We departed on Wednesday morning in no particular rush. We made coffee and breakfast and waited for the tide to start heading out. Our goal was to make it to Ocracoke, NC, about 250 miles north. We would have to head west to get around the Frying Pan Shoal before cutting north, passing just west of Cape Lookout and then going in the Ocracoke Inlet.
Well, long story short, we didn't have as stellar of conditions for this leg of the trip as we'd had for the first. Our first day and a half we covered barely 80 miles, making it just past the Frying Pan. It was hot and we weren't moving. It's difficult to express how disheartening it is to have no wind on a sailboat. I read one book about circumnavigation and the author said something like, "and deep in the heart of the becalmed sailor lies the fear, however irrational, that the wind willl never return." I'm completely paraphrasing, but it's sort of true.
Anyway, on the second evening we were cooking dinner, moving along at a frustratingly sedate 1.5 knots, when the boat jybed hard as the wind abruptly switched from southerly at less than 5 knots to northerly at 15-20. It was pretty alarming. As a novice sailor I have a tendency to feel somewhat betrayed when the ocean or conditions do something unexpected, like a cat who thinks you're carrying her to the kitchen for dinner and then you plop her in the sink for a bath. What - how - why?!?! How could you do this to me?!
Melodramatics aside, we had to tack west. The wind increased and the seas built a bit. Cody sailed us through the night. We made surprising decent headway as we struggled against the stiff north wind. When I came on deck just before dawn Cody informed me that the mainsail had torn. The seam just above the top battan had separated a month before and Cody had put a beautiful patch on it (sewing through all the old holes for three hours). The new rip was on either side of the patch job and it was not cool. At this point we decided we should just take our chances with a questionable inlet and get out of the chop and north wind. To get there we'd just drop our maimed main and motor.
Now, our reliable little outboard is raised and lowered along an aluminum track. The mechanism is getting a little old and the springs aren't so hot anymore. At some point during the night we must've come hard off a wave and the impact caused the track in the motor mount to bend. The result was that the engine was stuck in the lowest position and operation would cause it to suck in sea water. Engines don't like that. Cody at this point hadn't slept in far too long and was getting pretty frustrated trying to bend the mount back into place as we crashed through the chop with our sad sail. Sleep deprivation is an ugly thing. Anyway, I suggested that we heave-to so that the motion of the boat and the drag on the motor would be lessened. That did the trick and he was able to bend the track sufficiently that we were able to move the motor up a couple clicks. Phew. As we were talking about a game plan and looking at the inlet we were going to attempt to enter we noticed a half dozen dolphins swimming around the boat. They were just sort of swimming around in circles, coming to the surface to give us some dolphin side-eye. It was like they were checking up on us! "You's guys OK? Why isn't your green vessel moving?" It was pretty amazing. We gave them the a-okay and they swam off.
Cody finally got to go to bed and I motored us through the nasty chop towards the inlet. I heaved-to again for another hour or so hoping to have a favorable tide. There were three huge Navy ships doing some sort of training exercises in the bay around us - blowing things up and stuff. It was entertaining while we waited.
We made it in the inlet, only running aground twice! The tide chart I'd consulted had lied to me and we were, in fact, fighting a tide despite my best intentions. C'est la vie. We dropped anchor and both took a 4 hour nap. It was amazing. We woke up just long enough to heat up some prepared soup and watch a stupid movie, then fell back asleep for the night.
When we awoke the next day the weather was gloriously cool! We'd gone from baking heat to rain and a north wind during our sail, so the partially cloudy skies and cool air temperatures felt like heaven. We motored up the ICW to Morehead City and tied up to a restaurant dock for lunch. There were a couple other boats tied up there and a big deck with full tables adjacent to the dock. When we were casting off I made some snarky comment to Cody about not waiting for me to get the bowline and he says everyone on the dock heard me and started cracking up. I guess when you're at sea for a little while it's easy to forget that in public you might want to moderate the snarky commentary. Or not.
At any rate, why were we on the ICW?
First a story
When I raced bikes I would almost always reach a point in the season when I got burned out and didn't want to ride anymore. Or, if I was racing road I wanted to ride my MTB, if I was racing CX I wanted to MTB and go to yoga or something. It's as abrupt as loving it one day and waking up the next morning filled with dread for having to go to a race, or go do intervals.
Well, I reached that threshold with the boating life. When that north wind snuck up on us I was abruptly Over It, and wanted to do whatever the opposite of sailing is (drowning?). Cody talked to his brother Tuck when we were anchored south of Morehead and he offered to drive down and pick us up with the trailer. Sold! How much do I freaking owe my brother-in-law (and Elise!) after this trip? They watched Riley and my kitties (they even learned Big KItty's spirit name, and it is Gandalf, and he will forever be known as such), and now this. Um, maybe I can weed the greenhouse or something for you guys? Or, uh, work on your bikes? I lack the skills to be of much use to people who make and grow things for a living. I try not to be, but I'm a killer of plants.
But I digress.
So as you can see, our voyage back into a cruise northward, trying to get further up so Tuck doesn't have to drive as far. And more on that later!
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