Besting Chtulhu

It has been my experience that seasoned sailors address their difficult first passages in rough weather with practiced nonchalance.  Certainly there are those that found themselves in ten foot seas and felt no adrenal spike, and those who felt it and enjoyed it.  I find myself wishing that those experienced sailors I talk to would say, "We were in 30 foot seas in a 30 foot boat, and I was terrified."  Fear does not have to incapacitate us; I think often I am most effective when motivated by pure survival instinct.  Perhaps on some level to acknowledge fear is to give it leave to take root inside us, or perhaps that silence is motivated by machismo and shame.  Whatever the reason, I'd like to come out to anyone who aspires to venture outside of their comfort zone but is afraid:  the ocean scares me.

When preparing for our trip I was asked, "Aren't you afraid?"  And I could honestly answer, "no, but I'm sure I will be."  Having very little experience on the water I had a hard time imagining scary scenarios outside of some abstract vision of Cthulhu pulling a wooden ship down into the deep.  But, I knew that with knowledge and experience would also come concrete and rational fears.  I knew I would find myself in a situation that I felt was beyond my control*, and I knew that I would be scared.  

And sure enough!  Our second day out we motored out of the Vortex of Doom and into 8 foot seas, having missed the small craft advisory in the weather report (it's easy to miss it if you fail to check the weather).  I grappled with sail changes, navigation and skippering the boat while in a situation completely out of my frame of reference.  Then there was leaving the Moriches Inlet - the 7th Deadliest Inlet in the USA (hardy har har) - with 8 foot swells breaking over our bow and 2 feet of water below the hull.  Then there was night sailing.  Then the tornado-warning-thunderstorm.  Then too much wind.  Basically, I've spent a good 50 percent of our time out here being pretty scared.  I trust The Captain, and my ability to deal wtih dicey situations has increased considerably, but on some level the ocean is still f$%#ing terrifying.  

I don't want it believed that this has been a horrible death march of misery, because even in the midst of the scariest moments (excepting that thunderstorm.  that thunderstorm can go f#$% itself) I thought, truly, there is nowhere I'd rather be.  Sometimes going back out after a rough day is hard, but we still do it, and we still make it back to port that night.  Sometimes we take a break and get off the boat for a couple days.  Sometimes I might blubber a bit.  But that's just part of what makes it awesome.  

Yet, two nights ago, after a pretty windy sail on a tight haul from Charleston to wherever we ended up, I realized I'm sort of tired of being afraid.  No, of course it's not that easy, but on the other hand, it sort of is.  To some extent I can't change the situation.  I can't simply will the ocean and weather to give us 2 foot seas and 12 knot winds out of the North every day.  Sometimes, and it's pretty frequent at this time of year, we'll get southwest wind that kicks up to 25 knots in the afternoon, and 5 foot seas.  Pretty much every day there is a chance of thunderstorms.  I can't control these things, but I can control how I deal with them.  Easy enough in theory.

So yesterday, we set out from wherever we anchored that night (I honestly can't be bothered to look it up, but it was gorgeous and we were just off a sandy beach and we had a wonderful, still, restful night) and we had a really, really great day.  Again the winds came from the southwest and picked up to 20 knots in the afternoon, and the seas were 3-5 feet.  Remember what I said about our wet boat?  We were soaked for 10 hours yesterday with spray off the boat.  Soaked.  All of our windows are leaking, and everything in the cabin is soaked.  Our dinghy filled with water and had to be flipped over while the autopilot kept us on course at 7 knots. Due to the wind direction we were hard up for headway and ended up travelling 60 miles to go 30.

In the afternoon, after we'd put two reefs in the main sail, pulled down the jib, then decided to put up the storm jib when we couldn't hold a course with no jib, we sailed through a storm.  I was cursing and wrestling with the storm jib in building winds and seas when Cody called up to me, "Hey, Mar, when you get that on, just secure it and come on back.  We'll wait to raise it."  I looked ahead and saw the dark clouds and hollared, "WHY?" somewhat irritated that I'd been struggling up there for nothing, and knowing full well why he didn't wantto to raise the jib, but wanting to hear him say it.  "Because we're going to go through a little storm," he hollared back.  Yes, I knew that.  After finishing my struggle with the storm jib I headed back to the cockpit, fastened safety lines to the rails and clipped us both onto the boat.

