There are at least 25 kite surfers in the river today, as well as several windsurfers, and every size of sailboats. Great Saturday for the locals to get out on the water.
OMG! Three dolphins came so close to the boat that I could have jumped on their backs! Wow! Have I mentioned how much I love dolphins? I could watch them all day. Oh, yeah, I HAVE watched them all day. LOL. Earlier, a pelican flew only a few feet behind the boat. Pelicans are huge birds, graceful flyers, and so interesting to watch. We are getting a real nature show today. While we were watching the dolphins throughout the afternoon, Carey and I both thought we saw a different tail flip above the water. We, separately, described it as black and thinner than the dolphin tail. Could this be a Right Whale? Hmmmm. We never did get confirmation, but we believe it's a strong possibility.
Sunday, April 30, 2017 and Monday, May 1, 2017
We left this morning by 7:20. By 9:00, we had both sails up and were sailing on a close reach in 10-15 knots. Our SOG was 5.8 on average. The wind gradually freshened and the swells got a bit bigger throughout the morning, but nothing too crazy. After lunch, the swells still seemed to be getting slowly bigger, but the wind came and went, fluctuating.
The water in the inlets and rivers is usually brackish and brown now. Yuck, it's giving us a yellow moustache on our bow. In the ocean, coastal cruising, we've been staying close to the coast in 30-50 feet of water. Here, isn't the deep blue of the ocean or the aquamarine of the BVIs; more like a pretty green shade.
At 4:00, we were approaching Winyah Bay, our destination, but we decided to bypass it. Instead, we decided to go to Murrel's Inlet, another 23 miles further. Since tomorrow looked like the weather and swells might be iffy, we'd rather have a shortened day tomorrow. By going the extra 23 miles today, it reduces tomorrow's trip to closer to 45 miles. If we leave early in the morning, we hope to be at Southport at Cape Fear no later than 2 or 3 o'clock...before the swells start to build to an uncomfortable height.
Around 5:00, suddenly, Carey said, "Turn off the autopilot, something's in the water, right in front of us! It looks like a diver!" I took control of the helm and turned way right. We looked at the thing in the water, just 20-25 feet from our boat, and it was a Right Whale, clear as day! Wow, it was right on the surface. It was black with white markings. So cool. Good thing Carey was watching and we didn't hit it! Once our heartbeats went back to normal, we carried on.
Unfortunately. the next time our heart rates went ballistic was nothing good, As we were approaching Murrells Inlet, I suddenly started noticing the depths were quickly getting shallower. Almost immediately, we went aground. This was out in the ocean, about 2 miles from shore, in an area that was charted at over 20 feet. We should have been fine, but we weren't. Carey jumped on the helm and tried to get us out of there, but every time we moved forward, we hit again. Thank goodness it was sand and not hard coral! The waves started to break onto us, right on the beam, which was when it got scary. Sideways, we were getting hammered. Carey was able to turn us into the waves and get us moved forward (out to sea) one swell at a time. Then, we'd hit bottom again. It took several minutes, which seemed like hours, but we were finally in deeper water. We were definitely not going into Murrells Inlet for the night.
That left us with a few options--either enter one of the small, unknown inlets in the dark, or we could do an overnight passage to Wrightsville Beach, or go to Southport at Cape Fear, a deeper, wider inlet, and arrive in the dark. We decided on Southport to avoid an overnight passage.
By 2:00 AM, we had 17-19 knot winds and 5 foot swells on the beam. Not a comfortable ride, especially scary when we can't see the waves that are about to slap us on the side
We arrived at the Cape Fear Inlet at 3:00 AM and experienced the entrance from hell --that's not why it's called Cape Fear, but it should be! It took over an hour to get through the inlet. We had whitewater, breaking waves as we were entering, because the tide was ebbing, which means it was going out against the incoming swell, which makes them steeper and higher and causes them to break. We were surfing into Southport!
