Last week we took the boat out for its first off-shore fishing adventure.
My friends Rob and Dave joined me and we went out of Winyah Bay near Georgetown, SC. We went out about 8 miles to the Georgetown Artificial reef.
It was a pretty nice day weather-wise, sunny with 5-10 knot winds, and the occasional higher gust. It was very hot 95, even with the breeze. The waves were 2′ to 3′, not bad except that the timing was not regular so the boat was really rocking.
Rob is from New Hampshire and was not used to the heat, so he spent a lot of the trip sleeping in the shade.
We didn’t catch much, two small ones and a little shark. But, it beats a day in the office!
The boat ran great, except for a continuing issue with raw water flowing through the generator. I think that the fins from the old raw water impeller I replaced are stuck in the heat exchanger. That’s my next major project.
We only had one panic moment. We were on autopilot at the edge of the Waccamaw while Rob was trolling, and I went down to see how he was doing. Suddenly Dave yelled from the flybridge “Something is beeping and the depth gauge says 3 feet!” I ran back up, put the boat into neutral, and spun the wheel toward deeper water. We drifted and got to about 2 feet before it started getting deep again. Phew!
Nice day overall, did 78 nm total.