Well… we are safe. So that’s good. The sail from Morehead city North Carolina with our temp crew went ok. When we first left on the backside of that storm the ocean was a bit moody still. We used the motor to push our way out the Beaufort channel entrance thru the 6 foot waves. Sometimes it got a bit iffy… with the motor at full throttle we would get hammered to a stall by the 3 harmonic waves. I was debating turning back but we pushed on. Eventually as we got to deeper water the wave period opened up and the waves calmed down to about 4 foot average. It was a rough sail for that day though but we were able to make course south at about a 50 degree wind angle.
We also had a new friend Bo who is single handing his Halberg Rassey Monsun 31 foot boat named Rambler. We helped him off the dock at sunrise and followed behind him out the channel. It looked like he was in trouble though… he was a few miles ahead of us but was not making the right turn (to go south), he seemed to be floundering… then turned north!
We learned later that his furler was jammed and he was trying to reef in his headsail. We worried about him that day sailing as the 3 of us were taking a beating in our 40 foot boat… poor Bo was alone in a 31 foot boat… he stopped responding to VHF hails as he went out of our sight. We also saw a coast guard boat going out in his direction.
We learned later that a 55 foot Beneteau with a pro crew of 4 got dismasted about 100 miles north of us and lost their rudder taking a beating in the storm we were just outside of and 4 people were rescued by the coast guard!!! Yikes! Good news we made it thru and Bo did too.
During the night the ocean calmed down as forecast and the night sail was ok… very freakin cold but in gentler seas. We want to say a big thank you to our crew Ethan for his help on that passage. 3 people sharing night watch is so much easier than with only 2 of us. We got more sleep than usual and Ethan got to experience how hard overnight passages are… as he discovered they are brutal. Getting tossed in 4-6 foot waves for 10 hours wears you down… the stress of beating into the wind… rail in the water… wind gusts going up to 28 knots laying the yacht over… Ethan didn’t enjoy that part too much. By the time we arrived in the Cape fear river the next morning we were all tired cold and hungry.
BUT…. we were safe and all survived! YAY!!!
We motored into the ICW and anchored beside Southport marina because our draft was too deep to get in. We got stuck there for almost 5 days waiting for a weather window to make the next jump to Charleston South Carolina. We made the 30 hour passage 3 days ago and arrived here yesterday. Forecasts were wrong as per usual… we had good wind from 6am until 11am… then dead flat calm for 7 hours (we had to motor for 7 hours… yuck)… by around 5pm we got a little wind and by 6pm we turned the motor off and just sailed…. you know… into the wind as always. The forecast said the wind would be behind us (so of course it was on the starboard bow again). It was a rough night very bashy into the 3-4 foot waves which were pretty tight together. We really washed the boat hard and good news… we got some video footage of the misery.
We arrived at the Charleston harbor channel entrance at around 7am and the tidal current was against us… we motored full tilt for about 5 hours to get the 10 miles into safety. We were only moving between 0.8 knots forward in the current to about 1.9 knots. It was long and painful to get into safety here as we arrived at exactly the wrong time. But meh… whater ya gonna do?
We basically anchored yesterday (Wednesday Dec 5th) and cleaned up the mess in the boat and then ate.. drank water and slept. BUT…. today Thursday Dec 6th we decided to go to the Charleston harbor marina and resort and paid for a slip for tonight. We needed internet access… showers… laundry and most importantly to fill our water tanks and refuel. The secret awesome part though is that we are also at Patriots point… they have an Aircraft carrier floating museum AND a destroyer AND a submarine!!! how cool is that?? We spent the afternoon as tourists and enjoyed a lovely day seeing the exhibits.
We are not sure what to do next… we have to leave here tomorrow (Friday Dec 7th) at slack tide at 2pm…. maybe we will make a night sail passage to Beaufort South Carolina (65 nautical miles away)… and try to get in before the nasty starts Saturday morning… and find a safe place to hide… OR… we will get stuck here for about 5 more days… hmm… The nasty winds this weekend will reach 40 knots again and I don’t want to be at anchor this time. Winds will not clear up again until next Wednesday… Stay put and wait… or run 65nm and hide there?
I’m tired of being the captain all the time and responsible for making the hard decisions all the time…. anyone wanna trade places with me?
Cheers sailor fans…