Waiting out Erin

UPDATE: Erin passed through and all is fine with us and Avion.

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.

Soon after arriving in Charleston I had a conference in Baltimore to go to so I left Kevin, Kata and Avion at a Marina in Daniel Island. It was charming area, that was close (ish) to Kevin’s parents, so I didn’t feel too guilty leaving them behind. Apparently the weather was much nicer while I was gone and Kevin managed to find himself a champagne tasting to go to at a cool local wine bar that was owned by a sailor. I managed to get a little exploration before and after the conference and was able to catch up with Kevin’s parents and surprisingly, Jenna Slater and Family! Jenna was our first friend to come and spend a night on board last year and they happened to be on holiday in the area. We finally got to meet their son, Eli, but completely forgot to take photos while there of course!

The next leg was up to Winyah Bay, SC. Again a short leg to avoid thunderstorms. To give ourselves a bit of a head start we anchored right beside the USS Yorktown the night before we left. Winyah Bay was our ditch option…we had hoped to get further but weather was closing in. The inlet is known to be challenging at times, especially when the wind is against current. We also didn’t know anybody who had done this inlet before so we had no gifted knowledge from people with a similar boat size. The wind against current was thankfully not 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. It turned out to be well worth the ditch. We stayed in a very peaceful and empty anchorage for the week to get some work done and ride out some storms. We had no civilisation nearby and enjoyed watching the sunsets with the dolphins and birds for company. The anchorage had excellent holding and protection but boy did our chain and anchor come up muddy when we left! Finally another weather window opened and it was time to head 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. If Winyah Bay was one of the most peaceful anchorages we had ever been to, Wrightsville Beach was fighting for top place on the least peaceful list! We chose it for being just around Cape Fear and a short entrance so it wouldn’t add too much time to our journey north. We hadn’t realised that the short entrance also made it a popular motorboat area and we had arrived during one of the last weekends of school holidays. Again we had a middle of the night arrival and happily dropped anchor in calm waters then went down below to catch some zzz’s. Our morning wake up was the wake of a thousand boats. Ok maybe some exaggeration here. Getting fuel turned out to be a competition to see who could get to the fuel dock first and ultimately we just had to cut across the traffic and let the motorboats figure themselves out! Back at anchor we were resting down below when we heard some loud horns that sounded very close by. We poked our heads up and realised we were right in the middle of a 420 regatta so of course we stayed up to watch and cheer them on. This also had the added benefit of keeping all the fast boats out of the nearby vicinity!

one more early morning departure and we were finally going to make it to Beaufort! The sea conditions were calm and we were half tempted to just go straight around Hatteras. Erin was on her way though and we decided staying south of the cape would offer more protection from the winds. While I was on shift and Kevin was down below, napping, I noticed a very large vessel directly in our path. No information was showing up on AIS aside from their MMSI so I did some research (how did people do this before satellite internet??) and found out it was a wasp class assault ship! It was curiously not going anywhere so I kept a good eye on it and maintained my course and eventually it started to move out of the way. After I passed by, the ship then turned around and went back to its previous spot. At this point Kevin came up from his nap and there was an announcement over channel 16 that they were about to commence firing practice and no vessels should enter within a 4 mile range. How lovely of them to move out of the way of our little sailboat and wait until Kevin was done with his nap!