 15th, and Vero Beach by the 19th. It will be a tough week of traveling.

The Beaufort mooring field:

Since we hit Charleston, we have been seeing more evidence of hurricane Matthew, docks destroyed and boats up on land like this one:

Finally, a picture that I forgot to post a few days ago. This was the sunset from the Awendaw Anchorage on the 3rd:

Finally on the move and chillin’ in Charleston

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11/6/16
Charleston SC
Position 32 46.722N, 079 57.228W
Posted by Bill

Well, the last 2 weeks have been pretty crazy. After the hurricane we headed to Cincinnati to my Mom’s memorial service. It was nice to see all of the family, but a sad time for everyone. Then we headed back with 1 week left to finish all of our boat projects and get the boat provisioned (liquor, groceries and spare parts). The good thing was, the weather has been absolutely beautiful since the hurricane. I kept running into set backs with the boat projects, not having the right tools or all of the parts, and I found several other projects that needed to be done while working on the list. The weekend before we left, I finished installing the wind generator, changed the oil in the engine, changed the fuel filter, rebuilt the head (toilet) in the bathroom in our cabin. During the install of the wind generator I found 3 other things that I also got done. 1) The packing gland needed to be adjusted where the prop shaft comes through the hull. This is a normal maintenance item, but requires working in a very small area with corroded hardware. It took forever! I realized after several hours that I had to replace the packing material. This is usually done with the boat out of the water because the packing keeps water from coming in to the boat where the shaft comes in. Having never done this in the water, I wasn’t sure how much water would rush in before I could complete the process, so I was apprehensive. I talked to the maintenance manager at the marina to make sure he could rescue us if something went wrong, and then took it on. It was a manageable amount of water and other than the difficulty of working in the small area the project went well. It took much longer than expected on a project that wasn’t even on the radar. 2) While working on the packing gland, I noticed that the bolts that hold the prop shaft to the transmission were all very loose. This is not good at all and could have resulted in a major issue had they come completely loose or sheared off, so they got tightened up. 3) While running wire for the wind generator, I noticed that the hose which drains the propane locker was cracked and leaking water directly on to the battery charger/inverter…NOT GOOD!!! Fortunately I caught it before there was any major damage or a fire. Replacing this hose was a major pain in the ass. You have to crawl under the chart table and work through a door that is about 18″ square, in an area that is full of wires. Doing most of the work requires you to contort yourself in positions your body doesn’t bend, and feel blindly through the process because you can’t look while you work. In the mean time, Tricia was re-inventorying everything stored below, getting groceries, and organizing everything. She is amazing at doing that, and it is extremely important to be organized and have everything stowed properly. The week before shoving off also included a run to Myrtle Beach for liquor and groceries, and a run to Wilmington for Costco, Trader Joes, and Harbor Freight. Those took one day each. I don’t know how we got it all done, but we were exhausted.

We took on fuel and shoved off on 11/1, and stopped in the Little River inlet for the first night, position 33 52.321N, 078 34.191W. We are traveling with Matt and Shirley on Sofia Jeanne, and Larry and Diane on Horizon 2. We rafted together on anchor and had a great time making dinner and enjoying cocktails on the hook. We rafted to Sofia Jeanne because they now have the best anchor…a Rocna. That anchor is amazing, sticking right away, resetting quickly in a tide change, and holding all 3 boats. We took turns making dinner for the first 3 nights and the first night was Matt and Shirley. When they started to make dinner, the propane solenoid stopped working, which stops the flow of propane to the stove…go figure. Fortunately, Tricia insisted we buy a spare, and after much difficulty Matt had it in place and started dinner. At the same time, I noticed an engine hose starting to show signs of a leak and had to borrow their rescue tape to keep it from developing further. This is the benefit of friends and traveling together!
Us at the anchorage:

The next night we stopped at a really nice anchorage called “the hill” which was about 3/4ths the way to Georgetown SC. It was really beautiful. Position 33 30.887N, 079 08.625W. Here is a picture of the hill:

On the 3rd day we anchored in Awendaw Creek, at position 33 02.069N 079 32.403W.

