Beating to Windward

I forgot to mention in our last post that we are being joined by our friend Jared K. for the trip to Savannah. We’re glad to have him aboard and help with the watch rotation, but we’ll keep him slightly anonymous so that his work doesn’t find out he is working extra-remotely from home…

After the unfortunately eventful trip down Adams Creek to Beaufort, we topped off our diesel tanks and Jerry cans at Town Creek Marina.  Shout out to them! Easy access and the price of diesel was under $4/gallon! The only down side, was that the nozzle was the diameter of my arm, making filling the Jerry cans a nightmare and even the main diesel tanks were no picnic.  

We found a nice spot to anchor in Beaufort (great stop, by the way), visited the local brewery (of course!) and met up with the OCC Port Officer Diane to pick up the couple of items I had sent to her. We didn’t get to stay very long since the weather was looking to get more and more unfavorable as time went on.  

We found (what we thought was) a good time to leave and headed into the Atlantic around 1:00 PM. We knew were going to be close hauled (pointed as close to into the wind as physics allowed our boat to sail) and for the first couple of hours it was unpleasant but tolerable.  For th9sr that haven’t done it, the boat is pushing into the oncoming waves, which are coming from slightly off of one corner of the boat, which pitches the boat up and down, sometimes forcefully. At this point he wins was at about 15 knots and the seas at about 4 feet, though short period, which makes them steep.

Of course that started to build as we got offshore as we pointed to round Frying Pan Shoals, which extends about 20 miles into the Atlantic. The wind was now in the low 20’s, the main was reefed and the waves were building to closer to 6’ (probably!couldn’t see them in the dark). I re-checked the weather and found that a small craft advisory had been issued at about 2:30 and that the wind could be expected to be 30 knots as we got to Frying Pan Shoals,

Not too mention that 2 out of 3 of us were seasick and didn’t take any medicine beforehand, making recovery from medicine now unlikely.  

At this point, Chief Morale Officer Chuck decided we should change plans and head for the nearest, safe inlet.  In this area of NC there is one; Masonboro Inlet, just south of Wrightsville Beach. It would be about 3 hours to get there, but on the plus side, we would be bearing away from the wind, which would increase comfort, but the damage was already done, and seasickness recovery usually doesn’t start until motion stops. 

We eventually got in late (around 2am) and had to enter the channel with pretty large waves rushing in against the outgoing tide.  Hard to know for sure, but some waves seemed to be 6+ feet; thankfully not breaking. We found a nice, close and calm spot to anchor and all quickly turned in to be ready for the next day.