We came back from my brother's wedding on Friday to find a somewhat chilly boat. Not cold, mind you, but cooler than we had expected, and the thermometer and the thermostat didn't jibe. It didn't take long before we realized what had happened: we had only about 25 gallons of diesel in our tanks when we left Herrington Harbour a week before, and with the heater on in the unseasonably cold weather, we'd burned it all up. We bundled up under our down comforter for the night, and in the morning Britt jerry-jugged ten gallons from the marina fuel pump in our dinghy gas jugs. A little embarrassing to have to jug diesel when we have 223 gallons capacity!
On Saturday, we ran final errands in the morning and picked up Sara and Kevin at the airport (and returned their car) in the afternoon. It happened to be Kevin's birthday, so we joined the party, gorging on sushi and chocolate cherry cheesecake, then stayed up late drinking microbrew and scotch, reminiscing about the fun we had together in the Bahamas. We'll be thinking of the great times we had with Severn Star as we revisit some of the places we enjoyed together.
Sunday morning was foggy and grey, not too auspicious, but the forecasters predicted it would clear by noon, so we made ready to leave. We motored over to the fuel dock to fill up our small tank (90 gallons), anticipating filling the larger tank with cheaper diesel down the road, then headed out into the Severn River just as a bit of blue sky nudged its way between the clouds. As we rounded Tolly Point into the bay, our sails filled and we cut the motor, settling in for what promised to be a pleasant although chilly beam reach down the Chesapeake.
Our original plan was to overnight it down the bay, which would get us to Norfolk in a little more than a day instead of three. Around sunset, the wind slacked off, and we turned on the engine. When the wind started to pipe up again around 2200, we gratefully turned off the droning motor and pulled out the sails again, but the wind quickly built and backed to right in our faces. We had just passed the mouth of the Potomac, and the chop coming off that river made the ride somewhat less than enjoyable. Slog into 20 knots, or find a place to anchor for the night? It was an easy decision to make. It was not, on the other hand, so easy to execute, as we had to find a nearby cove which was reasonable to enter at night. We set a course for the Great Wicomico River, but still had to motor into a headwind for two hours before we were finally in the shelter of land.
The night was dead black, nearly moonless. We were grateful for our radar and computer navigation system, which turned the potentially hazardous nighttime navigation into what was almost a video game. We weaved our way among the lighted and unlighted buoys, watching our progress across the computer chart, poking our heads up frequently to verify the blinking reds and greens. Uncharted fish traps showed up on the radar, fortunately, and so did the other boat already at anchor in the bight of Sandy Point. We dropped the hook shortly after 1 a.m., with 80 miles between us and Annapolis and about 60 left to go to Norfolk.
On Monday morning it was time for us, like almost everyone else, to go to work. Our work consisted of lifting the anchor and motoring out into the bay, where the west winds had returned to speed us on our way. Near sunset we were approaching the Chesapeake's mouth, a few hours from our chosen destination at Hampton Flats. Both of us had the same thought on our mind, and finally, with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in sight, Britt gave voice to it.
"You know," he said, "we could just turn left here and go around the outside."
We debated the pros and cons. We had pulled in the weather faxes and listened to the offshore forecast on NMN, and it sounded good -- west winds slowly decreasing over the next few days as high pressure filled in over the area. The only thing that worried me was that once we turned the corner of Cape Hatteras, the west wind would be in our faces. If it decreased and turned variable, as promised, we could just motor through it, but of course NOAA doesn't issue guarantees. We made lists:
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Reasons to go around Cape Hatteras |
Reasons not to go around Cape Hatteras |
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1. We can stay inside the nice toasty cabin and use the radar and poke our heads out every so often |
1. We could get beat up by the weather if the forecast is off |
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2. We'd get south quicker -- to Beaufort by Wednesday morning instead of Friday or Saturday |
2. Some more sleep would be nice |
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3. We could sail more instead of motoring |
3. We'll miss the cheap fuel in Coinjock, VA |
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4. No ICW bridges! |
The ayes had it, so we headed out the middle entrance, passing through the bridge-tunnel complex around 7 p.m. The area just outside was a confusion of lights: channel buoys, anchored ships, moving ships, and low-flying military copters. The radar signatures of all the targets, along with the spiral trails of their outgoing radar pulses, merged into a useless Rorshach blob on our screen. With one person above and one below, we negotiated the maze without hitting anything, and headed out into the Atlantic.
The ocean was more placid than the bay had been. We stayed in the protection of the coast until we had to move further offshore to avoid shoals, which kept things nice and smooth. The wind shifted this way and that, building and slackening throughout the night, and we kept busy (and warm) alternately reefing and shaking out reefs. I saw a gust of 27 knots once (while I was in the middle of reefing!) but mostly saw around 20. With the relatively smooth and easy conditions, we were both able to get some sleep during the night even though there was a lot of wind. This was a good thing.