On the 4th day we stopped at Isle of Palms Marina just outside of Charleston, at position 32 48.379N, 079 45.618W, so that we could arrive the next day in Charleston during slack tide. The currents in the rivers in Charleston are wicked and very difficult to dock in, so we always try to get there and leave at slack tide (no current before the tide change). We partied with our friend Terry who lives there and enjoyed being in a marina after 3 days on the hook (this means real showers!). Yesterday we came in to Charleston City Marina close to slack tide, position 32 46.722N, 079 57.228W, and then went downtown for happy hour, hitting several of our favorite spots. If you follow the blog, you know that Charleston is our favorite city on the east coast. We are never disappointed! We usually dock at the Charleston Maritime Center on the east side of downtown, but the hurricane caused enough damage that it is still not open, and we got reservations at the city marina. This is called the Mega-Dock and rightly so. It is around 40 acres of dock on the west side of the city. Look at it in satellite mode of Google Maps. It is a little further away from the places we normally go but still not too far. They also have a courtesy shuttle. Here is the view from one end of the Mega-Dock:

There are dozens of huge yachts here. The amount of money on the docks boggles your mind. Here is one of the cool sailing vessels:

We have seen quite a bit of hurricane damage as we get further south. It will be interesting to see Hilton Head and the surrounding area, as they were particularly hit hard. Today we work on boat maintenance and tomorrow we start south again. We are taking it easier than normal and traveling around 40 statute miles per day instead of our usual 50 to 60 miles. It has been nice getting to an anchorage late afternoon versus dusk and relaxing more. Unfortunately Larry and Diane are heading back to Southport and not continuing south with us. They are fun and we will miss them! Here we all are at Isle of Palms:

Tryin’ to reason with hurricane season

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10/11/16
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

Well…last week was a rush. We had a long time to watch hurricane Matthew form and move north, and the predictions of its path changed daily…sometimes hourly, which made it a nerve wracking couple of weeks. To top it off, our eldest daughter and her family were coming to the Topsail Beach for the first week in October, and we were going to spend the bulk of the week with them. We left for Topsail, a 90 minute drive from us, on Sunday, October 2. Before leaving, Matthew was supposed to be offshore when it passed by Southport and we were only supposed to get tropical storm force winds. We prepped the boat by taking the solar panels off, securing everything on deck and dock, and tying down the sails, and doubling dock lines, which is sufficient for tropical storm winds. By Monday, it was clear that we were going to have hurricane force winds, so we drove back from the beach for a day and prepped the boat by taking off all canvas (bimini, dodger, side panels), taking down all of the sails, hoisting the dinghy up on deck and strapping it down, and removing everything from the deck and dock. It took all day, and then we drove back to the beach.

We considered tying off to the boat next to us, which would pull both boats off of the dock, but the worst of the winds was going to be out of the east at tropical storm force, which hits us on the stern (back), and from the north at hurricane force, which pushes us off the dock. There are large buildings on the north side of the marina which gave us some protection from the full force of the wind, and after taking all things into consideration, we decided not to tie the boats together. The marina at Southport is rated for hurricane force winds and it is very well protected by the surrounding landscape, and we took that into consideration as well, otherwise we would have tied to pilings and possibly moved the boat into the marina fairway.

We came back from the beach a day early on Friday. The storm was supposed to hit on Saturday evening, but we were supposed to get tropical storm force winds Friday night, building up throughout the day Saturday. We wanted to see how the boat behaved and make any adjustments before things got really hairy, and we stayed on board Friday night. The winds howled and we got bouts of rain, and the boat did very well. The tide never went down for a few days…it was really weird. On Saturday, we thought the marina would flood at high tide (it never did), and we had an invitation to stay with friends in town, so we packed up the generator, some fuel, vodka (priorities!), food and clothing, and drove to their house. Right before the brunt of the storm hit us, the rain stopped, so we took drinks and walked around Southport to check out the conditions. I took mostly videos which this blog software does not support, so I can’t post them. Check out my Facebook page for those. Here are a few snapshots along the Southport waterfront:

