We were supposed to be well north of Hatteras by now but we left a bit late and since then it has been one thing after another!
We have been working our way slowly up north in between fronts and work trips and the plan was to get out of peak hurricane zones before Hurricanes started to hit. So anyway, this is where we are right now:
The big red swirly thing you see is Hurricane Erin and we have apparently tried to get as close as we could to her path. Thankfully Erin isn’t supposed to make landfall so our biggest risks are high winds and storm surge. We have tucked into one of our favourite marinas on the east coast and put lots of extra lines and fenders out. Highest winds are expected at around 11am tomorrow. It likely won’t be a very restful night for us though.
Getting up to Beaufort has been a four leg journey. Leg number one was Brunswick to Charleston, which involved a very early morning start to avoid thunderstorms later on in the voyage. The seas were very calm for the entire journey. Unfortunately so were the winds. No winds meant no sailing and no breeze at all to cool down. This was by far the hottest trip we have ever experienced. Even the time we decided to head south on our previous boat during the middle of summer didn’t result in us dealing with the 49 degree (120 Fahrenheit) heat that we recorded in the cockpit on this trip. It was a challenge to keep Kata from overheating and, after trying various cooling blankets and vests, we ultimately decided to run the generator and run the air conditioning in the forward cabin for her (running A/C underway was certainly a first for us). We got into Charleston at 2am and as we were entering the channel there was lightning all around us…we were a little worried we might be setting our anchor in one of the thunderstorms but luckily they all stayed away.
The next leg was up to Winyah Bay, SC. Again a short leg to avoid thunderstorms. The inlet is known to be challenging at times, especially when the wind is against current. This wasn’t a problem for us but timing had us arriving in the middle of the night again so we had to follow some somewhat confusing lighted markers in that were reminiscent of a Christmas tree. We stayed in a very peaceful and empty anchorage for the week to get some work done and ride out some storms before heading off again with the intention of going straight to Beaufort. Our fuel levels, however, had other ideas. After having to run the generator more often than usual while at anchor (to be able to run A/C to take the edge off) we were a bit lower than we had planned to be. We had to make a one night pit stop in Wrightsville beach and then were back on our way to Beaufort.
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