Everybody Talks About the Weather...

...but no one ever does anything about it.  That quote from Charles Dudley Warner seems quite appropriate for a sailor.  I am certainly not the first sailor to have to wait on better weather to travel, it seems that is a very regular occurrence.  Funny, since I had the same issues when flying.  Now if were someone that could do something about it.

My original plan was to depart Brunswick on Saturday afternoon, do an overnight sail to the St. Augustine inlet, and then travel down the ICW to Palm Coast.  But the forecasts for Saturday night through Sunday morning are calling for some pretty rough seas.

The Sunday Windfinder forecast for St. Augustine buoy

Wave height at 6 foot on a 5 second period is not what I'd call a fun thing to do during the night, so I've decided to postpone the trip for a day.  Things are supposed to calm down on Sunday afternoon in time for our sail, so that is the current plan.  Of course, the idea that "plans for cruisers are written in the sand at low tide" also seems appropriate, so we will see what happens when the forecasts are updated in the morning.

I regularly consult Windfinder, as well as NOAA and Weather Underground (and sometimes the ADDS Aviation Weather site) for weather forecasts and information.  What weather sources do you use?

In the meantime I've been continuing to clean and organize the boat.  Or at least I'm trying to organize it.  I have to admit my organizing skills aren't the best and, as a result, a lot more stuff is laying around the boat than safely tucked away in an appropriate storage place.  But I'm working on it.  I've acquired a few more plastic storage containers to try and get some things under control.  Meanwhile, the rear berth in the boat still looks as bad as the garage in my land-based home was.

I did try starting the starboard engine this morning to see if my cleanup of the glow plug connections made any difference.  Unfortunately, it did not.  I've tested the glow plug circuit to verify battery voltage was available when the preheat button was pushed and that the plugs indicated proper resistance, so the search will continue after I get the boat moved.  The engine starts and runs fine if the engine is at least slightly warm, so it shouldn't pose any problems for the trip.

I also made some chili this evening that I thought might sound good for a meal while on a cool evening passage. I start with the basic recipe from The Boat Galley, and then added some additional vegetables to create a reasonably well rounded, one bowl meal.  If seas are reasonably calm, I may decide to make something more elaborate, but it is nice to have an easy to make meal when the boat is bouncing around.

Sorry about slowing down on the posts lately, but I figured I would spare you some of the details of cleaning up from "project mode".  If you need more detail, you can go clean your garage and then your bathroom and that ought to demonstrate the skills I've been using the most the past couple days. And to really get the right effect, you need to store everything in one cabinet in your kitchen or under your sofa.

4 Days on the Outside

After hanging out behind Fort Macon for the evening, better weather greeted us in the morning.  We topped off our fuel at the Moorhead Yacht Harbor marina (which had fuel almost 75 cents a gallon less than the Pungo Creek stop), and headed out.

In the Atlantic we were greeted with winds from the north to northwest at 20 to 25 knots just as forecast.  The seas were about 2 ft on an 8 second period, which would make for a reasonably nice ride. Perfect conditions for our trip south. With a reefed main and genoa, we were making 7.5 knots directly toward our destination without burning any diesel. If the forecast holds, we will make good time all the way to our destination.

During this first day I found another surprise from the boatyard. Sparing you the details again, I found that the black water or holding tank system on the other side of the boat was also leaking.  Much slower than the first, but still leaking. Fortunately this side still has the direct discharge option active and now that we were well outside the limit, I switched it over to direct discharge and dumped the tank. After more bleach and water, it was cleaned up and we were good to go again.

As the afternoon turned to evening, the winds picked up to 25 with gusts to 30. The seas also steepened, with 4 foot waves on a 5 second period. It made for a bit of a rough ride. Just before midnight we made it around Frying Pan Shoals, which we both stayed up for since that area has a bit of a reputation. We gave it a wide berth and were fine, but I wonder if it was a partial cause for the steep seas. To slow the boat down a bit we ended up dropping the main (it was fully reefed at that time) and sailed at around 4 knots on reefed genoa alone for the remainder of the night watches.

Over the course of the next morning, the winds dropped down to about 7 knots and the seas calmed down to under 1 foot.  As the day rolled on, the winds continued to calm and we eventually ended up firing up a motor to try and make a little time.  After we started the engine, we were visited by a couple pods of dolphins...I wonder if the engine noise attracts them to come play in the bow wave.  We hadn't seen many dolphins until this point, but were visited by a dozen or more while motoring along.

By the afternoon, the winds had not just calmed, but shifted to southwest...so much for the forecasts. The winds picked up a little later in the afternoon and we put the sails back to work. We are now beating to windward but still mostly on course. As the sun again disappeared into the water, we reefed for night watches and sailed past Charleston around 10pm in just under 20 knots of wind but only 1 to 2 foot seas on a relatively long period. Good to be sailing again and not burning diesel.