To add to the conditions, we'd decided to skirt inside the Great Northern Shoal (it sounds so dramatic!) and hope to cross at the only deep channel - 8 feet at low tide instead of 1.  As it grows shallower the waves tend to build a bit because the water gets pushed up by the ocean bottom (as I understand it, I really have a very poor grasp of wave science).  If it gets shallow enough they break.  A 4 foot breaker in 3 feet of water leaves us high and dry.  I take comfort in knowing that if we run aground I can basically touch, and the beach is but 50 feet away.  Anyway.

We caught the edge of the storm as we skirted the shoaling area.  The wind didn't behave as we expected, becoming undefined and somewhat weaker, not favoring any one direction.  It rained, heavily at times, but we were already soaked so that didn't matter so much.  The worst part was that the air temperature dropped about twenty degrees and we were shivering and wishing we'd dug out our four wather gear.

We emerged from the storm into the sunshine as we had to begin serious navigation of a very narrow channel.

Side note:  we use NOAA or Maptech charts, which aren't updated every year.  Sand bars tend to move a lot in rough weather.  Hurricanes can create new inlets and completely reshape the landscape, and it doesn't even take weather that severe.  In Essex Bay we've seen Cranes Beach be gradually pulled into the water and make navigation on anything bigger than a kayak tricky during low tide.  Just in the time I've been sailing in there it's changed dramatically.

What's my point?  We can be in water that the chart says is 20 feet deep and run aground.  Which we did!  We generally just try to read the water and avoid the places you can see breakers or irregular wave patterns, but we were sticking to the chart and, just as Cody said it was looking shallow, we hit our rudder.  Okay, we've been through the rudder drill before, no big deal.  Sail out, steer with the motor (we were motorsailing at the time), stay away from the breakers.  We made it over the shoal and into the refreshingly deep channel leading to Port Royal Sound.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we had a challenging day with potentially frightening moments and we, and most particularly I, were/was smiling and joking the whole day.  It was an incredibly good feeling, and situations out of my control magically feel more in control when I choose my own approach.  I'm also beginning to trust my judgment for knowing when Tri-oomph is sailing fine and when it's time to make changes like sail reductions. So cheers!  To taking control of our fate, and still thinking the ocean is full of monsters.

*Beyond my control based on my knowledge and experience, but in all likelihood not beyond The Captain, who has spent his life on the water.  

Raising sail before a lovely and challenging day on the water.

After the storm. I'm not actually as miserable as I look. But exactly as indignified as a cat in a bath.

Onward!

It is now day 5 of our stopover in Charleston, and the city has, for the most part, treated us well.  We spent a few nights anchored across from City Marina.  During the days we walked around the beautiful downtown and historic districts, did laundry, swam, and generally lazed about.  I spent an entire day under a self-constructed blanket fort (for shade) reading a Rolling Stone magazine that Aaron left me.  

Yesterday we decided to pay for a slip at the Maritime Center, having heard from our super-sea-going friend Diane that she'd been treated well by them.  During her stay she'd been working with Outward Bound, and I imagine they let them stay no charge (?).  We however, had to pay $50 for the night, and it turned out to be one of the roughest nights we've had.  Their little harbor offers little in the way of protection, and Tri-oomph was regularly being pulled away and slammed back into the dock, regardless of how tight we tied her.  We had adequte fenders so no damage done, but the motion was violently jarring.  They did offer free showers, laundry, water, and a pump-out, though.  We spent some time thoroughly scrubbing our boat yesterday, which has the same effect as giving your house a thorough cleaning complete with mopped floors.  Which is to say, ahhhhh.  The grocery store (in this case, a Harris Teeter - gotta love Southern grocery store titles) was only a few blocks away as well, so we resupplied.  We had some gift shopping to take care of, as well, and the proximity of the marina to downtown made for a nice walk through the French Quarter, which we'd not yet seen.  On the way back to the boat we stopped by the Southend Brewery for happy hour.  A refreshing brew and the best-plate-of-bar-nachos-I've-ever-had later and we finished our steamy walk back to the boat.*