The Southport yacht basin:

The waterfront flooded pretty bad, but nothing was torn up. The yacht basin was flooded and many of the docks were destroyed. Around 8 PM the eye passed over us as a category one hurricane, and the winds shifted to the north. The winds after the shift were significantly stronger than before, and it was pretty crazy. We had winds measured at 82 MPH (from one of the boats near by). We never lost power, thankfully. The boat did fine. There was a boat that broke loose in the marina and ended up in the weeds on the west end, and one that partially broke loose, causing it to bang into the boat next to it. In addition, there were several boats that had torn or shredded canvas. Other than that, all was good. We were very fortunate that the storm diminished before it passed almost directly over us, and also fortunate that we didn’t get much rain. The rain all went inland and there is major flooding throughout southeastern North Carolina.

We have many friends who are traveling south in their boats, or left boats in Florida for the summer, so we were very concerned about them. So far, we have not heard anything bad. We have heard that several of our favorite stops along the way south have been severely impacted, and we will have to do some research before we head out in a couple of weeks (November 1). We had made dock reservations at the Charleston Maritime Center for November 4th through the 7th, but we are hearing that they may not be able to reopen for a month.

We have less than 3 weeks before we leave, and many undone boat projects, so the push is on. I expect to be blogging more frequently, especially after we get underway!

Wilmington and Carolina Beach

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9/30/16
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

This past weekend several of us on D dock took our boats up to Wilmington for a few days. We had 6 boats in the flotilla. We were going to stop at an anchorage on the Cape Fear River on the way up on Thursday, but the weather was supposed to be nasty and we opted for a party on the dock instead. Friday we timed the tide, as the currents can be very nasty in the Cape Fear River, and made the trip in about 4 hours. Here are a couple of pictures along the way:

We docked on the river in front of the Hilton Hotel. Wilmington has a great riverfront area, with lots of bars and restaurants. We hit the Copper Penny for happy hour/dinner on Friday:

On Saturday we hit the farmers market and attempted a pub crawl. We only made it to 2 places. The second place was the Duck and Dive, a popular dive bar that had great drink prices and a fun atmosphere. We played darts (boys vs. girls) and watched football all afternoon. The boys got their asses kicked in darts…unfortunately:

Then we did happy hour and had a cookout on the dock:

It was a great time! This was also the first time we had our boat off the dock since we landed in Southport in May, so we really enjoyed being on the water again.

As we headed back down the river on Sunday, we decided to take a detour and go to Carolina Beach for the night. They have a mooring field that is 2 blocks from the beach and is close to several restaurants and bars. It was a beautiful day, both days we were there, and we didn’t even put the dinghy down to go ashore. We just relaxed on the boat and enjoyed being “on the hook”. I so much prefer anchoring or tied to a mooring versus marinas and it was a real treat. Carolina Beach was a favorite of my moms, as she went there as a kid many times, and it was our first introduction to the beach and ocean when we were kids. It was good to reflect on everything and just listen to the sound of the waves on the beach. Our view:

This is a great mooring field, well protected, and the moorings are in very good shape. The guy who owns them comes around and takes trash and he was really helpful. Highly recommended.

Monday, it was back home and starting on boat projects again. We are about 4 weeks from leaving to go south, and the pressure of getting everything done is starting to mount!

