Thursday, November 12th (Day 45)
Today was "Day of Storms". Hurricane Eta had come up the Gulf coast of Florida, veered NE and was heading our way. It was now a tropical storm with winds 45-50 mph. We had everything secured and I had high confidence in the Carolina Beach city moorings.
It stormed throughout the day and by late afternoon the winds were staying in the 30s. At that wind speed, our rigging starts shaking and making lots of noise. But, it wasn't too bad this time and I suspect my rig tuning last year helped calm things down a bit.
Around 5pm I took these two pictures. The first was our wind instrument that doesn't record wind gusts, just sustained winds. This was one of the highest readings I've ever seen at 40.9 knots. It was really howling!
We have a Air-Breeze wind generator mounted on our mizzen mast. It is totally self-controlled and will automatically shut down in high winds or when the batteries are charged. I took this picture later in the evening when the winds had calmed down to mid-20s to low-30s. Notice the needle is pegged all the way over to max. We had plenty of power.
The actual tropical storm eye passed south of us in the late evening and we had storms most of the night. We still had one leak in our cabin that needs looking into. I think we need to re-caulk the toe-rail on the starboard side which should fix this.
Friday, November 13th (Day 46)
The morning was cloudy with some additional rain but the Sun came out in the afternoon. We decided to get a little exercise and dropped the dinghy and went over to the beach. Yes. Carolina Beach has a beautiful beach! Laura searched for sea-glass while I walked down the beach a bit checking out the sights. Sorry. Forgot to get pics.
There was a little grocery store and Taco-Burger stand near the dinghy dock but both looked closed for good. I really hope they are able to come back some day.
During the evening I secured the dinghy and everything on the back deck in preparation for our leaving tomorrow morning. We had an excellent stay and enjoyed the town a lot. I always look for city moorings when storms are coming. The boat handles high winds much better on a mooring than a dock or even at anchor.
Saturday, November 14th (Day 47)
Leaving Carolina Beach, you have to time the tidal current down the Cape Fear River. If you try to travel against the current, you might go backwards. The current would change to ebb around 9am so we could sleep in a bit.
I slipped the mooring lines just before 9am and we motored out of the harbor. We'll be back!
It was a slow run through Snows Cut against the current but everything changed when we got to the river. The ebb had started and picked up during the 12 mile section to Southport. At one point we were doing over 10 knots speed-over-ground. That's 4 knots of current helping us.
I had been watching the weather forecast because we like to run the section from Southport to New River off-shore if possible. There are two shoaling inlets in this area - Lockwood's Folly and Shallots Inlet. Plus, we would be hitting both of them around low tide. Unfortunately, the forecast I saw yesterday called for 3-4 foot close seas off-shore which would make for a bumpy, 25 mile trip. Just as we pulled into the ICW past Southport, we slowed to 4.5 knots (current was now against us) and I decided to check the forecast again. Good thing I did! It now looked much better with 2.4 foot seas, 7-8 seconds apart. Plus, the winds were around 10 knots out of the NE which would help us along. Nice!
I turned the boat around and we motored back to the river then turned south out the Cape Fear inlet. We raised the main and jib which helped us a bit all the way to New River inlet. As seems frequently this trip, the winds were not enough to sail at decent speed to make North Myrtle Beach before dark so we kept the motor running and averaged over 7 knots. It was very nice and comfortable. Laura even put out a fishing line but I guess there were no fish in this part of the ocean.
Laura took this nice video during our run off-shore.
If the video doesn't show up on your screen, you can see all our videos on our YouTube channel by clicking HERE
I had called yesterday for a reservation at Myrtle Beach Yacht Club for a couple nights. This is one of our favorite places with a protected harbor, nice restaurant, good walks and our friend Sandy lives nearby. I've always been able to reserve whatever I wanted at this marina but this time they had no slips available. Since I would be arriving later in the day, they said I could stay on the fuel dock for one night but I would have to leave in the morning. Bummer.
We motored into the marina at 4:30pm after a long 61nm day from Carolina Beach. Sandy came down a little while later and picked up Laura for groceries. I cleaned up the boat and relaxed after a hard day (not really...). Laura had a big list since we didn't know when we would be near a grocery store again. We were planning on maybe 2 weeks before our next food stop.
A little while later, Sandy and Laura came back with groceries. After stowing them away, Laura made the fixin's while I cooked a nice pork loin on the BBQ grill. The three of us had a few glasses of wine with a nice dinner on the boat. We talked about the great times we had with Sandy and her husband John in Marathon over the years. John passed away 3 years ago and we all miss him a lot.
I filled up our water tank and we pumped out the holding tank. Boat was now ready to leave tomorrow morning.
Sunday, November 15th (Day 48)
I wish I had gotten a picture of where the boat was parked. It was really shoe-horned into the corner of the marina with boats, docks and pilings behind us and in front of us. The only way out was to go sideways to port. Sailboats don't do that very well...
But I wasn't worried unless the wind picked up and wanted to blow us onto the dock. Then it would have been impossible. The winds were dead calm as we got the boat ready to go. After untying all the lines, I ran a spring line forward from the starboard aft cleat and back to Laura on the boat. She held this line tight while I slowly motored in reverse. With that spring line holding us, the stern had nowhere to go but the bow slowly worked its way from the dock. A short time later I was able to put the boat in forward and we were out. Just like my plan! How often does that happen?