At some point in the midst of this we were paid a visit by a customs official.  We'd raised our green head flag one of the days we were anchored and it had apparently caught their attention and it was believed that we were foreigners who hadn't declared with customs.  Apparently a whimsical flag can net you a serious inquiry if you fly it at the wrong time.  We explained ourselves (that NH tag is always a delicate subject, but that's another story) and he was very understanding.  He actually gave us some really good infomation for when we return from the Bahamas.  Customs is no joke.  Sadly, it's a situation made infinitely easier due to white-person-priveledge, and I think it's difficult for us, or anyone who hasn't experienced it first-hand, to understand how much more challenging these things can be without said priveledge.  But I digress.

Today was started with pancakes topped with South Carolina peaches and Ross's home-boiled New Hampshire maple syrup (without a question the very best there is) and followed by a steamy run along the waterfront.  Our exercise has largely been restricted to lots of walking (once we reach port), yoga, and the rigors (whatever those are) of sailing, and it felt terrific to really get the heart rate up, even if I maxed out at 10 minute-mile pace between the heat and my boat-fitness.  We did run up and down the stairs at the Custom building a couple times, though.  

We are planning to depart Charleston tomorrow, but wanted one more relaxing evening, so we're anchored in a new-to-us spot near a sailing school.  Little sailing-grommets keep going back and forth outside on little opti boats.  It's incredibly adorable, even if they've almost run into us a couple times.  Ah, who I am I kidding, those little kids are probably better sailers than I!  At any rate, we're heading out onto the North Atlantic and bearing South again tomorrow, so the rest of today is going to be lazy.  

*You know, it's only like, 85 degrees here, but we've been melting.  My dad told me it was 105 in Chico yesterday.  I'm not sure I could handle that.  What ever happened to the meager heat tolerance I acquired in Reno?  Damn you New England winters!

Docked at the Maritime Center.

Great name for a restaurant! ;)

Into the Low Country

Yesterday marked 4 weeks since we left West Gloucester.  Granted, our first day we only made it to Magnolia, but it's now 28 consecutive nights we've slept aboard Tri-oomph.

We're anchored just across from City Marina in Charleston, SC at the moment.  We realized that since departing we'd spent no more than 2 days in any one location, and then only once, in East Moriches, NY.  We were beginning to feel the fatigue creeping up on us when we picked up Aaron last Sunday, and a week spent trying to make tracks down to Charleston in some unfavorable conditions almost did us in.  We're here until we don't want to be here any longer, and then we'll leave.  No agenda, no schedule.

I've kept everyone pretty up-to-date regarding the damage Cody did to his hand making coffee on Sunday night.  We kept it well wrapped this week, and the burn blistered after a couple days.  I had the idea to cover it in tegaderm, but, go figure, I can't get it to stay on Cody's hand for the life of me.  The unfortunate effect of that is that, after the blister popped, the skin peeled right off with his latest application of tegaderm.  Oops.  And ick.  But it's actually looking pretty good.  I honestly can't believe he sailed through the night on Sunday right after it happened, I'm sure the pain was extraordinary.  I made some joke about how he thinks he got his Man Card stamped by toughing it out and Aaron said, "Cody knows he doesn't need any more stamps on his Man Card."  Huh, that came across a lot stranger in writing than it sounded at the time.  Oh well.