Eight bells for Sally Bell Wehmer

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Today we said goodbye to a wonderful part of our lives, Bill’s mother Sally. It has been tough on Island Bound as we wrestled with how we felt during the last weeks of Sally’s life before her passing. Bill is usually the blogger in our family but I wanted to write this post as a tribute to Sally and the wonderful family that she created. I am sure Bill will censor me if I get it wrong. I was lucky enough to become a part of that family 25 years ago and for that I am truly thankful. I first met Sally when she came to visit Bill in Columbus in 1991. I had a furry kid at the time, my golden retriever Samantha. Samantha had one bad habit that I could never get her to stop. She would welcome you by holding on to a part of you. Usually it was the sleeve of your shirt by your wrist or your wrist if you had no sleeves. She was the gentlest dog, but her security blanket was holding on to you so you were forced to pet her. She knew you would tell her not to do it, but she didn’t care, she did it anyway. When Sally came through the door, Sam said hello in her usual way. I could hear Sally calling for Bill trying to figure out what the situation was. She wasn’t sure if she was getting attacked by a strange dog or if she had a new best friend. Once she realized she had a new best friend, we all had a good laugh and I knew I had met someone special.
Sally had 4 sons, of which Bill is the eldest. Bill always swears he had the best mom in the world. She loved them unconditionally. She would do anything for her boys and her boys would do anything for her. Sally was the glue that kept her family together. I will fondly remember all the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays where Sally’s house was overflowing with grandchildren, friends and extended family. Everyone having a good time laughing and telling stories about all the crazy things they had done as children. Sally had the patience of a saint raising her boys, because there was no shortage of stories. When everyone got together, the noise level in the house went up to 10. Bill and I never realized how quiet our house was until we would go to Sally’s house and all his family was together. We had 2 daughters who did not wreak the havoc that 4 boys and their families could. Sally never cared about the kids jumping on the furniture or all the furry grandchildren running and barking. Sally was happy to have her family together. Sally loved each of her children for who they were. She influenced them to be the best version of themselves, but she never condemned them for making mistakes or even choices that she would not have made. This coming from someone who lives on a sailboat is a testament to that. Her life was all about other people whether it was through public service or just meeting someone and putting a smile on their face. Sally became Grandma Sally to everyone. We knew this because if you ever took Sally to Giant Eagle, it took you 3 hours to say hello to everyone she knew in the store while you bought a loaf of bread. The example she set for everyone was a positive force behind whom each of her children and grandchildren are today.
In Sally’s later years, she suffered from dementia. Her family was forced to make the decision to move her out of her house filled with memories and laughter into an assisted living facility. Sally was not at all happy with this scenario and she never stopped wanting to go home. We all struggled over the years as Sally’s ability to recognize her family waned. We continued to support Sally and each other with stories and laughter once again. The memories and the stories are now forever a part of who we are. We were sad that Sally could no longer grasp the memories that were being made as her great grandchildren came into the world and her children and grandchildren continued to thrive.
The last few weeks, we had the discussions about how we felt about “losing” Sally. We said we had lost pieces of her over the last few years due to the condition that robbed her of her memories. A few weeks ago Bill and I visited Sally for the last time. We didn’t know it would be the last time and our visits were sometimes met with trepidation because you never knew how they would go, but we went anyway. We had the best time with her. We sat with her and laughed while she made up crazy stories about all the things that were jumbled in her mind. We were just glad to be there and she was glad we were there. She didn’t know who we were or who she was, but we knew even if she didn’t. We met Judy who had been serving Sally breakfast and lunch every day since she was unable to go to the main dining room. We were glad to know Sally was still surrounded by caring people who appreciated her. She told us that Sally made her laugh and brightened her days. Some things never change. We were glad to get a piece of Sally returned to us.
I started this by saying that we said goodbye to Sally, but not that we lost her. Sally’s spirit lives on in the stories and in her family. I see it in her sons as they prepared themselves and their families for the end of her physical days. How they honored her final wishes and planned how to celebrate her life. I see it in how they raised their children. I see her in our children as they raise their children. They don’t stress about the mess and noise, they laugh and create their own memories and celebrate each day as a gift. They love people for who they are and family comes first. Sally created a wonderful family and now she can rest. Her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will carry her torch. We are saddened by her passing, but grateful for the lessons she taught us and the memories that will sustain us. Live, love, laugh and the rest will take care of itself. Sally can finally go home and get her family back.

“The sounding of ship’s bell is well rooted in the history and tradition of the maritime industry. The bell marked time on board and divided the day into shifts or ‘watches’ for the crew. At the end of the last shift, the end of the last watch, eight bells rang out – Eight Bells and All is Well. A sailor’s time for rest.” – Source: Boat US web site.

