June 1, 2007

The weather forecast sounded good so I left Sapodilla Bay on May 27. The winds were pretty light but I had a nice sail out the Sandbore Channel and managed to miss all the coral heads. Once I got out past the reef, there was still a slight northerly swell running so the boat rocked a bit as I went west. I headed for the north end of Acklins Island. Last year I went around the bottom of Acklins so I would have calmer seas. The seas weren't so bad this year to make it worth the extra distance. I would be exposed to the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Cat Island but it was quite a bit shorter to go this way.

Shortly after leaving Sapodilla Bay I passed another landmark on this little adventure. I have sailed over 10,000 NM on Bella Vita since I bought her. That's a lot of hours sitting in the cockpit.

I had a good sail up to Cat Island and was thinking of stopping somewhere there for a nights rest. As I approached Cat Island, I listened to the weather again and they were predicting really nice sailing conditions all the way to NC. I decided not to stop there and turned and went east of the island to save a few miles. It was about 680 NM from there to Morehead City, NC, or about 6 good days. As I went past Eleuthera Island, another boat called me on the radio. They were also going to Morehead City. He had listened to the weather that morning and was telling me about a low pressure area forming off the Yucatan in the Gulf of Mexico that was supposed to move up the US east coast this weekend causing some severe storms. I kept on going thinking that I could be in Morehead City before it got there. Then the winds slacked off and I hit a contrary current so I had a couple of slow days. Today, I listened to two weather guys, One, from FL, said that the low pressure could form into a tropical storm but he didn't think it would. The satelite picture from this morning didn't show any formation yet and that he expected some high winds and rain but nothing really severe. I kept going north based on his forecast. This afternoon I listened to Herb, from Canada, and he said this was a major storm and that you did not want to be out in it. He was telling a boat heading to NY that they needed to change and go to Bermuda, about 300 miles away, to miss it. He said it looked identical to one in 1988 that caused the loss of a boat and 4 people. I turned around and am heading south now. I can't really get to a safe harbor before it hits so I will just get as far away from it a I can. I should be several hundred miles from the US coast when it hits. I expect some strong winds from it and have the boat ready for them. I will fly the storm jib and the main with three reefs and if it gets too bad, I'll drop all sails and run off before the winds. I did that last year on the way south through some gail force winds and it works quite well. After it passes, I'll turn around and head back to Morehead CIty. If the weather is good enough, I'll turn and go around Cape Hatteras and on up to the Chesapeake skipping the ICW. That rarely happens so I expect to be going up the ICW.

June 9, 2007

I am in the ICW now slowly heading north. I got to Morehead City on Thur, the 7th, and stopped for fuel and Customs. I was actually underway within a half hour and wnet about 15 miles north before stopping for the night. I stopped in Cedar Creek, a spot where I had anchored before. There were a few other boats alread there so I ended up pretty close to ICW channel, between a navigaion marker and a sunken sailboat. I was there for a a few hours and had already changed the oil and filter before my anchor started to drag. It took off quickly, almost like the rode broke. Cedar Cr is not very wide and is shallow so there was not a long way to drag. I got the engine started, thankfully I was done with the oil change, and started pulling in the anchor. I had to stop with the anchor and go back and power forward a couple of times before I could finish getting the anchor up. As soon as the anchor was above the water, I took off and headed back out of Cedar Cr. I went south about 1/4 mile and anchored a few hundered feet off the channnel along Adams Creek, another place I had anchored before. It held with no problem and I had the first nights sleep for eleven nights. In the morning, I had a leisurly breakfst and got underway about 9:00. I wasn't planning on going very far and was planning on sailing. There are only a few spots on the ICW where you can sail so I was planning on do it. My autopilot broke again so I had no way to hold the boat into the wind to raise the mainsail and was planning on raising the mainsail at anchor. When I got ready to go, the boat was pointing away from the wind. There was enough current that it overcame the winds alinging force and turned the baot away from the wind so I still couldn't raise the sail. So I ended up motoring about 25 miles to the mouth of Bonner Bay and anchored, another place where I had anchored before. Another good nights sleed and I am still sitting there. I think I will stay here for a day before heading north again. Then I'll prbably just go about 30 miles to the south end of the Aligator River - Pungo River canal. The canal is about 20 miles long and there is no place to stop along it so I'll anchor at the south end and go through in the morning. There are some nice anchorages at the north end of the canal so it will be another short day. I am going to take it easy going north this time. I have always tried to make the trip as quick a possible before but am going to relax this trip.

Barry didn't cause too much of a problem for me other than about three days. The winds got up into the low 30 K range and seas got up to about 15 feet. I was sailing with the storm jib and triple reefed mainsail and really had no problem other than being bounced around for a few days. My autopilot broke, the motor burned up again, the day I turned south so I switched to Aries windvane for selfsteering. It took a little twiddling but I got it setup to where it was holding the boat within a couple of degrees of the set point. I didn't want to sail very fast because I didn't want to go too far south so I set the windvane to where the boat was pinching a bit. This slowed the boat and reduced the loads on the sails somewhat. The Aries held it great for two days. I then turned east for a day before turning back north. I ran on the Aries for about five days before the winds died to the point that it couldn't control my course. I had to hand steer about the last 50 miles into Morehead City. Of course as I headed for the fuel dock at the Morehead City Yacht Basin, the winds started again at about 20 K.

Overall, it wasn't a bad trip north. It was eleven days from the Turks and Caicos to Morehead City with about three becasue of Barry. I didn't see and Dolphins until the day before I got to NC.

June 20, 2007