Air temp 50, water temp 68, winds N @ 10
48 nautical miles today, 786 total miles from Marathon
Very chilly this morning as we prepared to get underway early for favorable tides. We had the heat running last night so inside the boat was nice. But, as soon as we opened up, I needed my sweatpants, and sweatshirt.
My plan was to get underway by 6am which should have made our day fairly easy by catching the outgoing tide at Little River Inlet then the flood tidal current at Cape Fear. Winds were dead calm as we backed out of the slip on glassy waters. We missed our time by only 10 minutes so I was happy.
As we turned left out of the basin onto the ICW, the boat zoomed up to 7 knots with about 1 1/2 knots of helping current. Check out how calm the water was when the Sun decided to join us.
It turned out the route out the Little River Inlet was a little longer than my estimate but we were out on the ocean by 7:15am. I set course for Cape Fear Inlet 25 miles away. Winds were 10-12 at about 55 degrees off our port bow so we set the full jib and main for close-hauled sailing. The boat picked up to 6.5-7 knots and I throttled back on the motor so see if the wind was going to last. The forecast last night said it was supposed to die right down in the early morning.
Hmmm. The wind not only lasted but picked up to 15-20 knots. We were barely able to hold our course to Cape Fear with the sails full but, every 10 minutes or so, a large gust would blow us over to 20-25 degrees. About an hour later we deep reefed the mainsail to calm down the boat a bit. It wasn't an unpleasant ride as the waves were on the bow so the only roll was caused by the wind gusts - not a roll every 6 seconds like if swells were on the beam. The boat was plowing through 2-3 foot seas pretty nicely. I know from experience, if we didn't have the wind from a direction to help, we would be slowing to 3-4 knots because of the bow bouncing on the waves a bit.
I figured we needed to get into the Cape Fear inlet by 12:30pm at the latest in order to catch the flood current up the river. Because the wind was helping, our ETA was 11:30am. Nice! I tried running on just sails but the boat slowed to under 5 knots in the calms between gusts. Had to keep the motor running at lower RPM to time our arrival with the flood. Here's a video Laura took a little later. Nice day on the ocean!
The sails were shadowing the Sun so it was pretty chilly in the cockpit. Laura went downstairs to get a little heat and I stayed at the helm to enjoy the ocean scenery. Dean and I started texting each other about 9am (they were a day behind us now) and I found that I couldn't type on the phone because my fingers were so cold. I was also shivering really bad. Oh yeah. We had crossed into North Carolina. It's cold here!
I went down and grabbed my foul-weather gear. It helped but I couldn't warm up. We had skipped breakfast because Laura doesn't like eating early and the bouncing on the ocean were have made it hard to cook anyway. We were running a little calmer now so I asked her to make me some hot soup so I could try and warm up. Here is what sailing this morning was like.
Hot soup really hit the spot but Laura said a bunch of it spilled on the floor from the stove when a sudden gust blew us over a bit. Bummer.
The winds did calm down and also veered more NW which gave us a better angle for sailing. I decided to try a shorter entrance rather than going all the way out to the big ship channel than have to run directly into the wind going in. I set course for the Western Bar Channel which I had seen but never used before. We were at near high tide so I figured we would not have any problems.
Here's a snapshot from our GPS. The normal big-ship channel is the large blue line. The dotted purple line is where we went. It turned out to work excellent today and I now know there it's plenty deep even at low tide. I love covering new ground!
With the helping wind, we were in the Cape Fear Inlet by 11:30am. The flood tide was really cranking. As you can see in the lower box of the GPS above, we were doing 8.4 knots. If we were going the other way, we'd be down to about 2.5. Yuck!
Coming in the inlet I got on the Dockwa App and asked to make a reservation at the Carolina Beach mooring field. A short time later my request was accepted. No other problems or issues during the trip and we tied up to our mooring at 1:50pm. 48 nautical miles in 7 3/4 hours. An average of 6.2 knots for the day. Quite a difference from 4 days ago when we averaged 4.4. I like this much better.
We spent a quiet evening on the mooring and had dinner in the cockpit watching the sunset.
Wednesday, May 13th
Air temp 54, water temp 65, winds calm
44 nautical miles today, 830 total miles from Marathon
I had the alarm set for 6am because I wanted to be underway by 6:30am. 10 miles away is the Wrightsville Beach Bridge which only opens at the top of each hour. Leaving at 6:30am would allow us to make the 9am opening even if we had tidal currents against us.
We were both sleeping deeply when my iPhone alarm went off. I hit the stop button and rolled over to snuggle a little before morning exercises and getting up. Next thing I know Laura is shaking me awake. We had both fallen back to sleep and it was 6:20am. I don't know why we rushed around like mad-men getting ready. It wouldn't have been a big problem to leave an hour later but I guess we all need something to get us energized.
I skipped my morning exercises (for the first time in 2 months), performed quick engine checks, turned on all the instruments and slipped the mooring lines at 6:35am. Wow! I didn't know we could get the boat ready that quick!
As we motored out of the Carolina Beach bay, I was thinking how different I felt missing the exercises. Maybe this is the way I felt before I started them - lethargic with brain-fog. I didn't like it and missed my morning energy. Sacra-blue!
The morning was calm and pretty with grey clouds on the horizon. It was one of those skies that if we were at sea, we wouldn't be able to tell where the ocean ended and sky started. The only wind was what the boat was making so there wasn't a ripple on the water. Here is a different view from our stern showing the little wake Second Wind makes on calm waters.
The tidal currents helped over the next couple hours and it turned out we were about 20 minutes early for the bridge so had to slow down. It is very hard to estimate the currents in this area because there are several inlets and you don't know when the current from the next one will take over.
As we passed through the Wrightsville Beach Bridge, I realized that this was the 1/2 way point between Marathon and Catskill, NY. It is about 800 miles in both directions.
Only a few boats on the water today and most of them passed us. Here is a pirate ship - Black Pearl - that zoomed by us. Thankfully, no broadside....
Later in the morning, I put Billy Joel on the stereo and crank it up for aerobics on the back deck. Most of his music has a great beat for aerobics. To get even (with myself? too funny) for not exercising before getting up, I added in push-ups and weights for upper-body. That will teach me!
Our big decision of the day was where to stay tonight. We would normally anchor in Mile Hammock Bay which is 1/2 way between Carolina Beach and Oriental. But, our plans are to stay in Swansboro a few days to visit my cousins, and good friends, Tim and Karen. Hmmm. Stay in Mile Hammock and do a short day tomorrow to Swansboro or keep going for another 2-3 hours today and not move the boat tomorrow.
We eventually decided to make it a short day and anchored in Mile Hammock at 3:30pm. Since we had lots of day left, I took the opportunity to do an oil change on our main engine and Honda generator which were due. I don't usually like tearing the engine apart while at anchor but oil changes are not a big deal. 1 1/2 hours later I had the boat and me cleaned up and sat with a tequila in the cockpit enjoying the evening.
Mile Hammock is part of Camp Lejeune Marina base and they are always running some kind of exercises. Today was helicopters all over the place. Laura got these guy flying almost right over us.
We've seen as many as 18 boats anchored in this bay but today there were only 3 others. 2 more came in over the evening so there was plenty of room for everybody.
Tomorrow morning we will head to Swansboro and "marina-up" for a couple days visiting family. We're both looking forward to it!
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