Island Bound’s water maker installation

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9/19/16
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

We have been trying to get all of our boat projects done before we leave to go south November 1. Most of them require work to be done outside so the weather has been a factor and we are behind schedule (which always seems to be the case). I finally finished the water maker installation last week…yay! We decided to put one in so that we can been self sufficient with fresh water, especially in the Bahamas and other remote areas where water is not available. The tank on our boat holds 170 gallons of fresh water, which we can make last a couple of months if we are really frugal, but for a few thousand dollars we can make our own and not be afraid to take showers every day! Our friends Mark and Jan on the other Island Bound have a water maker, and they graciously made water for us as we traveled last cruising season, and we got to see how much more comfortable life can be when you have that capability. We will still be very diligent about conserving fresh water, but can relax the conservation efforts to a more comfortable level. As always, we try to post information about these types of projects to help other cruisers with their projects.

I did a lot of research about what type of system to put in. There are systems that run off of the battery bank, and systems that run off of AC current which require a generator. There are pluses and minuses to each, just like everything, and you have to pick something based on your specific situation. We opted to go with an AC current solution. The main reason is that it will make 25 gallons per hour of fresh water, which is 2 to 3 times the GPH rating of the 12 volt systems. It can run off of our Honda generator very efficiently with no impact to our battery bank. There are also portable systems (costing well over $5k) and permanently installed systems. As you will see, I opted to design one that is a hybrid. By removing 8 screws, I can remove the system from the boat. Also, the permanent systems use plumbing that is connected to thru hulls in the boat, which feed sea water and dump brine (waste) water, and are plumbed to dump fresh water into the tank below decks. I set ours up to pull sea water from a pump thrown overboard at the back of the boat, dump brine near the same place, and add fresh water to the tank through the deck fill hose. This allowed us to keep the system simple, as the permanent install requires several additional valves and hoses to sample fresh water and inject pickling solution (pickling is the process of preserving the reverse osmosis membrane when it will not be in use for several months).

This diagram shows the basic components and the flow of water:

With this system, water can be sampled from the same hose that is used to fill the fresh water tank, and the membrane can be pickled from the same bilge pump that is thrown overboard to feed sea water to the system. No need for thru hulls, and no need for multiple inputs and outputs. The components are housed in our cockpit locker and the system can be operated by opening the lid and pulling out 3 hoses. I bought a kit on Ebay that included most of the components and then supplemented with separate purchases for things I changed in the design.

I installed the high pressure cylinder along the hull on the inside of the cockpit locker, well out of the way of stored items (FYI..this isn’t the finished installation).

The first picture shows the end of the cylinder that has the flow meter and pressure control valve. It is very easy to get to and monitor. Along the back of the locker is the high pressure pump, motor and pre-filter.

The hoses neatly coil up and store behind the filter when they are not in use. The high pressure pump can run in the locker or can be lifted out to run in the cockpit. I used an old shore power chord to wire the high pressure pump motor so that I could plug the chord into the shore power receptacle of the Honda generator (model EU2000i companion). The bilge pump that feeds the sea water is wired to an AC to DC power converter that plugs into the 110 volt receptacle of the Honda generator. To use the system, you essentially deploy the hoses, start the generator, plug in the power chords, allow the system to run for a few minutes, crank up the pressure, fill your fresh water tank, and then flush the system with 4 gallons of fresh water. I haven’t tallied up the total cost yet, but I think it will come in around $2,500; which is pretty good for a water maker.

The tropics are getting really active

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9/18/16
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

We always watch the weather like a hawk. Weather is the single biggest factor that affects life on a boat. Tropical developments, i.e. tropical depressions, tropical storms, hurricanes, are obviously very problematic and we pay very close attention to those. The latest attention getters have been Tropical Storm Julia, and Tropical Storm Karl. Julia dumped rain on us all day on Friday and then meandered off the coast of South Carolina. The weather has been beautiful this weekend, but it is looking like Julia is finally moving, and eyeing North Carolina.
It is forecast to stay a tropical depression, so winds will stay under 40 knots…fingers crossed.

