Month: May 2020

The rain continues, hopefully we can get out and around past Hatteras tomorrow, Friday. Meanwhile, we are continuing to do some boat maintenance mixed with reading. Our weather window now looks like Friday. We will keep you posted!

On one dramatic note, this morning we heard a loud horn right near us this morning. When I went up on deck to investigate I found a Coast Guard vessel right along side inquiring if we were in distress? Apparently, they have had a distress signal coming from the area and were trying find the source? Deja vu from my C-130 flyover from last fall. Anyway, we checked all of our EPIRBs and radios and assured the Coast Guard it wasn’t us.

We are now sitting in the harbor awaiting better weather to proceed. Our current plan is to head to just outside Lookout Point tomorrow afternoon/evening with the intention of making a run for it at early Thursday. Right now the winds are predicted to be 25-30nm on Thursday coming at us. That would mean we would sailing a close hulled reach until we round Cape Hatteras for about 10 to 12 hours. At which point we can turn north again toward Chesapeake Bay.

Yesterday we got some shopping and errands done. It felt strange to stand on land after 9 days on the boat. We hit the grocery store and Walmart for provisions. Walmart was a culture shock after the Caribbean, but I guess we have to get back to reality sometime! We are now fully provisioned up with fresh vegetables and fruits.

The temperature has dropped quite a bit with the front coming through and the rain. We did have an invitation to come over to one of the other boats a few coves away for cocktails. Given that everyone have been underway for so long, we feel it is a good quarantine risk, but we can’t take Yantina because that cove isn’t deep enough. We declined because none of us felt like taking a 45 minute dinghy ride each way in the rain.

We currently have a pesky leak in the front state room we are all working on given the down time. It is nice that the four of us to share the interest of sailing and boating in general to occupy the four of us.

We are now comfortably anchored in Morehead City awaiting Arthur. We are doing some maintenance and planning a trip to the grocery store for in between rain showers.

I guess pays to know people, Ian is a member of the OCC (Ocean Cruising Club of which Ian is a world member! And yes there are only 20 world members and there is a flag for that!). The OCC representative in Morehead City contacted us, we don’t know how she knew we were here? She claims to have seen our boat from the bridge near us on the way to work. She will pick us up at the nearest marina and drive us to the grocery and wherever else we need to go. This is better than a platinum card!

This morning we going to be joining the Gulfstream as we head north to Lookout Point.  We have already done a sail change this morning by putting the pole out for wing and wing.  We are currently discussing getting out the spinnaker with the light winds while looking for a kick from the Gulfstream.   The spinnaker is up and we have now successfully used all of the sails in Yantina’s portfolio. Unfortunately the current wind is making things less eventful than usual.  As we get closer to shore, we seeing a lot more sailboat and ship traffic. We just saw a US GOVT. ship pass within 6 miles, maybe it was Sean?

We are now in the Gulfstream, cruising along!  Dolphins welcomed us to the current, it reminded me of the sea turtles in Nemo.  They stayed with us for quite awhile, but refused to be photographed.  

We did have a Coast Guard all boats call this afternoon as we were 50 miles or so offshore.  All boats in the vicinity of a certain latitude and longitude were informed to keep a look out for a possible man in the water!!  Some of the boats traveling with us were very close to that area, we were happy to hear the call was not from one of ours. We did not hear how the situation resolved.  News like that is always hard to hear.

We are now 20nm from the beginning of the path into Lookout Point coming in the full sails flying wing and wing with the wind at our backs.  We had to motor a good part of the day through with the current until the couple of hours the winds shifted and can hang sails. We will be anchoring in the dark just outside of Beaufort North Carolina.  Apparently, the tropical depression we were running to get to anchor in front of is due to be named storm Arthur. We intend at this point to hunker down for Sunday and assess Arthur direction as to when we can resume the last 250nm to Hampton, VA in the Chesapeake Bay.

I awoke to a very different scene.  Ghosting along serenely at 6.5nts with the wind at our backs.  It provided a very pleasant morning of sailing. We did have a few clouds threatening to rain on us, which would have been welcome considering how much salt is on the boat from being on a 48hour reach a day ago. 

On a morale note, we are due to pass our 1000 mile mark for this trip in a few hours.  Amazing how the miles add up.

Well the 1000 mile mark has come and gone.  The afternoon has turned into a beautiful one for sailing!  Our Saturday morning leave to meet the right weather is currently paying off.  We cruising along at 7.5-8nts with the wind behind us. The sun is out and after 3 days of jackets and sweatshirts, we are now back in t-shirts!  The laundry is hung from the life lines and we can sit back and enjoy the ride. The plan remains the same, cross the Gulf Stream tonight and tomorrow with an arrival at Lookout Point on Saturday afternoon.  We intend to anchor the night and assess our best timing on the push into Chesepeake Bay.

My Friday night shift finished with a touch drama when at roughly 1:45 in the morning a 100 foot+ ship popped up on radar 2.5 miles off my port bow on a course to cross me at under a mile.  The AIS showed no information at first and then later gave me the ships name specifics. In trying to raise them on the radio to confirm they saw us, we were unable to get them to respond! Finally we phoned them directly through the AIS system to which they responded and confirmed being us.  Crisis averted? Nope. At that time another contact popped up on radar bigger than the first! While waiting for that ship to respond I noticed it was on a parallel course with the first contact and turn with it according. By that time it was a little hard to go to sleep at the end of shift at 2am.