Those conditions lasted most of the night with winds slowly increasing through the morning of the 3rd day. The winds also continued to shift around so we were slowly veering east of the course to keep with the wind. I don't know why, but being 40 or more miles off shore (that's over 6 hours of travel at 6 knots) and being out of sight of land is actually a peaceful feeling.

Most of the day we enjoyed relatively calm seas and good wind. As night fell, the winds again picked up along with the seas. Neither seemed to be cooperating with our desired direction of travel as we passed Savannah so I decided to try and find a bit calmer seas and a shift in the wind direction by heading toward shore. We motored directly toward Savannah for a bit and were rewarded with both slightly calmer seas and, more importantly, more favorable winds. We were able to sail for the remainder of the night.

Naturally, as morning arrived, the winds fell off and we transitioned from sailing to motor sailing. We could have continued sailing, but the winds were light and we needed to make Brunswick before the marina closed for the evening. 6 knots would do it, but the 3 knots from the sails alone would not. I would have been happy to have sailed the last bit and hove to near Brunswick for the night, but Neal needed to get back home before Thanksgiving so we pushed on.

We arrived at the marina around 4pm, after waiting for a car carrier ship to pass through the Sidney Lanier bridge (I'm not playing chicken with a ship that can easily crush my boat). We get the boat tied up and the trip from Virginia is complete.

The Trip South....The Posts I Couldn't Make During the Trip.

Sorry for the lack of posts again, but I've made good progress outrunning (or running with) the cold weather and am now in Brunswick Georgia where the current temperature is about 25 degrees higher than Deltaville.  But backing up a bit and providing a more detail on the trip....

I was able to find a hand with this trip at the boatyard. A was talking with a nice gentleman that is in the process of restoring a Bristol 32 and he offered to make the trip with me.  Neal didn't have any plans until the week of Thanksgiving and thought it would be fun to get out on the water again, so it was a perfect match.

We made the trip from the boatyard in Deltaville, VA to Brunswick GA over the course of about 10 days.  With the shorter days upon us, it was slow going through the ICW (I only travel it during daylight hours).  I also worked to make the trip a bit less expensive than the trip up by anchoring out instead of visiting marinas each evening...and T-Mobile doesn't have the greatest coverage so I didn't have much of a chance to make any posts except the previous brief entry. Once we got to open ocean, it was much easier to make good time...but no chance at internet access at all.

The boat was launched Tuesday morning, and after a number of system checks, we departed around noon.  The winds weren't particularly favorable, so we spent much of our time motor-sailing. For the unfamiliar, motor-sailing is where you are running engines and have one or more sails up.  The theory is the light winds and the extra wind created by the fact you are under power can drive the sails and give you a bit more gain in speed than the engine alone.  I think the conditions have to be just right to see any real gain, but it is nice to at least look like a sailboat.

Even motor sailing we just barely made it to Mobjack bay as the sun was going down and found a place to anchor along the shore that would shield us from the overnight winds, had a decent bottom composition, and depth appropriate for anchoring. I motored around just a bit to verify depth in the area we could swing and then we dropped the hook for the night.  This is the first night I've tried our new Mantus anchor, and she set solidly.  Actually, I didn't realize that I had let the anchor rode go a bit slack, and when I backed down on the anchor to set it, the bow of the boat dipped a bit as the anchor instantly grabbed hold of the muddy Chesapeake bottom.

The next morning we set off early under overcast skies and a bit of chill in the air.  It is getting colder in these parts, so it is really nice to be finally moving south.  The sun broke out as we made our way through Norfolk and Portsmouth.  This begins the portion of our trip where we get to play "Mother may I" with a number of draw bridges that are too short for a 60' tall sailboat to pass under without being opened.  Fortunately rush hour had just passed, so the bridges would open mostly on demand. Now normally most train bridges are left open unless a train is using them, but we arrived at one in Norfolk that was down and had no train.  We waited for over half an hour, watched several people in reflective yellow vests walk around and look at various pieces of the bridge, then finally it opened and we continued on our way.  The next bridge we encounter is the Steel bridge, and it only opens on a schedule of every half hour so naturally (thanks to the train bridge delay) we just missed the opening and had to wait about 20 minutes for the next opening.  We make our way through that bridge and on to the Great Bridge Lock.

This is my second time at the lock and so I knew the basic procedure.  Before arrival, you rig long bow and stern dock lines and fenders on the starboard side.  When the lock opens, you proceed in and throw the dock lines to an employee at the edge of the dock who wraps the line around a cleat or bollard and throws it back.  You then use the line to keep your boat near the wall and boat poles to keep it from rubbing along the wall of the lock.  At the time we arrived it was apparently high tide so the lock didn't even lift us a full foot.  The doors at the far end of the lock open and you un-loop your lines from the cleat and head out of the dock.