Last Monday we pulled into Bald Head Island at 6 AM, slept until 11, then spent the day docked at the marina getting caught up on laundry and showers.  We had to pay $20 to dock for the day, but we opted out staying there overnight, as it was $2/foot (pretty typical cost for a slip) and it we enjoy being anchored away from town.  When early evening rolled in we motored up river and found a little  branch to anchor in for the night.  We were all exhausted from the previous nights adventure and passed out early and quickly. 

The next day we were bound for the Little River Inlet right on the NC/SC border.  It was only 30 miles away, so we enjoyed a lazy morning before departing Bald Head.  The day started out pleasant enough, but with about 15 miles to go the wind and seas built considerably.  Unlike our downwind run of Sunday night, this time we were on a close-haul against a stiff Southwest wind.  It was . . . damp.

Funny story - prior to our trip someone asked Cody if Tri-oomph is a wet boat to sail.  "Nah," he replied, "we stay pretty dry."  That should serve as a testament to how little we'd sailed her in rough seas last year.  She is not a dry boat.  Big spouts of water come up from her sides and drench anyone sitting in the cockpit.  Which isn't bad when it's hot out, but does grow tiresome after several hours.  But I digress.

We made it to the inlet only to be met with considerably higher waves over the shoaling near the entrance.  Fortunately we were able to turn downwind and sail in, rather than having to drop our sails in the midst of that mess.  Still, we must have made contact with the bottom at some point because when we went to pull our centerboard up we found that it had already popped.  Yikes.  But that's the beauty of the centerboard.

We found another pretty creek to anchor in and had another nice evening.  We looked at the weather forecast and decided it might be best at this point to jump back into the ICW to take us down to Georgetown.  The next two days were forecasted to bring 30 knot winds and 7 foot seas.   We enjoyed a relaxing motor through some scenic swamps and forests.  The beauty of the ICW is that we can drop an anchor basically anywhere we like.  About 20 miles north of Georgetown we did just that, and enjoyed a still, scenic evening on the ICW.

It was a quick motor into Georgetown the next day, although when we left the creek the promised wind kicked up right in our faces.  We were trying to stay to the side of the channel because it afforded a little bit of protection, and Cody had just commented that he was afraid to get too close to shore because of the numerous partially submerged treestumps that were evident.  Not two minutes later we heard a great scraping sound followed by a hard thunk, and our rudder popped.  We both said, "F#$%!" and leaned over the stern to inspect the boat.  While Cody pulled the rudder back down I emptied the coffin-sleeper to inspect the bilge for, well, water gushing in.  The bilge was dry, and the rudder seemed all right, so we continued the 5 miles to Georgetown.

We'd been reduced to bandaging Cody's hand with papertowls and a strip of fabric, so the first thing I did was walk to CVS to resupply the first aid kit.  Cody intended to dive below the boat (in not-very-clean fresh water) to inspect the hull for damage.  He put on a nitrile glove and I duct taped it to his wrist, but I wanted to be prepared to clean his hand well when he came out of the water.  The hull appeared unscathed, but we'd cracked the rudder body, and that would need to be repaired.  We left everything out in the sun to dry and headed into town.  I'd been hoping for a haircut, so I bid the guys adeiu after finidng a nice place to get a cut (and a shampoo! it was divine!) while they walked to the Piggly Wiggly and Ace Hardware.  After my haircut I enjoyed walking around Georgetown and petting a kitty that lived on a boat there.  Her name was Xandra and she lives on the Xanderzone with her owners.  Eventually the guys made it back and Cody fixed the rudder while I walked to the bookstore.  I had seen "Do Not Feed The Alligators!" signs and asked a man in a shop if he'd evern seen gators out there.  "Sure!"  He asked if we were travelling with a dog?  No.  He told me if you have a dog, tie it to the dock and let it bark.  Come out there at 3 AM and shine a flashlight and you'll see a dozen pairs of eyes staring at that dog from the water.  I was glad he'd told me that after Cody had been swimming in there.