We had left right at first light to keep our options open on where we would stop. Once again, you have to play the currents in this area. Especially down the Waccamaw River. If we left early enough, we would catch the tide through Myrtle Beach and also down the river.
Pretty sunrise as we were leaving the marina...
We did catch the flood current and ran 7 knots all the way through Myrtle Beach and the three bridges that had to open for us.
Shortly before the last bridge, a trawler passed us. We chatted on the radio a bit and he said he was stopping at the next marina for a carpenter estimate. I mentioned we would be stopping there too for fuel.
He pulled into the marina about 1/4 mile in front of us. The fuel dock at Osprey Marina is pretty small with a 50 foot slip on the side and about 30 feet on the t-head. I thought he would be going to a slip for the carpentry work but instead he tied up to the longer fuel dock. We were able to tie up at the shorter t-head which was OK because we wouldn't be staying long.
The trawler was there first so they grabbed the only diesel pump and started filling. 1/2 hour and 300 gallons later we were able to take our 65 gallons. Hey. He was there first but I hoped he would understand our sailboat would take much less time. Nope.
We motored out of the marina around noon and headed down the Waccamaw. The currents were slightly against us but would help more as the day went on.
There were a few squalls during the day that washed the boat and canvas but the afternoon got much better. A major storm was crossing the U.S. and we were right on the southern edge of it. By the end of the afternoon, we were motoring into a light south wind and almost clear skies with helping tidal current.
I had originally planned to anchor somewhere on the Waccamaw River. There are several really nice anchorages we've stayed in before. But, I calculated that the currents would be against us in the morning and we were making good time so did the whole river into WinYah Bay.
In front us us was about 45 miles between WinYah Bay and Charleston Harbor. In previous years, this section has been one of the worst for shoaling (shallow spots) in the whole ICW. I decided to keep going for another 5 miles to Minim Creek anchorage. This was a great spot to anchor and we would have some altitude help from the tides all morning tomorrow.
We anchored in Minim Creek just before sunset. Another long day with 61 nautical miles, 3 bridges that had to open for us and a stop to fill up our fuel tank. Phew! Laura got this nice sunset just after we anchored.
The winds were still out of the south but supposed to clock to the north during the night. It was warm in the evening and we sat in the cockpit with a cocktail for a bit. But, we were overrun by mosquitoes and had to go downstairs to get away from them. Unfortunately, they had come into the boat before we close up and I spent a miserable night being too warm to sleep but couldn't take the covers off because the bugs would attack.
Finally, around 3am, the winds clocked to the north and the boat cooled down. I was able to sleep soundly until the alarm went off at 5:45am.
Monday, November 16th (Day 49)
We were up early again and underway at 6:20am when it was just light enough to see the ICW channel markers. The tide was rising so we had plenty of water under us for the first few shallow spots. High tide was at 9:45am.
Winds were only about 10 from the NE so we rolled out the jib to help a little. No problems as we cruised through McClellanville (usually shallow but was dredged in the last year) and the rest of the trip to Charleston.
I was worried about the 3 miles before the Ben Sawyer Bridge because we had run aground 3-4 times over the years right in the middle of the channel. Because I ran the engine a little faster and had some help from the wind, we still had about 1 foot of tide when we got there around 1pm. But, we didn't even need that as this area had also been dredged. All my worries were for nothing.
We passed through the Ben Sawyer Bridge and motored out onto Charleston Harbor. Laura took this nice video of the harbor entrance.
The ebb tide currents now turned against us as we motored across the river and up the Ashley River to the ICW entrance. I was trying to make the 2:30pm opening of the Wappoo Creek Bridge. They only open once every hour so, even 5 minutes late, we would have to wait almost an hour.
We made it just in time after, once again, running the engine at higher RPM. I checked the tide forecast for Elliott Cut (just past the Wappoo Creek Bridge) and it showed there would be 1.3 knots of current against us. I didn't believe it. It's almost never been right in the past.
Once in the cut we slowed to a crawl. Actually, slower than a crawl. Even with an extra 200 engine RPM, at one point we were only doing 0.8 knots. This means we had over 5 knots of current against us. Snails go faster! Luckily, it only lasted for about 15 minutes and we finally popped out onto the Stono River. Laura and I decided to anchor for the day so we turned north into the corner of the river and dropped the anchor at 3pm.
After securing the helm, I started on the blog. Sorry I hadn't updated it lately but we've been a little busy. This is the first day in a while that we've stopped before dinner time.
Tomorrow we have reservations for 2 nights at Lady's Island Marina in Beaufort, SC. I made reservations for 2 nights so we could relax and get some exercise. They also have a cheap liquor store nearby - Bill's Liquor. I love that place!
We've logged 932 nautical miles from Catskill and are at ICW mile 472 (statute miles from Norfolk). Water temp here is 69 degrees. The next few nights are supposed to be down in the 40s so it will be nice to be at a marina where we can turn on the heat. I'll let you know how it goes!
No comments:
Post a Comment