Our plan was to anchor somewhere for the rest of the night, and then figure out what we wanted to do. However, once inside the channel, we had a terrific current pushing against us, along with choppy waves, and nowhere to anchor. We couldn't anchor in the channel and it was too shallow outside of the channel to anchor. Plus, there were no marinas open until 8 and 9 o'clock....aaaarrrrgggghhhhh. We were exhausted, famished, and homeless. Plus, I had a ferocious headache. We motored around in a daze, wondering what to do. Finally, at 7:20AM, we went to Southport Marina and tied up on their fuel dock, waiting for them to open. Then, we laid down for a quick nap. Nope, no nap. The dockhand came out around 7:45 and said they were full, even the spots on the fuel dock! We had to leave. Now, what? He suggested that we try the marina just up the channel. We called them--no room at the inn. We called Deep Point marina--no room at the inn. We called Bald Head Marina--yea, they had a slip for us, but, boo, it was so shallow there that we'd be sitting on the bottom during low tide, if we didn't mind. Aaaarrrrggghhh. Yes, we did mind. Then, we called South Harbor Village. Yes, they did have a slip, but it would be on the outside of a dock with ICW traffic passing right by and the strong forecasted winds blowing us right on the dock. Fine, we didn't care and, by then, we weren't choosy. It was just a mile up the channel, but we still had to get off of this dock. We "sprung" off again, which is a technique we've had to use a few times when strong winds were holding us on the dock. It worked again, but it's always nerve wracking.
We arrived at South Harbor Village Marina in minutes, pulled a u-turn in the channel, and snuggled up to the dock. Finally, a home! After tying up to our satisfaction with extra fenders, we ate reheated leftover pasta, had quick showers to wash off the sea salt, and crawled into bed. A few hours later, we were up. We went to the Dead End Cafe for dinner and then crashed early.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
This is Mom's moving day. Woohoo! Good luck on the move, everybody!
Okay, back to us. LOL
After a lazy morning on the boat, we walked a mile into town for lunch. Cheap, good food. My favourite. However, why does everyone insist on cash? No credit cards accepted, but they would take a personal cheque. Go figure.
Our next step was to get to Wrightsville Beach. This meant getting out of the treacherous Cape Fear inlet and travelling the 61 nautical miles around Frying Pan Shoals to get to Wrightsville Beach. The other option, was to try the ICW route, which included a 65 foot fixed bridge. Our mast height is 67 feet, so this would only work at low tide. However, this route was only 17 miles, and we could go today and not have to wait for a weather window for the outside passage. We decided to try the ICW route.
We "sprung" off the dock (again) at 3:10 PM for the 17 nautical mile trip to Wrightsville Beach. We wanted to arrive at the Snows Cut Bridge at low tide, which is at 7:45. 15 minutes either way would be fine, too. We are giving ourselves lots of time, just in case we run into any delays on the way.
The ICW canals and waterways that we are going through are very narrow with extremely shallow waters on each side. Stressful!
We decided to go for it. We crept closer, and closer, the current pushing us forward, us holding our breaths. We reached the bridge and I stared up at the top of our mast. It looked like we would hit for sure, but, miraculously, it didn't! We floated through without even tinging our VHF aerial on the bridge struts. Oh, happy day! I can't tell you how relieved I was! Wow, we made it through our first ICW bridge.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
We dropped our mooring ball at 6:26 am and were on our way to Beaufort, North Carolina. (That's Bo-Fort, not its South Carolinian cousin, Byew-Fort.) We have to go over 10 miles on the ICW to get to the Masonboro Inlet which will let us out to the ocean. By then, it will be low tide, so I hope it's deep enough for us. According to our charts, we should have lots of water under our keel, but we know how that goes.
There are many pelicans around here. They are funny to watch, because they dive right into the water, but also because they play follow the leader. Five or six pelicans will fly in a line and they copy everything the leader does--fly low, glide, flap, fly higher, glide, flap, turn. So delightful!
Carey navigated us up the narrow ICW canal. Watching for shallow water all the time is not relaxing. Give me open water any day. Along the way, we saw dolphins, pelicans, terns, a cormorant, and Canada geese. We are starting to see some of our northern birds. The fishing boats go roaring up and down here, and there are many of them, seemingly oblivious of the "No Wake" signs.
Around 8:00, we were going through the Masonboro Inlet to the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Phew, we made it out. Very small swells today, so an easy exit through the inlet, for once.
