Reply #4: Voyages of the Vicky Mary 2 [View All]

The further south we travel the safer we feel. We stop at a marina. We and the Vicky Mary are welconme there. As we are buying a case of Millers High Life we are told every body is looking out for the rough looking fishing vessel, Vicky Mary. Of course Vicky is rough. Vicky Mary is a hard working powerful hydraulic clam dredge. The sun is setting, we are sipping on the Millers, we decide to continue our journey in the dark. We should reach home about midnight. Shure we will!

We meet the joining of the inland waterway and the Black river. We follow the Black River south under the route seventeen highway bridge past the brightly lighted city of Georgetown. Looks friendly over there.
It is very dark now as we approach Winyah Bay where we again pick up the inland waterway.

It is at South Island where the propeller shaft comes uncoupled from the Velvet Drive gear box. With the rising tide the helpless Vicky is pushed up into the salt marsh grass lining this section of the waterway. Don and I are exhausted, pretty drunk and freezing cold. We rest a bit, I am rolled up in a blanket laying on the hard deck wishing I had my wife to keep me warm. Don is crouched over the two burner gas stove.

After a while I realize I had best do something to get out of this mess. I climb down into the cramped engine room. The four seventy one detroit diesel fills most of the space. I explore the damage, there is none. The bolts holding the shaft in place had vibrated loose and the square shaft key is missing. Don hands me a bolt and a file. In an hour or so I fashion another shaft key, makeshift but it works. We fire up the diesel ease out of the marsh and at low speed continue our journey south into the North Santee River. I steer the Vicky up into the North river and through the seven mile cut into the South Santee river. Don is not familiar with these waters but after we get ready to leave the South River and back into the inland waterway he is ok. Don takes the wheel. Just as we are well into the waterway Don throws the gear into reverse and hollers "Oh Shit".

To be continued...Maybe.