Another quiet night on the boat, then an early departure for the 60 mile sail to Charleston.  There is a long jetty extending several miles into the ocean on the South side of the inlet, so we had to motor pretty far east before we were able to raise sail.  Numerous dolphins were hanging out in the channel - important, because I'd promised Aaron we'd see dolphins on this trip and they had heretofore eluded us.  Once under sail we had a nice 10 kt wind and were able to hold our heading well.  I was at the helm for the first couple hours, and the wind began to increase and the seas to build.  We put two reefs in the main, and continued on.  It was definitely the biggest wind and waves I'd personally sailed the boat in (for any length of time, that is) and I think I did pretty well.  Eventually I was having a hard time holding course so I asked the guys to drop the jib.  That was sort of a mistake, because they we just stopped moving.  Cody took the helm and we raised the jib back up.  We were having a hard time holding course and would find ourselves heading over some unfortunately placed shoaling, so we tacked back out.  I was tired from the early morning and made myself a little queasy going down into the cabin to make breakfast, so  laid down for a nap.  While I was napping a severe weather alert came over the radio, with thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon.  Cody made the executive decision to cut over to the coast and jump back onto the ICW so we could get to Charleston that evening.

Once in the river we saw dolphins again!  Cody said, "You wanna swim with the dolphins?"  In I went!  There were probably 8 of them swimming around, doing their dolphin thing, looking for fish.  I was hoping they'd come up to me, but they were pretty ambivalent to my presence.  The closest they came was maybe 10 feet, which was super cool, because I could hear them breathing and see them really well at water level.  After ten minutes or so they made their way down the river and we proceeded up it onto the ICW.

It was a long day, but eventually we made it to Charleston.  We dropped an anchor next to City Marina, and then the two old guys who had their boats anchored nearby came up and rambled on about the currents and how we were going to swing into them.  Congrats, Old Guys, you scared us off.  We moved across the river with the other transients.  It was almost 9 by the time we got to shore.  We'd wanted to get a nice dinner, but we were a mile away from anything exciting so we got dinner at the restaurant at the marina.  Then passed out.

The next day we slept in, then wandered around Charleston with Aaron.  His flight left in the afternoon, and we settled back in for some R & R.  Charleston's pretty neat.  We are about 350 miles, as the crow flies, from Grand Bahama, however, so I'm sure we'll be moving on before too long.  I'm too excited for clear water and white beaches.

Trying to tempt the gators near Georgetown.

Eew.  Two days in.

Looking for adventure along the ICW.

Dolphins!  They don't bite, right?

Seeking out local brews.

Almost a week later.  Looking much more hand-like, less ebola-like.

Out of the fire, over the frying pan, and around Cape Fear

Our anchorage in Morehead City was surprisingly still, but not as quiet as I'd hoped.  At some point in the night a band started playing at one of the bars across the canal, and the sound travelled exceedingly well.  I think they finally packed it in around 1 AM.  We had a leisurely morning, however, as Aaron had stayed overnight in Myrtle Beach and still had a couple hours to drive to get to us.  We had coffee and I made cinnamon rolls on the grill - my grill-baking still needs a couple tweaks, but so far everything has turned out remarkably palatable - then cross the canal to the town dock where we could leave the boat while we ran some errands.  We were getting ourselves sorted on the dock when we heard a whoop and saw our tallest friend crossing from the parking lot.  We made full use of his rental car to take a trip to the grocery story, that was a mile away, and then continue another several miles down the highway to a Dick's sporting goods where we picked up propane and finally, FINALLY, found our collapsable 5 gallon water jug we'd been searching for high and low.  After returning the car and catching a taxi back to the dock, we stopped in for a true Southern Breakfast, then headed out.