Normally, you go through the Great Bridge draw bridge (technically, a standard draw bridge is called a bascule bridge) that is timed to coincide with the lock operation (or maybe the lock is timed with the bridge...I forget which is which), but there is a free dock located between the lock and the bridge and, since it was getting late, we decided we would stop there for the night.  We tied up the boat and walked into town (Great Bridge is in Chesapeake VA.) to see if we could find dinner to reward ourselves for the first two days of travel.  We found an OK Mexican restaurant, had a nice dinner, and then called it a night.

Southport to Oriental

My new volunteer arrived in Wilmington NC last Tuesday and we spent a few days waiting for good weather, shuttling my car up to Deltaville, VA. and getting a couple last minute fixes done on the boat.  With all of that complete, we set sail on Saturday, leaving Southport behind.

Working hard on a sailboat.

Since Cape Fear and the Frying Pan Shoals are just north of the Southport inlet, I decided we should just take the ICW up from Deep Point marina and head out to the ocean at the next inlet instead of taking the hours it would take to skirt around the shoals.  Of course the next inlet, Carolina Beach, isn't navigable by larger boats due to the constantly changing shoals, so I chose the Masonboro inlet instead.  Motoring up the inlet it was immediately apparent it was the Memorial Day weekend.  There was a ton of traffic on the water and lining most of the local beaches.  After a few hours of dodging boats, we made it back out to the Atlantic.

Sailboats and motorboats, and jet-skis.

From there, the plan was to sail on the outside to Beaufort, and then continue via the ICW up to Oriental, NC so we would bypass Cape Hattaras.  Everything I've heard of Cape Hattaras indicates that you need to give it a pretty wide berth or it can be pretty dicey.  The winds weren't as favorable for this leg as they were for the last one, so we weren't able to go directly to Beaufort, but sailed more up along the coast.  This wouldn't be a bad thing, except there is a big restricted area that is surrounded by a bigger "danger zone" where the military likes to conduct training.  Not wanting to be a recipient of their training exercises, I ended up tacking several times to get far enough out to clear the zone during the night.

The tacks would result in the boat heading southeast, so a couple times I went and sat on the foredeck and just looked up at the stars.  It still amazes me how many stars you can see when the light and pollution of civilization isn't around.  By the end of my night watch, I had made it just far enough out to clear the danger zone and we should now be able to make it most of the way to Beaufort in a relatively straight course.

We were fortunate that we had wind most of my watch as the forecast called for them to lay down in the evening. Naturally, after I went to bed, the winds died down and we didn't end up making a lot of progress the remainder of the night.  I got up just in time so we both got to see the sun rise over the ocean.  With the sun up, you could see how amazingly calm the sea had become over the past few hours.  There was barely a ripple in the water, just a smooth and gentle roll like the ghosts of yesterdays waves.  We finally gave up on pure sailing and fired up an engine so we could make it to Beaufort in time for low tide and wouldn't have to fight a strong current going back in the inlet.  Other than the lack of wind for sailing, it was a beautiful day.

Once near Beaufort, we were again greeted by all the people making the best of the Memorial day weekend on the water.  Dodging a number of boats, we (along with several other sail and motor boats) made our way up the ICW and we ended up in Oriental, NC. around 4pm.  We took advantage of the marina showers, used the marina courtesy car to make a run to the grocery store, had dinner, and called it a night.

Our Route.

Rango, or another little green lizard, made an appearance as well.  Unfortunately when we found him later hiding under the cover of the BBQ grill, it appeared that his back legs were not working well.  We decided that his story would not end well if he were handicapped and trying to live on a boat, so we took him to shore at the marina and left him there.  Hope he can manage better in Oriental. Good luck little stowaway.

Is this Rango, the lizard from the earlier trip?

Goodbye Brunswick, Hello....Southport

As I'm sure you are aware, I am trying to move my boat from Brunswick Georgia up to the Chesapeake bay area before the end of the month.  As the result of a recent post, I had a few people volunteer to help out.  One blog reader that contacted me said he had taken the ASA courses and had done some sailing but might be a bit rusty.  Since he was nearby and was willing to do the entire trip, it sounded like a good solution to moving the boat.

We met a few days before the planned trip and talked a little bit about the trip and the boat and everything seemed to go OK so we planned to have him come down last Wednesday and spend the night so we could get an early start Thursday and hopefully make Beaufort NC by Saturday.  The winds were forecast to be in the teens for our trip with seas of 1 to 2 feet on a four second period (for those that aren't aware, the comfort level of the ride has as much to do with the distance, or period, between waves as it does the height of the waves...and the closer the period in seconds comes to the wave height in feet, the more uncomfortable the ride is supposed to be).

