36°20′53″ N 75°56′57″ W

Coinjock Marina

We left the Alligator River Marina at 7:30am & headed for the Albemarle Sound.

The sunrise was beautiful but the wind was predicted to be strong while we were crossing the sound & that made for a rough crossing.

The wind was coming across our port side & it was bringing up 1-2 foot high whitecaps that caused a great deal of side to side rocking & rolling for us for the next 4 hours.

Most of the pantry shelves managed to empty themselves onto the galley floor but thankfully nothing got broken. However, there was one heck of a mess to clean up!

Ed did a yeoman’s job steering through the rough water while I kept the galley secured. This went on until we finally entered the canal on the other side of the sound & the the waves were gone.

We arrived at Coinjock Marina at 12:30 noon – a pretty short journey time-wise but very physically tiring.

Ed & I celebrated our arrival with a cold beer on the flybridge.

I was looking forward to a lazy afternoon when I heard the bilge pump running continuously in the engine compartment. Not a good sign.

I opened up the floorboards & started to investigate. Needless to say, the bilge pump is located in a spot that is not at all easy to get at.

Turns out that the float that starts & stops the bilge pump would rise high enough to start the pump but it would not go down far enough to turn the pump off when the bilge was empty!

I cleaned up the switch & the sump area where it is installed but it would still not shut off automatically. This concerned me because there was no electric backup if the pump just continued running until it burned itself out. There is a manual bilge pump on board but it’s not practical to rely on it for intermittent use.

Even after cleaning the float switch area the pump would not shut off reliably. It just needed a tiny bit extra weight because just the gentlest touch would shut the pump off.

I took a penny, dabbed one side of it with Goop & stuck it on the top of the float switch. Voila! Problem solved! I watch the pump run through 4 cycles & it worked perfectly! Now on to the next problem……

We have a leaky connection on one of the plumbing hot water lines in the engine compartment. The connection was put together incorrectly & it constantly leaks even when the pressure pump is off – to the point where we have to fill one of the fresh water holding tanks at least every other day. I managed to get the fitting apart & after a lot of sweating (& more than a few choice words) I managed to get it back together properly & the leak finally stopped. Hopefully that will be the end of that problem.

So, instead of having 3 or 4 hours to relax, the time was used to be a mechanic/plumber. Such is life for an old goat on an old boat!

We got cleaned up & headed to the marina restaurant. The place was packed but we managed to get a table.

When we got back we found that we had a new neighbor behind us on the dock.

Our little trawler continues to run with the big dogs!

Cheers!