Days Events:

Wx - nice, 70-80, sunny, some clouds threatening in afternoon but nothing happened. Winds SE 8 as day progressed.

Travel - left Osprey at 07:50, no wind, peaceful, cruised 58 miles to St.James Plantation Marina, arriving 15:15/3:15, so 7.4 hr, avg 8mph. It was often busy with boats, especially all afternoon, with 'swarms of waspy jetskis' around and many runabouts passing us. Witnessed some 'stupid' moves when a large charter boat [100ft length] pulled off a dock and turned around immediately in front of a 38 ft catamaran we had been following, requiring her to rapidly turn away to avoid a collision; she then had another small center console later cut in front of her and just stop! I told her on the radio that her boat's name, 'A moment of Zen', indicated she must have a lot of 'Zen' to handle such poor boatmanship by others.

Had two swing bridges but only had about a 1-2 minute wait for them, partly because we had several other boats waiting as well. Lots of interesting real estate all along the canals or rivers, from trailers/RTM homes to $$houses/yards/landscaping$$. We think that no matter where we have been on the system, the homes/real estate along the water has been similar in architecture, landscaping, etc.

Had one narrow channel at Lockwoods Folly inlet we had to negotiate but really no problems; ironically, we briefly touched bottom while moving at 7 mph about a mile beyond it when going around a tow/barge sitting in the middle of the channel, but no apparent injury to prop/hull; I should have hugged him closer than I did obviously. It was a narrow channel most of the day; as long as stayed in the middle, we were fine, with depths usually over 10ft. Water remains brown, almost like what a Root Beer Sunday would look like, but not as dark as that by Osprey - they call it 'black water' river here.

Marina - St. James Plantation Marina is part of a private condo setting with condos on all sides and a narrow inlet from the AICW. It has 155 slips but offers 50 to transients. A bit isolated, in that it is about 5 miles for groceries, etc. The docks, power pedestals, landscaping, offices, are all first class. [see photos]

Photos - A couple of the real estate along the way; some obviously very pricey parcels. A few of the marina here. One of the 'Hurricane' signs posted on each bridge requiring opening.

MECHANICAL:

Throttle - Had it refuse to go down into idle - stopped at 1000 rpm; able to work it down with short increasing pulses of 2-300 rpm and pulling back toward 'idle' after each 'pulse' would bring it down a bit at a time. Pressure ok. No locking obviously.

Oils, etc. - all ok re oil levels, air cleaners, etc. However...the a/c strainer will need to be cleaned tomorrow; the others still appear clear. But...the Racor fuel filters vacuum gauges are now reading 8-9, in the yellow zone, which has been a steady climb over the past week, and which indicates they need to have the filters changed soon [10 is the magic number - a higher vacuum reading means the fuel pump is having to work harder to pull the diesel through the filter because the filter is getting plugged] -- will likely do when we hit Beaufort, NC on Monday. If changing the Racors, then should change the secondary, on-engine ones as well.

Diesel fuel systems require really clean fuel and almost always have a minimum of 2 filters: a primary, which is next to the fuel tank and separates any water and larger particles from the diesel being lifted to the motors, followed by a secondary one which is on the engine block itself. The engine manufacturer lists what is a preferred filter size - Cummins 5.9 says 30 micron filters for the primary and 10-20 micron for the secondary [the 10-20 are finer and take out the smaller particles passing through the 30].

Tomorrow we are here. Marg will go for groceries while I clean the strainer. Sunday, we head for Harbour Village Marina in Hampstead, NC.

That's all folks. Keep on distancing while keeping in touch.