Once out of the inlet, we turned onto our course of 079 degrees, and put up the sails. We left the engine running, because we need to get to the marina by 5:00, because that's when their office closes for the day and no one will be there to direct us to our slip after that. (RPMs 2200; SOG 6.8-7.1; wind speed 11-15 knots; close reach.)
We have reservations at the Town Creek Marina in Beaufort. They have floating docks and are protected from the strong current and south winds. The forecast is for very high winds of 25-30 knots on Friday and Saturday, so we want somewhere secure.
Pretty soon the wind clocked to the north and we had to furl the jib. We left the main up, just to reduce the rolling from the swells, but it was flapping around a bit. The ocean is so calm today. We are just being gently rocked back and forth from the swells.
Diny sent us a new weather word today: cairies. Pronounced just like Carey's. It means "swift moving clouds". Seems appropriate for a sailor. We have no cairies in the sky today, just a Carey in the boat, and he would like to be moving swiftly!
At 2:00, the wind had freshened, so we put out the main and the Code Zero. This increased our speed and we were able to slow the engine to 1800 RPMs. At 3:00, we turned off the engine and just sailed. Getting 7-8 knots SOG!
We followed two Coast Guard vessels into the Beaufort inlet, surfing our way in on smaller swells. We got to the Highway Bascule Bridge just in time for its 6:30 opening (even though the bridgemaster was sleeping and had his radio turned down), and then docked at the marina face dock easily. No one was here at the marina to catch us, but it was an easy landing on their brand new floating dock. As soon as we had snugged up the boat, we walked to City Kitchen Restaurant right here on the dock for dinner. I had the best grouper dinner and Carey's prime rib eye steak was delicious. Sated, we returned to the boat and relaxed for a while before bed.
Thursday, May 4, 2017
After breakfast, we checked the weather forecast, again, and I called Customs. Customs wants us to call frequently on our way up the coast, because they want to be able to keep track of us. No problem with our call in. We are cleared in. Next call will be to Norfolk CBP.
The Town Creek Marina is charging us $1.50 per foot instead of the regular charge of $2 per foot, because we are Towboat US members. Awesome!
After checking into the marina, we decided to try moving to another dock--one that is more protected from the winds and out of the main channel, so protected from boat wakes and tidal currents and waves. The wind was starting to increase, but today's forecast was just for 15 knot winds, so it should have worked. We had the dock hands throw off our lines and headed toward the new slip. It was a tight turn and our bow was being blown hard over by the wind, so there was no way we could make it. Carey aborted the attempt and we tried to turn into another dock. Nope, no way. The boat was being blown sideways right out of the dock channel. We returned to the face dock, but backed in, to the same spot we were in before. Phew, safely tied down once again. (We have no shore power here, but that's okay.). When I checked the wind gauge it said that we were getting gusts up to 28 knots! What!?! No wonder it was hard to maneuvre. Carey did a great job getting us out of there and back to a safe dock. This wind wasn't forecasted until tomorrow and Saturday. It's blowing so hard already that the cover on our chartplotter was blown right off, twice. It's now safely put away, although Carey eventually put it back with a bungee cord around it. We also took down our US courtesy flag. No use it getting flogged to ribbons. Carey also took off most of the bimini canvas to reduce the windage during the high winds.
At 3:00, we borrowed the marina's courtesy car and headed for their downtown. We walked downtown on Front Street on the waterfront. Sound familiar? Lots of shops and good restaurants. Happy days--we found a new Canadian flag! Yippee! Our original one was shredded from too many days in the harsh sun and sea air.
Later, we drove to the Food Lion grocery store. They have everything! I feel like a person who has lived through the depression and now feel I have to stock up on every good thing I see. American grocery stores have all kinds of delicious, easy meal, pre-made stuff. For example, there's a rosemary, olive oil sauce for fingerling potatoes. Just coat the potatoes and bake. Yummy! We also love the Bear Creek soup mixes. Just add water and you have a hearty soup. This stuff is so handy on a boat. This is so unlike the Caribbean stores we visited, with their high prices, poor produce, and lack of variety. I took in two reusable cloth bags and came out with four large ones. Oh, well, we're stocked again.
Back at the boat, I made supper while we both put away our goodies. We have to eat indoors tonight, because our food would blow right off of our plates if we were outside.
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