Adventures in Fuel Lines, Part I

I woke early the next morning, showered and made coffee, and by 7:30am we were casting off the lines and heading down to the fuel docks to fill the tanks and begin the trip south to St. Mary’s.

The original plan was to stay at St. Mary’s Boat Services, colloquially “Rocky’s”, named after the guy who runs it. Everyone I had spoken to about it said good things about Rocky in particular. The advantage of SMBS was that it is a DIY yard, and I wanted to be as hands-on as possible for this “mini refit”; these days, most yards won’t let you do your own work.

St. Mary’s is on the border between Georgia and Florida; situated on the St. Mary’s river, one can either take the ICW down from Brunswick, or head outside via St. Simon’s Sound and then back in via the St. Mary’s River. With reasonable weather, we elected to head outside - a bit of a risk, as there are no sails on board currently, but the engine was rebuilt in 2023 and I trusted it.

Ignore the tracking issues where we supposedly went over land…

The day was beautiful, and although we are in between autopilots (old one disconnected, new one not yet installed), it was a gorgeous and easy trip down - sun shining, warm weather, and good music on the new speakers.

With the motor humming along at 2400rpm and a favorable current, we made 7kts for much of the day, and around 3pm we reached the St. Mary’s River.

St. Mary’s Boat Services is tucked up on the North River, a tributary for the St. Mary’s River. Rocky asks that customers primarily communicate with him by text, and while he does respond, he gets hundreds of messages per day and is often busy working, so his replies can take a bit. I had let him know we’d be arrive that afternoon, coordinated with my insurance to add the yard as an additional insured, and we headed up the river.

The North River itself is twisty and shoals up regularly, but with the newly functioning depth sounder I was not terribly concerned. We configured the chart plotter to track our progress every 30 seconds, so that we’d have a precise line to follow back out, and we made our way up to the yard slowly.

The North River has a large tidal range, and we arrived too late for high tide - 12’ - and even with our shoal draft (just under 5’), we felt the keel touching mud and backed off. Thankfully, we didn’t get stuck.

I tried texting and calling Rocky, but he didn’t reply.

We held station for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do, and someone came out and shouted that it was too shallow for any entry and we’d have to come back. It was also obvious that the yard had closed for the day, and despite our plans, nobody was going to be there to take us up in the lift even if we did reach it. We had three options: anchor out, leave and wait for high tide at 9pm, or come back another day. Since the yard was apparently closed, and there was no dock to tie off to, we decided to leave, following our breadcrumb route on the chart plotter and heading back to the deeper waters of the St. Mary’s River proper.

While we did so, I found the St. Mary’s Intracoastal Waterway marina nearby, and reserved dockage online, figuring it would be more comfortable for everyone if we grabberd a secure spot for the night. We tied up easily enough, and headed into the charming town of St. Mary’s for the evening.

Tied up at the St. Mary’s Intracoastal Waterway marina, a town dock.

St. Mary’s is very small and very comfortable. We went for a pre-dinner walk, enjoying the quiet streets, southern architecture, and friendly vibes - mandated, apparently, by the signage in the town park.

Watch your language!

Don’t give into temptation, don’t give into temptation…

Spanish moss hanging…

After a taco dinner, we stopped a local bar (one of two?), and caught some live music from a cover band that was far better than they had any right to be. The lead guitarist, despite his age, would have fit into any stadium-level 80s metal band. Talent and opportunity are not always conjoined, or perhaps this is where he wants to be, but it made for an unexpectedly fun night regardless. I’m not a particular fan of cover bands in general, but something about the place and company made it possible to set my cynicism aside for the evening.

That’s an axe.

We retired around midnight, Blue Turtle lying calmly on her lines in the moonlight. The weather forecast showed a gale coming through starting late the following afternoon, but we planned to be at Rocky’s for the morning tide at 10am, well before it arrived.

Photo courtesy of Netaly.

The next morning, I made coffee and we warmed up the motor, and set off around 9:30am.

Less than a minute off the dock, the motor starting hunting, with the RPMs going up and down slightly. I called down to Brenton to let him know, and before he could even reach the helm, the engine died. My first thought was air in the lines, or bad fuel, and I handed the wheel off and went into the engine room.

Blue Turtle has a dual-racor setup, and I tried switching them first, thinking it might be enough. No luck. I could see air in one of them, and bleeding the engine and dealing with it would have to wait. I went back above, and we came up with the plan.

With no sails on board, and no motor, we spun her around and headed straight at the dock. Our only chance, and 100% reliant on Brenton’s skill at the helm, was to build enough speed to make way and then cut hard to port at the last minute. I’d leap off with lines in hand, and try to use them to slow her before we crashed.

Heart in throat, we caught the wind and current, and came roaring back at 90 degrees to where we’d just been tied up - at least 5 knots. This was a one-shot deal, and we all knew it. As the last minute, Brenton threw the wheel over, and I took a flying leap - the thing you’re taught to never do! - and made it. The too-short dock lines in hand, I managed to get the stern line wrapped, and heaving with all my might I yelled out that I had one line on.

Brenton rushed forward and jumped off, wrapped the breast line and then ran forward and got a turn on the bow line. Heaving as hard as he could - and Brenton has some height and strength on me - we managed to stop her, just barely. Brenton strained some muscles, but we’d made it.

I texted Rocky to let him know we’d not be arriving that day, and starting digging into the engine fuel system. To be continued…