Karl is forecast to become a Hurricane this week and take a turn to the north, passing close to Bermuda.

If this holds true, it will pass well offshore of us…again…fingers crossed.

We will stay here in the protection of Southport Marina until November first, when hurricane season officially ends, and then see how the tropics are behaving before we leave to head south. The only schedule we have for our trip south this winter is dock reservations at Key West from December 15 to January 15th. We had to put a significant down payment that is non-refundable to get those reservations, so we will do our best to get there. Other than that…we go as the weather lets us.

The “turd” is no more

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9/14/16
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

Tropical storm Hermine passed right over us, brought a lot of rain, and we measured winds up to 40 knots. It was a couple of days of hunkering down in the boat, watching movies and stuff like that. I am glad we were in a marina, so we had shore power and a protected safe haven (no Southport pun intended…the movie Safe Haven was filmed here, and everyone uses it for commercial gain…lol). We had a really nice week of weather afterwards, did some more work on the boat, visited our secluded beach, and had a great party weekend over Labor Day.

Secluded beach with fellow D dock slip holders:

This week they demolished the “turd” of a house we bought. I have never watched a house being demolished and I was amazed at how accurate the guys were with the steam shovel. It looked like a hungry dinosaur as they picked apart the structure in sections. The cinder block and brick had to be kept separate because that rubble went to a different dump than the rest of it. Here are some pics of the process:

As of today, the building is gone and most of the trees and brush are gone. They will bring in some dirt to level out the lot, and we will be ready for the building process to begin. That won’t be until next spring, when we get back from the Bahamas. As soon as it stops raining (from approaching tropical storm Julia) I will take and post a pic of the empty lot.

People drive like crap, and prepping for tropical storms

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8/31/16
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

Well…it has been a month since my last post. We just got back from a 3 week trip to Ohio. We visited with family and friends, completed some business we needed to do, and spent most of the time at our house at Lake Erie doing maintenance. We thought we were going to escape the heat of North Carolina, but for all but one week, it was as hot up there as it is here. Even worse, we don’t have air conditioning in our house at the lake! The time went so fast, and as usual, it was great to spend time with family and friends.

With 2 years of living on the boat under our belt, we once again found it difficult to cope with the insanity on the roads. Since June, we have our Jeep Wrangler here in Southport, so we are driving more this summer than we normally do. Most of the driving is within 10 miles of the marina, and it is in our small town here in Southport or the local beach communities. We are certainly not used to driving in the world of highways and hordes of traffic, and I don’t think I ever will get used to it again. It is insane!!! How did we ever do it every day? The biggest difference we notice is that people on the road have become terrible drivers…worse than we ever remember. There seems to be so many distractions to drivers, because there are so many people that are weaving around or going fast, then slow, then fast. It is just crazy. There is also a drastic increase in the number of people that just don’t seem to care if there is anyone else on the road. They hog lanes, pull out in front of you, refuse to use turn signals, sit at lights that are green…it just goes on and on. I think it has been getting worse and worse over the years, but if you drive in it every day, you don’t notice how drastic the difference is. We see it, and it makes me even more glad that we have minimal exposure to it.

Our time up north was cut short by a few days due to the tropical storm threats that have cropped up in the last couple of weeks. We had 2 threatening to impact the Southport area, one off of the coast of North Carolina that was once forecast to be a direct landing yesterday, and the storm that has moved into the Gulf of Mexico and is forecast to pass very near to us in the next several days. We high-tailed it back to try to be here when they hit. The first one turned north and east, and had no impact. The second is still threatening. They are predicting winds in the 40 and 50 knot range, and over 10 inches of rain through Friday and into Saturday. People are prepping their boats, and so are we. We don’t have too much to do for that strength of wind…only to tie down some stuff on the dock, on deck, and in the cockpit. Here is the latest predicted path from the National Weather Service:

The red arrow shows where we are. Our friends here are already starting a “Tropical Storm Party” plan…can’t miss an opportunity to throw a party!!! Stay tuned.

