Month: November 2019

On the thirteenth day from our original port of Hampton,VA. We found ourselves in Charleston, SC hemmed in by weather. The storm system that we had been unable to outrun was/is sitting just off the coast until at least Sunday. We have already spent a day on maintenance and upgrades. It was decided over dinner that Dennis and I would take our leave and rejoin our lives in Chicago. I don’t have the time to stay on until the weather cooperates and allows Last Chance to continue further south. Rod now has a few days to reorganize the boat as a livaboard for one and continue on when he is ready.

The new Garmin navigation system was up and working. There are still a number of issues that need to be worked out over time such as fitting a Bimini/dodger, but as anyone with a boat would know, outfitting a boat is an evolutionary process centered around the owners likes and dislikes coupled with how the boat will be used and what the boat needs to best accomplish that use.

The trip started as a long distance passage to the Caribbean and has ended up as delivering a boat and its’ new owner further south utilizing the ICW and coastal sailing. We were able to shakedown and test most of the systems of the boat and I have learned a lot in the process. Last Chance started the trip as a Great Lakes club racer and is now well on its’ way to being a tropical livaboard.

I thank Rod for the opportunity and thank y’all for reading. As far as what is next? I have no idea. (Inside joke)

After waking up to cold air and the promise of gale force winds off shore, we elected to do some boat maintenance and upgrading. We were off to West Marine, they love us there! The navigation by iPad had become a liability given we could not keep it charged at the helm and it was not waterproof for inclement weather. Rod decided to upgrade to a Garmin navigation package that Dennis was able to work his magic on and get hooked up. We also got some engine maintenance done.

We moved the boat back through the low bridge at low tide and found a spot on the MegaDock! The boats were huge. They were a lot of “Below the Deck” style boats and young crew members running around. After the day of work we headed into Charleston to find some grub. It felt strange to walk for a mile and a half uninterrupted. We found ourselves at Hyman’s for Seafood. I highly recommend it!

We awoke to a nice breeze and everything set except for two things, we had intended to stop in the bar for one beer while we were doing laundry…. that said, after a few beers and a few plates of spicy crab claws we had “a little hitch in our giddy up” on Monday morning. The other issue was having an offshore harness for all three of us. Now I know the bar situation sounds unnecessary, but it paid off. We got to talking with the other patrons and the bartender about our plight. Brian (the bartender) agreed to sell us the needed harness. Amazing where help can come from isn’t it? Unfortunately we had to get him out of bed.

We set out from Southport motor sailing with both sails up at about 6.6 kts. The weather warmed slightly to very nice temperatures. The main attraction after clearing the other traffic had to the dolphins. They were too fast to get a picture, the show was great at times jumping completely out of the water not more than 6-10 feet away from the boat.

It was very relaxing compared to the ICW. Just follow a course, sometimes with the autopilot instead of the constant attention needed to stay in the canal. We organized ourselves into 3 hour shifts with the first starting at noon. Since we had 3 people that meant one round was 9 hours, 9 times 3 is 27, given the 24 hour day your shifts for the next day move one slot forward each day. If I had the noon shift day one, I would have the 3PM the next day.

As night fell the radio chatter fell off the full moon made it delightful. Dennis made us a meal of fried chicken, green beans and garlic with some potatoes mixed in (manly man food). The main event of the night came when a Navy cruiser came across the vhf stating it’s coordinates and informing us that they would be imposing a 5 mile no contact zone around “His war ship”. We responded and were informed not to deviate from our course and that they knew where we were. We never saw them out there, but we sure heard them on the radio!

When morning came the weather was great! Warmed up to 70 degrees smooth sailing but we knew a front was on the way. We tried to outrun the gale force winds to get to Jacksonville FL. The weather caught us and we barely made it into Charleston. It seems other people had the same idea and most of the moorings were unavailable. We did find one though, it was on the other side of a fixed bridge that was 50 to 58 feet high depending on the tide. According the specification sheet on the boat our mast was 53 feet without antenna. We pushed on for the bridge against the wind and tidal current. I think the phrase was uttered more than once “I’m givin’ all she got, Captain!” . We passed under the bridge at 1:53pm, low tide was 1:51. It was a little tense.

After getting to the dock with the temperature at 65 degrees, the rain came and it dropped to 30 overnight. Tomorrow we will check the weather on how resume the trip.

Well, yesterday we were unable to leave because we lacked one offshore harness. It was thought we had something that would do, but we did not. We stayed in Southport and had a wonderful meal of spicy crab claws. When we procure the needed harness we will leave.

I must admit that the cruising community has been a lot of fun. At the bar last night we made friends with several cruisers and the bartender. I do like how the locals stand by there team, the bartender bet me a beer on the Packer/Panther game. I told him nobody bets against Aaron Rogers.

We had a bit of an issue leaving the dock given the tidal current being very strong. Note to all, check the current before undoing any lines… any. That said we going fuel up in Southport this afternoon and head out into the sea! Our course is set for Georgetown, SC, Savanah GA or Jacksonville FL. It depends on the weather and sea conditions as to which port we make. This would put us out for one, two or three days. I will send a go no-go update from Southport.

We anchored at Camp La Jeune, an army training facility with occasional live fire training exercises. Because of the exercises, we need to be out of there by 7:30 the morning……. It was a cold night! Wore gloves and hat to bed! I was sleeping quite well until we felt a shudder through the boat. The anchor had dragged across the bay and we were touching bottom on the other side of the bay. Once got all outerwear on, got the boat started and moved to safe anchorage, it was 4:45am. We might as well stay up and get going at sunup.

Today we intend to make it to Cape Fear south of Wilmington. This will give us a jumping off point at Southport into the open sea. That leaves us with another day of traveling ICW. Our trip will take us inside the Caroline Outer Banks.