The conditions were looking favorable for a long sail to Cape Fear (side note:  neither Cody or Aaron have seen Cape Fear.  You know, the original, with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum.  The scary one.  I think that watching the movie makes the whole thing sound much scarier.  I mean, I didn't even know Cape Fear was a real place until like, 3 months ago).  It was about 90 miles, and it looked like we would have a 10-15 knot Northwest wind and 2-4 foot seas.  It would end up being an all-night sail, but Aaron had specifically wanted to do some night sailing.  While still not particularly excited about night sailing, I figured the conditions were right and Aaron would be able to keep Cody company so I could just sleep.  We left around one with conditions looking perfect, but as the day wore on and we moved further offshore the winds and seas increased beyond what we'd expected.  Still, we were heading downwind so it wasn't too bad.  I sailed for a bit in the afternoon, then let the guys take over while I went down below to cook a dinner of chili and coleslaw.  Well, between the bigger waves and too much time below deck and already feeling somewhat fatigued I ended up feeling a little seasick.  I skipped dinner and crawled into the v-berth to try to give my brain a break.  

I ddn't sleep, but just laying as still as possible allowed my nausea to dissipate.  Of course, I also swallowed a couple Dramamine, and Aaron gave me his Sea-bands to wear because he was feeling fine.  As I was laying there I haerd some commotion on deck and Aaron shouted down, "Cody caught a fish!"  Cody had been talking to some guys in a fishing shop about how to trawl off the boat and they'd set him up with a squid lure and some thicker line.  He'd been concerned that we were moving too quickly to trawl, but the experts assured him that they run lines at 7 knots.  It would appear that they were right, because Cody pulled up a pretty big bluefin tuna.  It was actually a gorgeous animal, and it sort of bummed me out, but that's me.

Not long after Cody came into the cabin to make a thermos of coffee for the long night ahead, while Aaron deftly navigated the boat in the 6 foot swells.  Now, Cody's the kind of guy who'll hammer his finger, grunt, and keep on working.  I've seen him take spills on his bike that have left him bloody and bruised, and get right back up and keep riding.  He's a tough guy, is what I'm saying.  Well, he had his hand on top of the coffee maker (pour over-style) to keep it from moving around in the rough seas, but we caught a wave funny and the thermos slid out from under it, causing the boiling water and coffee grounds to stream out over his hand.  I was still huddled in the v-berth and I heard him hollar in such a way that I could tell he'd hurt himself pretty badly.  Still incapacitated with seasickness, however, I could only tell him to leave the mess for the morning and make sure he got some ice on it.  I'd packed a couple really good first aid kits (one for the boat, one for the ditch bag) and we had several chemical ice packs.  After very little fuss, he was back out on deck.

As it was getting dark I heard Aaron say something about feeling a little unwell, but that he wasn't sure if it was from the seas or just nerves from sailing at night (sailing at night is unnerving at the best of times, and downright alarming when you're moving through 6 foot waves at 9 knots on a 23 foot boat).  I crawled up and gave him back his seabands, took one look around and went back down below.  It would seem that the seabands didn't reach him soon enough, however, because around midnight he becamee somewhat incapacitated.  I'd been trying to convince myself to get up and be a functional member of the team, so at that point I came up and traded places with Aaron.  Despite my conviction that I'd be sleeping through the night I ended up sitting on deck trying to entertain Cody from midnight until we arrived the next morning.

As one navigates around Cape Fear there is a 30 mile long shoal that extends into the Atlantic, known as the Frying Pan Shoal..  At the end of the shoal is a former Coast Guard light station that sits 50 feet above the waterline.  This structure is known as the Frying Pan.  Reportedly, during larger storms the waves break over the top of the building.  Wrap your head around  that.  Anyway, now it's been converted into a bed and breakfast.  Go figure.  Larger boats always go out around the shoal or they'll risk running aground on the sand bars that, in some places, leave just 4 feet of water.  6 foot swells in 4 feet of water do not a successful sailing trip make.  By this point the seas had subsided ssomewhat and the wind quieted, so we were looking at 4 foot seas and 6 knot speeds.  Additionally, we'd picked a place to cross the shoal where the chart (well, one of them, anyway) promised 7-8 foot depths.  Tension was already running high from the rough night as we began the 3 mile traverse, and I'm pretty sure I didn't breath until we were clear.  Our passage was incident free, although waves could be heard breaking not far from where we sat.