Highfield CL-290 inflatable RIB dinghy

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7/31/2016
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

As written in previous posts, our old Zodiac Zoom dinghy finally bit the dust this year, and we purchased a new Highfield dinghy in June. I thought that it might help other cruisers who are looking for a dinghy if I dedicated a post to review the Highfield, as we benefited from the posts of others before us.

Our selection criteria:
We wanted something that was a little shorter than our Zodiac which was 10′ 3″ long. It frequently got caught or bumped in to stuff when docking Island Bound, and we thought a smaller dinghy might help. We also wanted an aluminum hull, which is rigid but less weight than the fiberglass models. We wanted something that was designed to be dry in choppy/rough seas. The Zodiac was very very wet, and there were times where we could not leave the big boat because it was too rough for the Zodiac. A bow locker to store our crap was not a requirement but was a nice to have.

The evaluation process:
We talked to lots of people that we met in our cruising route about what they were using and/or considering. Based on our experiences it seems like AB is the current dinghy of choice with the cruising community. We were told that before AB was founded, Caribe was the most popular, and employees of Caribe left and formed AB. In the process they built upon the successes of the Caribe design and made further improvements. Highfield was founded by employees of AB with the idea of making further design improvements and providing a lower price point. We found the price of the Highfield to be around $1,000 less than the equivalent AB model, and the Highfield comes with more accessories as well. We were a little nervous about Highfield because there aren’t as many out there yet, and we didn’t find a lot of public reviews online, but after talking to owners we saw while cruising we didn’t find one person that was unhappy with their Highfield.

What we got:
The following features, specifications and options for the CL-290 model are from the Highfield web site.

We purchased a Hypalon version with a bow locker. It came with oars, a dry bag, one seat, a seat cover with padding and extensive storage, a patch kit, and a well designed foot pump.

Our review:
Overall, we really love this dinghy. It has 17″ tubes and a deep keel in the bow that becomes more shallow as it goes back to the stern, but it provides a deep, well protected interior. We have taken the dinghy across and through the lower Cape Fear River, which can be very rough on an ebb tide and can have large wakes from ships and high boat traffic. We would never have been able to do this in our Zodiac. The ride is dry and stable. This dinghy is very robust and stable. The design category of C is rated for 6′ waves, which we hope we never have to test, but we have taken on wakes and waves of 2-3′ with no problem at all. There is a flat double floor with rubber non-skid…I love the double floor. It keeps the dinghy dry and helps support stable footing. You can also run the fuel line under the floor if you keep the tank in the bow locker (we haven’t done that yet).

There are very robust lifting points built into the hull…2 sets on the transom, one low on the floor, and one high on the top of the transom; and two on the floor in the bow. This allows us to lift the dinghy very high on the davits (arms on the back of Island Bound), another improvement over the Zodiac. There are plastic protective rings inside the lifting points to protect the paint on the aluminum…nice design. The oars can be stored on top of the side tubes, ready for deployment, or can be stored inside along the sides with velcro straps. There are 3 large, robust, cleats attached to the outside of the tubes, one on each side of the stern, and one on the bow. They are excellent!

The bow locker is a nice feature. It provides lockable storage, a step to board the dinghy, and a seat. We keep our anchor and safety gear in the locker.

We have a 9.9 HP 4 stroke Yamaha outboard on the dinghy, and it takes about 20-30 seconds to get up on plane with Tricia, myself, a full tank of fuel, and a couple of beach bags of crap. I am not sure if we could get on plane with any more weight on board. It planes really well, but I wish we could get on plane a little faster. A fellow cruiser was able to improve the planing ability with prop modifications and fins on the engine, so we might experiment with that. Our only other negative is the seat. It is great that you can put it in 2 positions, but the plastic is slippery and it is hard to stay in place when you get in anything but smooth water. Also, the really nice seat cover, which has copious storage and is padded, slides back and forth. Maybe we need to do something different than we have. We will experiment with ways to improve the seat experience.