Counting Seafood and Ways to Spend 40 Grand

Jun 7 - 14, 2004

Wednesday, June 07, 2006 - Georgetown, Georgetown, SC
By Tom

I got a call this morning from Enterprise Car Rental to inform me that the car I was supposed to get this morning never showed up yesterday. The rental dude said he was sorry and that he had made arrangements for me to get a car from Hertz. Hmmm.

Hertz showed up at the proper time and took us to their office. Unfortunately, their office was exactly 4 blocks away. I kind of felt like a dick for having them pick us up when they were so close. Maybe someone should have told us.

Anyhow, we got the car and took both ferrets to the vet. Milo came along to provide moral support. We didn't have a carrying case for them, so I used an empty Kalik Beer box to store them during the dinghy ride in.

Once in the car, they became free range ferrets. This doesn't sound bad, but try to imagine working the brake and gas pedals with ferret assistance. By the way, if anyone was wondering, Milo is the exact perfect size to fit completely under the brake pedal of a 2006 Chevy Malibu, thus rendering the peddle ineffective.

Car antics aside, the appointment went off without a hitch, but neither Amy or I are impressed with the doctor. He was kind of a pud and did not instill confidence. Instead, we have made an appointment with the ferret specialist back home for a week from Friday.

Dudley Doo-little did however manage to draw blood from Mila that we then shipped out to a clinic in California. We should have the results of her blood screen before our scheduled appointment next week.

After the vet, we stopped by the Piggly Wiggly before returning the car and returning to our boat. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at a local water front bar for a few beers and an order of flash fried tuna bites that were most excellent.

Tomorrow we continue the trek north.

Thursday, June 08, 2006 - Calabash Creek, Little River, SC
By Tom

We left at 5:45 am this morning to catch a favorable tide heading north. Milo and I manned the ship alone until 9 am when Amy and Mila graced us with their presence. Don was supposed to be up at the same time following us out, but no one appeared to be awake when we went by.

We had a good push from the tide all day and we averaged 7.2 knots. It was an extremely un-eventful and boring day. We stopped for fuel and sodas briefly in Bucksport, but we were back under way within 20 minutes. If you've never been to Bucksport, it's worth checking out, at least if your into Deliverance.

By the way, I can confirm that Barefoot Landing is no longer a free place. Apparently, someone has bought the dock and they no longer allow the cruisers to stop there for free. Milo thinks that these people suck and that they are probably French and as such should be deported.

We pushed all way up to Calabash Creek right on the border of North and South Carolina. Around sunset a severe thunderstorm moved in and we had winds in excess of 45 knots and lots of lighting and rain. Anam Cara and us weathered the storm fine, but another catamaran in the anchorage ended up dragging anchor and they came to rest about two feet up on the beach. Sucks to be them.

Bad weather kept us in all night. Tomorrow we head up to Southport.

Friday, June 09, 2006 - Pipeline Canal, Southport, NC
By Tom

Another boring day in the ditch. Once again, however, with superior timing we managed to have a favorable tide all day. We ended up covering 50 miles in about 6.5 hours.

After we got the hook down, I assembled our dinghy so I could test our newly rebuilt carburetor. Suffice it to say that it's still broke. A nice person in a passing powerboat and his 3 year old son towed us back to safety.

With the complete and utter failure of the dinghy engine test, we removed the engine and paddled the dinghy to a nearby beach. From the beach we hiked a mile or so over to a deli for a late lunch. I had two hot dogs and a beer while Amy had some sort of vegetable wrap from California. Both were reported as being good.

Later, in the afternoon Don and Sandy showed up and anchored near us. A couple of small power boats were also anchored nearby enjoying the nice weather. One of these power boats had this ugly drunk girl who kept flashing the boats as they passed by. Sorry dear reader, but this isn't as good as it sounds. Suffice it to say that most of us wished she would have kept the shirt on.

Remember; spandex is a privilege, not a right.

Saturday, June 10, 2006 - Mile Hammock, Mile Hammock, NC
By Tom

Today's ditch adventure landed us another 55 miles northward at the popular Mile Hammock Bay anchorage. This anchorage is actually part of Camp Lejune and when we've been here before, there are usually military maneuvers in progress.

