Day 3 Gale Force Winds and Honey, Where is the Dinghy

I got up at 7:30AM this morning to go find breakfast. The marina opened at 8:00 and the gas dock opened at 8:30. We were first in line, since that is where I parked a couple of nights before. There was a small craft advisory as the winds were steady at 25MPH with gusts up to 45MPH. "I have a good feeling about today", said one braided, blond haired woman that happened to be riding on the boat. That, I think, angered the gods of the sea as our ride was extremely rough!! So rough, in fact, that before we even got to the Port Royall Sound, we heard a thump, which caused a chain reaction to look back at the source of the sound. What we saw was definitely a sign that the gods were angry as the beautiful dinghy that caused such hard work and delays, before setting of on this journey, was quite visible, it just was not attached to Sweet Caroline.
Hind sight, tells me that there were a couple of flaws in the engineering that went behind securing the Davit system and dinghy; I tied the transom of the inflatable into the cute little Searay emblems that are built into the swim platform. Hopefully there will be one in stock at some Searay dealer along the way, as I seem to be missing one now. The other strap is no where to be found either. Getting the dinghy back was also a challenge since we were in about 2 foot swells with a very rough surface.
Well, now that the dinghy has been loaded and secured, we moved on. Into the Port Royall Sound that is. We were looking at 4 foot waves with an extreme chop on the surface. We were going about 7 knots all the way across, which warranted a half of Dramamine for BJ.
BJ made her first repair underway as one of zippers from the canvas camper side came apart. She found the only unused bungees to secure it to the cooler, which keeps it from flapping in the wind. She is also making great strides in boating terminology and dock handling. She should be an expert by the time we get back.
The day did not get much better as far as the water went. I had to reprogram the routes on the fly several times due to Garmin issues (see below) and we did not make it to our planned destination of Jekyll Island, but we made the best of it and made it to St. Simon Island.

The Marina
Hampton River Club Marina
BJ called ahead to ensure they would have a dock hand, fuel, and a slip available for the night. The woman said they were open until 6:00PM and even if we did not get here by then, they would have a night dock hand that will fuel us up and even open the ship's store, if needed.
The verdict: This place sucks!! They did not answer the radio as we were trying to pull in, so we decided to dock ourselves. At this point, some guy came by and said the ferry that was coming down the creek had "priority". It was around 30 feet, and the dock is at least 100 feet, so even with priority, there should not be a problem. We watched 6-8 people mill around, load and unload the ferry, as well as various other mundane duties. I decided to dock up wind to the fuel dock, so we could dock ourselves, since it was obvious that no one was going to help. The service here is pitiful, and the ship's store only had a stock of Gatorade in the same cooler with some sort of half eaten turkey carcass. The ambiance is even greater. It is a redneck haven with "rustic" charm. The docks are falling apart. The electrical would scare anyone, and the amenities are non existent. I guess that is why the add stated "Nature watching is the main activity on this pristine island", because there is nothing to see here.

Garmin Rant
As a new feature with this blog, I have included a Garmin rant, which could either be the lessons learned from the GPS Chartplotter, or stupid things that make me mad I spent money on this brand of electronics.
Today's lessons are:

1. You cannot have too many waypoints in any route. If you do, is just truncates the routes with they are full. No rhyme nor reason on what routes it accepts or rejects. I had to eliminate all routes except for one in order to have the entire route load today. The route was from Thunderbolt Marina to Jekyll Island. You would think that the Mapsource program would provide warnings.
2. When updating the Mapsource software from 8.0 to 8.5, there is no easy way to update the unlock codes for the maps that have already been purchased. I still have to use the 8.0 maps until I figure this out.
3. Every time you write to the memory card, you have to disconnect and reconnect the card reader before the Mapsource program will write to it. It claims that the driver cannot be loaded otherwise.

Yesterday's Lessons:

1. It only accepts 13 characters for a route name. If your routes have the same first 13 characters, then the second route (in alphabetical order) will over write the first one. You would think that the Mapsource software would provide warnings.

Searay Rants

I love this Searay boat, but there are still things that should be fixed. Here they are.

• The driver's seat should be centered directly behind the steering wheel. What gives?

Daily Stats

• Hours of travel: 7.2 hours
• Avg. moving speed: 18.2MPH
• Overall Avg. speed: 18.0MPH
• Total Distance: 129.6 Miles
• Fuel Consumption: 162.4Gals
• Lat/Long: 31.17.735/081.20.553