Hello all, this is going to be a painful post to write. Last week we moved Animaashi from her temporary berth in Broad Creek to Oriental, NC for fueling and as preparations for departure. Broad Creek is a wonderful place to be however it feels as if her slip is the deepest place in the creek and when the water is low we are usually trapped due to a shoal directly behind us by less than a boat length.

So we moved to Oriental for fueling and to maintain the ability to depart on our own schedule. After taking on about 9 gallons of diesel we started getting a strong odor of fuel in the cabin. Investigation reveled that we had diesel leaking into the bilge. We shut off the bilge pump and started soaking it up and removing it with oil absorbing materials and the engine oil extractor so that it could be disposed of. The fuel smell was nauseating and we had to spend the cold weekend with every hatch open to prevent poisoning ourselves with the hydrocarbon toxicity.

The following Monday we moved Animaashi to a local yard under her own power and started the tank diagnosis and removal. It appears that the tank may be original and that it had developed contact corrosion on the bottom and one of the corners.

I am going to have to rely on the yard for these repairs as my arthritis is horrific currently, soon I am going to have to start a significant amount of steroids just to function and to start getting other projects done.

In short we are going to have to remain in North Carolina for a bit to get this resolved. A replacement tank has to be custom fabricated and installed and this will take anywhere from 5 to 8 weeks putting us into nearly the end of January for a departure. With this timeline it makes sense to hunker down for the winter and depart towards Maine in the spring. So unfortunately there will be no photography of the southern parks this winter.

I hope that we can resolve this efficiently and to get some work done on other major systems which have started to show their age. We need your support in this, see below.

At this time your support is critical, I have many things for sale on this website here and on my Online Fine Art Gallery here. I have also set up a GoFundMe for the repairs as we have pretty much lost everything we have in battling this autoimmune disease. These repairs are critical in the management of my condition which has been worsening with every day that we have remained in the Oriental area, we are simply just too far inland at this time.

Please support us and our medically necessary travels by either donating to the GoFundMe or by buying artwork.