Last night we turned the corner!  We are now flying on a reach with the wind coming from our aft starboard quarter at 17 to 19nm.  There is an accompanying current which combined with sail setup has us flying along 8 to 8.5nts over ground.  Occasional gusts set off the speed alarm set for 9nts, if we keep hitting the alarm it’s time to bring in some sail.  Usually we bring in the Genoa since on this particular boat given the way it is setup the genoa is the ‘accelerator”

Our current plan is to make Cape Lookout by Saturday.  Originally we were shooting for Saturday late night, but we might make it earlier now.  We are racing along a north by northwest course of 325 degrees. We hope to cross the Gulf Stream Current   sometime late Friday. We can then sail on a run with the current into Cape lookout and anchor. The last 200 miles into Chesapeake Bay may have to wait a day or so in that it appears we will run out of wind on Saturday and Sunday.  Our plan is still to make landfall to Hampton, VA.

Last night was a rather dramatic sail as the wind came around behind us.  Late night in the dark we hung the pole to put the genoa out on the starboard side while using the preventer on the main sail to port.  This upped our speed to 8 -9nts in 23- 24nts of wind. The 9nts alarm kept going off on my watch, so we did the only sensible thing to do, we reset it to 10nts. At that speed with the roll and the darkness it was quite a night!  We now have another boat, yonder, which is headed to the same anchorage. As a matter of pride we need to beat him there.

We did make it the edge of the storm and rode a broad reach (90 degrees) for the whole day.  The ride was rough with 6’ – 8’ swells. We were able to ride rather fast, all of 7nts. The decision to leave early on Saturday is looking very good from a weather standpoint.  Along with the front for the storm came cooler temperatures! No short sleeves for now!

We have made contact with 2 or 3 other boats regularly that are taking a similar course.  Yonder, a 50 footer from Canada, has been tracking along with us about 6 miles to the west.  We talk with her captain often. Two Canoes, a catamaran is gaining on us, catamarans are inheritantly faster than monohulls with much less wetted surface.  

The rough seas have very fun to experience.  The feeling of power is quite majestic. Our boat, big as it is, feels small and insignificant in the swelling waves.  A big difference between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Michigan I am experiencing is the difference between waves on both.  When Lake Michigan gets rough, it is a choppy rough with the waves having no decernible pattern. On the Atlantic Ocean, the waves swell and build with space between them.  This can be very soothing especially at night to sleep. That said when you add the current of the ocean to the wave pattern you can get every now and then a really big wave with a corresponding relay big trough to unsettle everything.  Today we ate lunch inside because it was rough, but by dinner time it had settled down enough to eat in th cockpit once again.

A little shout out to Emily, Happy Birthday, Emily! Incidentally, I left my glass on the deck last night, it’s encrusted in salt, perfect for margaritas for your birthday.

I awoke to rain and decreasing wind speed.  We had to motor through a rainstorm, after furling the headsails, we hung a staysail to keep things more stable as the winds increased to 30nm with gust a little higher.  After being below for quite a while, I was not feeling my best so I went up on deck. It was time for my shower anyway!  

Eventually, the storm gave way to very low winds 2-3nm and pretty much swirling, it was very difficult to figure out where the wind was coming from and therefore sail selection was impossible.  Great time to have lunch! BLTs on freshly baked bread, this life is pretty.

After lunch we did some engine maintenance, kelp in the intake filter.  Took down all the sails and motored for awhile. A second line of storms that was tracking toward us graciously went around us.  We did have one contact on the radar, a container ship, Cosmos, bound for Germany. All in all, an interesting first half of the day

It is now evening after having motored most of the afternoon and evening.  We are awaiting a storm to approach at which point we intend to turn toward the Carolinas and ride the edge of the storm on a reach.  I will keep you posted!

I have to mention how normal life can be on board.  We have a dishwasher, clothes washer and the ability to make water and recharge our batteries.  Showers can be an issue for someone my size when the shower stall height is 6’1” and I’m 6’4”in a 3 foot diameter cylinder.  Do the math, it can be confining, especially when you add a 4 foot roll to the waves. Given everything though, life on a boat works pretty well!

We are experiencing dying winds and the direction coming around behind us this caused us to lose speed with our current sail configuration.  During my stint at the helm I asked Ian if there was another configuration we could put up to help our situation? Ian perked up we could fly dual head sails!  With that down came the staysail, down came the Genoa, down came the mainsail. We rummaged trough the laserette(sp?) to find another light weight head sail. Putting it up was quite the ordeal, but we did get it done and we are flying 2 headsails!  It is amazing how adjustable the sailboat is.

The night was truly beautiful and peaceful.  The stars were brilliantly visible and the moon came out from behind clouds as it rose.  I had the midnight to 2am, and we had a nice gentle roll with 16 – 18nm off the starboard aft quarter at 165 degrees (that’s for you Bjork!).  We were flying twin headsails doing about 7nm with bearing of 005.  

It’s all good.

Just after midnight, we encountered a ship in the open water that claimed to see us, but was rather recalcitrant to alter course for us until we had raised him on the radio.  Crisis avert I could go back to sleep. Speaking of sleep, the motion is very soothing allows you to fall into a deep sleep.  

Today was characterized by more sail changing drills to teach how to decide when to change sails and what was the process given a genoa, main and staysail.  When we change watch, we check with the person taking your place, give them wind strength and direction, current boat speed and contacts or sail changes during the preceding shift.  Let him know what you are watching to be ready for the next change. We then log current position, wind speed, wind direction, trip log, any comments at the end of shift.

Now out in the sea proper, the roll of the waves and constant 15 -19 Nm wind speed made for a very pleasant sail.  You certainly do get the feeling on the vastness of the sea, as well as how small our 56 foot boat is in it. The stars were awesome to behold when they came out at night and the moon was brilliant.