We get up and make our way to the fuel dock at the marina to get fuel and a pump out before departing.  While I had arranged to get fuel when they opened in the morning, apparently someone came the night before and bought all of the fuel they had so we had to go to another marina to get fuel for the trip.  This put us a bit behind on our ambitious schedule to make it to Beaufort by Saturday.

We headed out the inlet and into the Atlantic, raised the sails, and started heading north/northeast.  The wind wasn't as high as forecast initially, so we started out motor-sailing (using both an engine and the sails to power the boat).  After a little while the winds picked up to around 12 knots and we were able to shut down the engine.  Finally, really sailing, with no motors, toward a new destination.  It felt good.

Yes, this IS a sailboat.

The weather was great, the sea was comfortable and we were making between 5 and 6 knots.  Speed of just a little under half the wind speed seemed pretty good to me.  At one point I discovered a stow away on board, I have a feeling he will be surprised when we get to our destination....if he survives the trip and gets off the boat at that point.  At one point I felt a little bad for him and offered him a little fresh water but he didn't seem interested.  Don't know how long he can survive without food, but I hope he knows what he got himself into.

My little stow away.

As the sun set, the sailing conditions remained very nice, with one foot seas and winds from the east/southeast between 10 and 12 knots.  This gave us a nice beam to broad reach sail.  For safety overnight we reefed the main sail and that reduced our speed to between 4 and 5 knots. A little after sunset we were off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.  Savannah is a pretty large port and there were a number of large cargo and container ships moving about in the area.  I periodically fired up the radar to check for vessels in the area and we kept a look out for them.  Since it was a nice clear night, we were able to see and avoid (although I don't actually recall having to alter course...but perhaps we did).

Sunrise from the helm.

We took 4 hour watches overnight and it was uneventful.  The water rushing past the hull with only the occasional need to fire up an engine or the generator to recharge the batteries (I'd run the generator if I needed AC power for other things...like cheating and using the microwave, otherwise I would use an engine so we could get a few more knots for a little while).  As morning approached, the winds died down and so the "iron genny" (the motor) was started again so we could maintain a 5~6 knot speed.  During my morning watch there was a small pod of dolphin (I think I saw 6 or so jumping out of the water) heading directly for the boat.  I thought they might be coming to play at the bow as they often do so I went to get my camera.  Of course, when I got back out with the camera, they were nowhere to be found.  Oh well.  It was cool to see them.

Track of the first half of the trip

We passed by Charleston around 8 AM and continued motoring most of the day.  In fact, the wind was light enough from behind us that I couldn't keep the sails filled when motoring so I doused the sails entirely. Doing some calculations on where we were, I decided we weren't likely to make it all the way to Beaufort before sunset on Saturday, so I decided we would divert to Southport, NC.  Finally in the afternoon, the winds started picking up and we were able to raise the sails and once again shut down the engines.  By sunset we were in Long Bay and about 45nm from Southport.

Sunset.  There is land over there somewhere.

Naturally, the winds picked up a bit overnight and even with reefed sails we made it to Southport at about 4am.  Since I didn't want to navigate the channel at night and no marinas would be open anyway, I decided to heave-to and wait for daylight and the local marinas to open.  After sunrise we made our way into the channel and, after a little additional waiting, got a hold of the marina and we were back on a dock.

Track of the second half of the trip.

I wish I could say that everything went well on the trip, and as for the sail itself it did.  Unfortunately I made some decisions that led to quite a bit of frustration.  With the fuel fiasco and the added delay, I skipped doing a few maneuvers that I had planned before we headed off.  Had I stuck to the plan I think I would have realized earlier that my crew was more than just "a little rusty".  I'm no sailing instructor, but perhaps if I had better understood his lack of basic sailing skills I could have compensated before the frustration set in.  We ended up parting company in Southport and I shuttled him back to get his car and to pick up mine.

I learned quite a bit on this trip.  For one, I need to do a little better job evaluating crew skills before setting off on a trip.  I learned that, while it is easier to have a hand, I can single-hand the boat if I need to.  I learned the grace of a dolphin swimming through the ocean in the morning.  I learned the peacefulness of watching the sun rise over the ocean when no land is in sight.  I learned that I really need to get my wife out here with me soon.

P.S. If you are in the Southport, NC. area (or somewhere else) and would like to go sailing and help me move the boat, let me know.  You don't need to be an expert, just have some desire...and an honest evaluation of your skills so I can set proper expectations. And don't be offended if I quiz you on a few things so I get an accurate assessment.

P.P.S. If you are concerned with our stowaway...despite his occasional precarious perch (at one point I found him on the foot of the genoa when I unfurled it) and lack of food, I did see him roaming the boat after we made it back to dock.  So, he survived the trip too.  Hope he likes North Carolina.