Tuesday morning found us crossing the Wimble Shoals in the company of a huge pod of dolphins. In the early light the edge of the Atlantic was revealed pale blue and beautiful, a sharp contrast to the muddy murk of the Chesapeake. Britt threw out a line and caught a false albacore (little tunny), which we tossed back, as we'd caught one and eaten it before, and as the guidebook had warned, it wasn't very tasty. We checked in on the SSB net and heard another boat, Just Dessert, also check in as "on our way around Cape Hatteras"; after the net, they called us on VHF. They were only 8 miles or so behind us, but in a larger and faster boat so we figured they'd catch us sometime along the way.
We were fighting a current, and waves had begun to build from the 15-20 knots of wind. We both started to get a little queasy from the increased motion. I took a Bonine around noon and was coping reasonably well, but by the time Britt went for the chemicals a few hours later, it was probably too late for his system. After making the appropriate offering to Neptune, he curled up on one of the settees and tried to ignore the world.
Just after 2 pm we rounded the Hatteras mark. The wind had been shifting from just north of west to just south of west, and our course to round Cape Lookout was back to the southwest, too close to the wind. Even steering 15 off was so close-hauled that with the foul current (doubtless the edge of the Gulf Stream) we could only make 3 knots over the ground. As the wind shifted even more south of west, I gave up, and around 3:00 I rolled in the sails, turned on the motor, and turned more onto our direct course. Even so, the best we could manage over ground was 5 knots, and frequently we were doing much less. We tried to escape the Gulf Stream by steering in toward the beach -- we were about 15 miles offshore -- but after we'd gotten three miles closer in, the water wasn't any colder and the current wasn't any slower. Angling in put the wind directly on our nose, so we changed course again to go directly toward the Cape Lookout mark.
The wind finally veered enough by 10 p.m. that I put up a bit of main and motorsailed. After a few more degrees of wind angle, the jib came out and the motor went off. Blessed silence -- at least from the engine. Close-hauled with heavily reefed sails in 18-20 knots, slamming through big waves that I was sort of happy I couldn't see in the blackness, every bit of the boat creaked and groaned and slapped and squeaked and thumped. We made 5 to7 knots through the water (but against a 1.5 knot current), and as the night went on and the wind backed and slackened, I unrolled more and more sail. Finally the wind backed enough that the jib had to come down and the motor went back on. By 2 a.m. things had smoothed out a little, Britt was feeling good enough to take over, and I was exhausted. I crawled into my favorite snuggy spot for underway snoozing and slept until 7 a.m.
I woke to find us headed for Wrightsville Beach (Masonboro Inlet) rather than Beaufort. This was not entirely a surprise, as we'd discussed our options the day before and put in a possible route from the Cape Lookout mark. The problem with going in at Beaufort was that after rounding Cape Lookout, our course would be north of west, not a pleasant course with the wind as it was. We'd also be arriving early morning, which would probably kill the whole day. Our line to the Masonboro Inlet was essentially a continuation of our course from Cape Hatteras to Cape Lookout, and as conditions had moderated we would probably arrive early afternoon, before the evening's predicted bad weather.
The wind had become fairly light and pretty much disappeared by mid-morning. We motored across Onslow Bay in a faint swell, all that was left of the huge waves that had pounded us the night before. The warmth of the air was astonishing; it was like we'd caught up to summer, or at least to autumn. About 5 miles back was Just Dessert; they had tried tacking out into open water the night before and gotten hammered by even bigger waves further into the Gulf Stream, then tacked back in toward the beach and our course. They'd gone in a little further and gotten a little more protection, but then had to angle back out to round Cape Lookout, so were pretty much in the same position relative to us as they had been 24 hours previously. With a cold front forecast to sweep through, they'd abandoned their original plan to continue to Charleston and figured they'd follow us in to Wrightsville Beach.
At 3 p.m. exactly we entered the inlet, and although on the chart it's one of those scary-looking guys where the buoys are frequently moved and therefore not charted, it turned out to be wide and straightforward. We arrived at the anchorage at the same time as two other boats who had come from the ICW. For half an hour we all nosed around various spots trying to get anchors to stick, no doubt amusing those already in the anchorage, but we were all eventually anchored and relaxing, enjoying the sensation of no longer being in motion.
Statistics: From Great Wicomico River, Virginia to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, 314 miles over ground (339 through the water) in just under 55 hours, about half motoring or motorsailing and half sailing.