From here we turned north and hauled in the sails, our speed once again ramping up to 7 knots.  7 knots on no sleep is stressful.  But the sun was beginning to show on the horizon and we were only a couple miles from our destination at Bald Head Island, the body of land that constitutes Cape Fear. Aaron came back on deck feeling much better after a couple hours of shut-eye.  We turned into the  channnel at that magical moment of dawn and were greeted with pelicans flying overhead and fish jumping left and right.  I sat on the bow, exhaustedly gazing at the horizon, when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned in time to see a big splash, and heard Cody and Aaron exclaim.  They claimed that what created that monster splash was a huge ray that "had to be 12 feet across!"  I've since christened it the Cape Fear Monster - sort of like the Loch Ness Monster, but more badass.

Monsters aside, we made it into our harbor before the harbormaster was even in for the day, so we grabbed a slip and passed out.

Grill-cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs.

Cody was very proud of his fish.

Some artistic license was taken.

One Cheese and the OBX

Carolina brews!

Our kite is a dragon, it's neat.

We made pizza on the grill, it turned out awesome.

We departed Elizabeth City at the same time as our northbound cruising friends.  The local dockside hospitality was there to see us off.  As everyone started their motors to leave the harbor you could barely hear the purr of the others' inboard diesel engines, and we fired up our little 2 stroke with a roar and a large cloud of black smoke.  That is why we were headed out and they were headed in for more motoring.

We had a nice sail through the Albermarle Sound, and hadn't planned for too many miles.  We started planning the next leg, knowing we had to be at least to Beaufort, about 150 miles away, by Sunday to meet up with our friend Aaron for a week of deckscrubbing hazing sailing.  I expressed interest in going to Hattaras, home of the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum, and we'd already talked about wanting to stop in Ocracoke.  Cody said, "well, do you want to do Ocracoke or Hattaras?"  Or?  I wanted to see both!  What followed was a long fight discussion on whether we had time to do both, and how I didn't want to just sail by all these cool places I might never see again.  I may or may not have gone into the cabin and shut the door behind me for an hour.  Maybe.  Anyway, that resulted in the decision to not anchor in the nice little remote harbor we'd planned on, and we decided to add a few miles to the day to get closer to something we wanted to see.

It was then that the wind really picked up.  We were headed from the Albermarle to the Pamlico Sound and the whole area was completely strewn with crab (?) traps.  It was like navigating through a maze.  I was on the tiller when one of them I'd failed to give a wide enough berth caught the rudder and popped it up.  It's designed to pop up when it hits something to avoid damage, but when it isn't fully down there is a tremendous amount of force acting on it, and any attempt to move the tiller has dire results (as you may remember from previous posts, we learned this the hard way last spring at the cost of two perfectly good tiller handles).  The answer to a popped rudder is to loose the sails, which kills our speed and usually heads us upwind, allowing us to pull the rudder back down.  It is nearly impossible to pull it down while we're travelling with any velocity.  Well, everything and everyone behaved as they should and we got the rudder down, but it was a little too much for the day and we decided to just find a quiet hole to anchor in.  Elizabeth City hadn't been particularly restful and we needed some down time.

After a couple false starts with anchor, we finally found some good holding in Manns Harbor.  We watched a movie and cooked dinner  and got some of that relaxation we needed.  Our hope was to make it to Hattaras the next day - it was only about 40 miles away - but when we set out the winds were gusting like crazy and there was crazy chop in the Pamlico.  That was the first day that I swore undying hatred of that sound, and not the last.  After 5 miles we gave it up for a bad job and pulled into a little creek outside of Wanchese, NC.  Just at the entrace there was a beautiful dock that stretched out in front of a huge mansion, and it appeared deserted.  With a few glances over our shoulders we tied up.