Once underway we had some charging issues with our navigational iPad, it shutdown arbitrarily a couple times which caused us loss our course map. We did not get the course reloaded. Consequently, we took a wrong turn that headed us off course. Upon learning of our error we turned the boat around the boat in very narrow channel. Unfortunately, the shifting currents made the navigation aids in the words of the Coast Guard “unreliable” on this particular river. After turning around we got stuck rather quickly. The tide kept going out worsening our situation. Alas, we found ourselves in 4.4 feet of water with a boat draft of 6.25 feet, time to call for a tow.

TowboatUS came to the rescue with 400 horse power of persuasion. Jeremy, the driver of the tow boat, certainly gave us the impression that “this was not his first rodeo”. After quite a bit of struggling we got the boat free, Jeremy stayed with us until we back to the proper channel (we needed to be pulled free twice on the way back).

After getting back on course, we recalibrated our destination to Wrightsville Beach, NC. We had to wait for two bridges to open on the way further delaying us. We have been throughly entertained by the channel 13 conversations of the southern bridge operators. Maybe if I had it all to do over that would have been a worthy career aspiration!

We made our destination in the dark. At a great dinner we discussed our plan. We going out into the open water at Cape Fear/Southport. We will be watching weather today and may go this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

The rain where were and a storm off the coast meant we are destined to travel the ICW another day. At least it will be just inside the Carolina Outerbanks, There will be less swamps to travel and we should get some sailing in.

Back to the cruise at hand. We cruised through North Carolina inside the outerbanks. Ran aground once due relocated navigation buoys, had a relatively tense moment with a swing bridge that did want to open. All of these issues were taken in stride given the experience, competence and all around preparedness of the crew of Last Chance. The highlight of the afternoon was the surfacing of a dolphin within 3 feet of the boat. No lie, it was so close it scared the crap out of me but was an awesome sight.

If could use one word to describe the afternoon and evening it would be… Cold, At 49 degrees going to 39, it is very cold. I realize many of you don’t have sympathy for us, but keep in mind this is not what we packed for and will be sleeping in all of our clothes!

*Disclaimer: It has been brought to my attention that some pictures are being rotated and appear horizontal when they should be vertical on windows and android devices. Sorry, I have not figured out a fix and don’t have time to research while underway.

Today we are running to Morehead City on ICW. Should be a relatively short trip so we can continue a few more preparations for open water on the ocean. We should be there by 10 or so in the morning since we are leaving at 6.

Well, we did indeed get underway and made it safely into Morehead City. We also found out on the way that the high chair fishing boat were hunting Jumping Mullets apparently a delicacy.

Once at the dock, we stoped at the marine hardware store to get supplies for life harnesses and jacklines to keep us in the boat if the going gets rough. We also raised the main sail to put in the battens (long rigid strips of fiberglass that give the sail shape) and also figured out the reefing system (a series of lines designed to pull sail down and make it smaller in heavy winds). We are pretty close to being ready to go out into the high seas.

After provisioning the boat with a trip to Walmart, we headed to West Marine for among other things rain boots for me, next time I will ready. With most of the work out of the way, we hit the streets of Morehead City for R & R and dinner.

From there, the evening ground to halt. Pretty tired from getting up at 5.

Today we intend to continue down the ICW which will take us across the Pungo River with waters deep enough to raise the sail for the first time see how she sails. We raised the genoa and she handled great! This is what I signed up for, this and Caribbean Beaches!

Alas It was short lived! We had to go back into the canals. Traveling through the North Carolina countryside we saw shrimp boats, and fishing boat type that is a open hull with the pilot high up in a chair looking along the shore. Not sure what they are looking for? Clam beds? We headed out into the open water of with some choppy seas on our route to the Pamlico Sound. White caps, and good size swells, real manly stuff.

For night we settled into a mooring along the ICW. All in all a good day. Highlighted by getting the genoa sail up and being able to see stars at night. The sky was awesome!

We started off the day simply enough by raising the anchor and rejoining dredged path.

The first situation that arose was a C-130 Coast Guard plane flying overhead taking a banked turn over us twice. That was quite a sight and we were wondering who they might looking for? Shortly after the second flyover we discovered that the VHF radio on our boat was transmitting a distress signal that we did not knowingly turn on and did not know how to turn off. Time to turn the radio off and go with the handheld. I guess we still have some things to learn about the boat!

Next, the first session of rain set in while we were underway, up until this point we had dealt with rain while at the dock or at anchor (on the hook, I just like referring to the anchor as a hook. I think it makes me sound like I know what I am talking about). This meant, you guessed it, I finally got to try out my new foul weather gear ( foulies) . It would have worked out fine had I purchased the boots as well, soggy feet kinda ruined the effect. At least I was better off then my shipmate Rod, his gear wasn’t actually waterproof. Dennis had good gear stayed dry and had boots, but was still grumpy (this seemed to be a theme).

From here on out things got interesting enough that taking pictures became unimportant. We are using Navionics Marine Navigation software on our iPads which proved to be an excellent guide. We had a miscommunication about what the different markings meant which lead to us running aground. No big deal, just a lot of animated discussion as you can imagine.

Mid afternoon several of the boats traveling along with us decided to anchor for the night. We took a vote to push for the next stretch which we would end up motoring in the dark. I voted we go for it and on we went. During the next 3 hours we experienced thunderstorms and lightening in the dark. We had times of zero visibility and had to motor along picking our way from navigation buoy to buoy. We came up with a good system, Rod on the iPad watching the course from below (to keep the iPad dry). I relayed and translated (more that later) what Rod told me for Dennis who was at the helm, while keeping the lookout for buoys. It was a little stressful. Ok, it was a lot stressful, but we made it in to the marina without a hitch!