I think the military took the day off because there were no beach invasion, no artillery fire and not a single soul in camouflage. Milo maintained a vigilante watch in the sniper tower, but to no avail. Oh well, maybe next time.

We anchored with 6 or 7 other boats including the Anam Cara's. All in all it was a pretty un-eventful day. As I figure it, we are 2 days away from our dock in Oriental. It will be good to get home.

Sunday, June 11, 2006 - City Dock, Beaufort, NC
By Tom

We're currently tied up to the City Dock in Beaufort, NC. I know, I know, what are we doing in the marina?

Well, without our dinghy engine, getting to shore was going to be difficult at best. At least thats how I'm justifying it in my little world. Anyway, there is a fishing tournament starting tomorrow and there must be 150 mega sport fishing yachts here.

I was talking to one of the crew members on the sport fish next to us about the cost of their rods and reels. They have 16 rod and reel combinations and the reels are easily as big as my head. Would you believe that the reels by themselves cost $2500 a piece?

Ex-squeeze me? Your telling me you have over $40,000 dollars in fishing rods? Hell, half of the 450 boats we saw in Georgetown this past year weren't worth 40 grand!

You must have to catch a lot of god damn fish to break even with that kind of investment.

Ok, in other news, Don and Sandy came over this afternoon and the four of us went to a water front bar that had live music by some stoned out whacko with no shoes and a lot of hair. Freakin hippie! He was ok and the beer was cold. Later back on the boat, we all plugged our lap tops in to charge (we have shore power) and surfed the internet via the free Beaufort Wi-Fi hot spot. We love free wi-fi.

Tomorrow we make the final push towards home, or at least our temporary home at the Steve and Sally Spa, Car Rental, Marina and Bar Resort. (SSSCRMBR) I like to pronounce this as SSSSSS-SCRIMBER, but your mileage may vary. Or it may appear closer in the rear view mirror.

Anyway, it seems as if this cruising season is rapidly coming to an end.

Monday, June 12, 2006 - Steve and Sally Dock, Oriental, NC
By Tom

Hooray! We're home! Kick ass!

We half motored and half sailed the final 25 miles to Steve and Sally's, arriving in the early afternoon. We spent the remainder of the day getting the boat secured and the gear put away. It's good to be tied to a dock again.

Now that we are home, I tallied the seafood caught, kept, and processed by Team Dream Catcher since November 1 of last year when we crossed over to the islands. Keep in mind, these numbers do not count fish returned to the wild. The final number of kept fish was 131, which weighed in at a combined total of 515 pounds. There were also 32 lobsters, and 17 conch harvested as well.

Of the 131 fish, only 35 were caught trolling, but they made up 315 pounds of the 515 total weight. As it turns out, 2 out of every 3 fish caught while trolling got returned to the wild, while only 2 fish of the 98 taken via the spear were not eaten.

Now lets see, if I had $40,000 in reels, our fish this season would have come out to about 127 dollars a pound. As it was, given our expenses for gear and tackle, a pound of fish ended up costing about 25 cents for us this year. Oh yeah, pretty nice!

In other summary news, since we left last September, we have covered just over 5,500 nautical miles. Thats about 6,250 American miles for those of you at home. In that time we burned 195 gallons of gas in the big boat and an additional 70 gallons of gas in the dinghy.

For the record, total motoring mileage in the big boat comes out to about 1300 miles, with total fuel expenses in the Bahamas totalling out at 750 dollars.

Back on the home front, we hung out with Steve and Sally for a little bit this evening and they are doing well. Tomorrow we are having a welcome home happy hour, so we'll get to see the rest of the neighbors.

Don and Sandy are anchored near by and they will be hanging out with us for a few days before they continue northward towards the Norfolk, Virginia area. Another boat we met in the Bahamas named Zing is also anchored near by.

The first named storm of the year is slowly moving our way, so I guess our timing in getting back was pretty good. Now that we are here, we will probably stop doing daily logs, but I will probably do a general update once a month or so until we figure out what we are doing next.

We are both on the fence about maybe taking a year off of cruising and doing some traveling on our motorcycles, but as of yet neither one of us are committed to the idea. Who knows?

Ok, so that about wraps it up. Thanks for reading along and we'll be back after these important messages from our local sponsors. Check back soon. Peace !