With the memory of our "conversation" the day before fresh in our minds, we decided to go explore the town we were near.  We debated the pronunciation of the name - Wanchese.  I settled on wan-cheese-ee, while Cody preferred Wanna-cheese.  At any rate, we left a note on our boat saying we'd be back in case our presence on the dock was bothersome to the absent tenants, and walked towards town.  "Town" turned out to be a very rural, down-on-its-heels fishing town.  While many of the passers-by waved and smiled, we also walked by a huge man sitting in a chair in front of a trailer that was rotting into the ground, drinking bad beer.  He yelled at us (me), "Hey!  You wanna party?"  and he continued to yell it until we were out of site.  I wondered, "Has anyone ever said yes?"  At any rate, my father taught me that as long as you can run away from the bad guys you're all set, and beating this scumbag in a footrace was no question.  (Side note:  my entire impression of the South, I fear, has been shaped by watching Deliverance, so, well, it's no surprise that I view every good ol' boy who passes by as, well, maybe the less said the better.)

Anyway, we found Wanchese lacking in charm, but found a nice sandwich shop staffed by some really friendly women.  They even made a blackbean burger!  It was delish.  And!  we learned the proper pronunciantion of Wanchese - One-Cheese.  Go figure.  Well, we were convinced we'd seen the best that Wanchese had to offer and walked back to the boat.  Once we arrived the wind had died down and we decided to see if we could make some headway.  Just as we got out there it started gusting like crazy again and we turned back, no more ready to get soaked and beat up than we'd been in the morning.  No one seemed to mind our presence on the dock and we ended up having a very nice evening there.

The next morning the wind had settled down a bit and we had a quick sail down to Hattaras.  We tied up to a couple pilings and decided to walk around.  We were in search of a good pound of coffee and stumbled upon The Dancing Turtle coffeeshop.  We found ourselves unwilling to spend $16/lb for coffee beans, but each ordered a frozen mocha.  It was amazing.  We walked to the Atlantic side of Hattaras and went for a swim/body surf in the warm ocean.  Also amazing, and very much needed.

The next day we set out for the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum after breakfast.  We were going to run, but it was hot and we were lazy, so after about 100 yards we turned around and went into the hardware store that had rental cruiser bikes out front.  They wanted $15 each per day for them, but we didn't need them the whole day so Cody talked them down to $15 for both for a couple hours.  As it woudl turn out, even that was a steep.  Every time Cody would coast his chain would fall off.  Oh well.  We went back to our favorite coffee shop for another frozen mocha, then cruised down to the museum.  The museum was pretty rad - it's remarkable and sort of frightening how many big ships have gone down around the Outer Banks.

Once we got back to the boat it was looking like a nice day to make the 15 mile sail to Ocracoke, so we raised the anchor and set out.  We had nice downwind sail and made it there in a couple hours.  The next morning we went out for breakfast, then went for a little run.  I was super lazy so our run turned into more of a walk, and when we got back to the docks we got ice cream and bought  kite.  The rest of the day was spent chilling on the boat and trying to fly the kite (there wasn't really enough wind).  We wanted to go check out a bar that was about a mile from where we docked our dinghy, so after dinner we walked to Howard's Pub.  They boasted a beer selection 200-deep.  We tried some North Carolina beers, then walked back to the boat.  Ocracoke was rad.

The next day we were boun for Morehead City, about 50 miles from Ocracoke.  We decided to head down the Core Sound rather than heading out into the ocean because of a prediction of 4-6 foot seas.  It was super shallow but Tri-oomph skimmed right over it.  There were these big nets stretched across  huge distances of the sound, reinforced with fence posts.  It was super annoying because we'd find a good heading and then we'd realize that there was a net stretched across and we'd have to go about a mile off course to get around it.  As we entered the channel to get up to Morehead City/Beaufort we were greeted by dozens of boats going full-speed in and out the channel.  It was insanity.  I am really amazed we didn't see any collisions.  We would later learn that there had been a fishing competition that day, doubless contributing to the boat traffic.

We found our way to the recommended anchorage and had a pleasant evening on the boat, ready to meet up with Aaron the next morrning!