Beaufort (Bow-fert in North Carolina) is usually just a small seaside town with plenty of boats; both working fishing vessels and pleasure craft of various kinds. Nearby Morehead City has a fair sized port, so there is also commercial traffic coming and going through the inlet. Beaufort is not overly touristy to my mind. Nevertheless, a handful of times a year in the area, and one week especially, major fishing tournaments bring many many people and boats to town. My buddy, Victor, kind of set me up. As we were planning the jump offshore from Wrightsville Beach to Beaufort, he never mentioned that we were arriving during the Big Rock Fishing Tournament Week. Victor actually works out of town every other week as an engineer, so it might not have occurred to him. And yet, there I was in another touristy town, even if it was only overwhelmingly touristy for that week.
As Mollynogger lolled in the anchorage off of Front Street downtown, the Beaufort Docks were teeming with fancy boats. I cannot imagine how many dollars worth of gleaming, high dollar fishing boats lined the docks. And boats were in Atlantic Beach and Morehead City too as all the marinas swelled beyond capacity.
As I mentioned, Vic and I had done a reunion cruise of sorts but on the previous trip his mom, Cheryl, had been with us as well. I had promised to take her out sailing once Mollynogger and I were in town. If I recall, there was some weather coming in a few days. We were going to go out on Sunday before the weather, and planned to slip out after the fishing fleet left and return before they all came roaring back for the weigh-in deadline.
After welcoming her aboard and prepping Molly, I started the engine and went forward to raise the anchor. Almost right away I had noticed an odd ticking noise in the engine’s idle. I was hoping it would go away once the engine was warm. We started moving out of the cramped anchorage and motored past Front Street. I grew more and more uncomfortable with the ticking sound. Once we were clear of the anchorage, I asked Cheryl to steer while I checked the engine.
I scrambled down the companionway and unbolted the stairs to lift them out of the way. I grabbed a flashlight and opened the engine hatch just enough to see inside. Right there in front of me a little spurt of exhaust was escaping around one of the injectors. That was not good at all. I won’t cast any aspersions, but there I was trying to take another member of the same family out sailing and was foiled yet again by the engine.
