Thursday, October 23: Leaving the Chesapeake

Start: Little Creek Marina, Norfolk, VA (dock)	Miles: 277.4 nm
End: Carolina Beach, NC (mooring ball)	Time: 46hr28m
Weather: Warm fall day	Waves: 2-ft

Here it is – our first overnight passage! And rounding Cape Hatteras nonetheless. We checked and double-checked the weather, and got a thumbs-up from our coaches/weather-planner. This is the right time to do the Hatteras rounding. It should be about 36 hours to Beaufort, NC, with gentle waves.

Cape Hatteras (the “graveyard of the Atlantic”) is a challenge because it’s the tip of the east coast with shifting shallows where the continent meets the rushing gulf stream.

Our plan is to parallel the eastern shore of Virginia, leaving the Diamond Shoals lighted buoy well to our starboard.  We should have wind coming from the shore allowing us to sail for the majority of the time. After that, we should have a following wind to push us into Beaufort well ahead of any weather picking up.

Immediately after leaving Little Creek Marina, Leanne and I were doubting ourselves. Four-foot square waves were bashing us and our boat as we tried to leave the Chesapeake. Is this really the right window for us? Will the Atlantic really be more calm than the Chesapeake bay? Two hours of bashing were followed by another hour of see-saw lumpy rollers. Once we could see Virginia Beach, the waves died down, the wind steadied, and we were comfortable again.

The next stretch was 22 hours to Diamond Shoals, all in sight of the Virginia coastline. We found a group of kindred sailboats doing our same route: SV Peaks (who we met in DC), SV Problem Child, SV Heartstrings, and SV Siren’s Call. We talked over WhatsApp and radio, keeping an eye out for each other. It was comforting to be in contact with the sailboats around us.

Leanne and I had an irregular watch schedule for the night. It worked out okay, with both of us feeling equally tired the next day. Maybe we’ll refine this as we go. Other than that, the night was uneventful. Leanne woke me up when we rounded Cape Hatteras, and I promptly went back to sleep.

• David – 13:00 to 19:00
• Leanne – 19:00 to 00:30
• David – 00:30 to 04:30
• Leanne – 04:30 to 09:00

Friday, October 24: Wahoo!

The water is blue! This is the gulf stream water pumped up from the Caribbean! Dolphins everywhere; it’s a magical place. Now around Hatteras, we had made good time over the past 20 hours. If we keep this up, we’ll arrive at Beaufort at 8p. Our buddy boats said they were pressing on to Southport, NC, which would add another ~12 hours to the trip. Our research didn’t show any anchorages we liked in Southport, but we wanted to keep going. We decided to go to Carolina Beach, which our Los Alamos friends on Zia had recommended. It was short of Southport, but still more progress than Beaufort. And a great mooring field for the upcoming heavy wind forecast. It is decided. SV Heartstrings would also come to Carolina Beach with us, which was nice to have a buddy boat. Another ~22 hours to go.

Rainier woke up, and we decided to put the fishing line out. Two hours later, we hooked something. Line was flying out. We slowed down and Rainier started reeling in, but wasn’t making any progress. I tightened the spool as much as possible to keep it from running, but that didn’t help him reel in that much. I took over, assuming he just didn’t know how to reel a fish in. It was a struggle. We had hooked something big. We wrestled with this fish for 20-30 minutes to get it within sight. Leanne audibly gasped when she saw it, thinking we had hooked a dolphin or a shark.

Finally, after it was worn out, we had it on the transom. Now what do I do? My dad taught me how to put a line in the water, not how to bring fish in. And certainly not a fish that looks the size of Corban! We poured the nice whiskey on his gills to shock him, then used the gaff to bring him into the cockpit. (Where else was I going to bring something that big?!) I dragged him up the swim ladder onto the cockpit, and put him out of his misery. Leanne looked up the fish, and found out it was a Wahoo. I’d never heard of a Wahoo before, but the internet says it’s good eating in the mackerel family. We measured it at 61”, and figured it was about 75 lbs. We made an assembly line of fileting, rinsing, and packaging the meat, which weighed in at 33 lbs. That’s a lot of meat! Throughout the fileting, Corban was asking what each organ was, so we turned it into a biology lesson. This was exactly the kind of fun experience we had hoped for on this trip. Our entire family worked to bring that fish in, worked together to dress it out, cleaned the cockpit together, and enjoyed a pan-fried Wahoo steak together. What a day!

The Wahoo helped pass the time, because we still had another night at sea. Leanne and I had a similar watch schedule, with me taking the middle hours of the night after taking an afternoon/evening siesta.

Saturday, October 25: Sweet Carolina Beach

 We slowed down around ~04:00 to time our entrance into the Masonboro Inlet at first light. Then we motored another hour down the Intracoastal Waterway to arrive in Carolina Beach at 09:00. I grated potatoes for a hash brown and egg breakfast feast to celebrate our first successful overnight passage. Then Leanne and I napped and zoned out for the next few hours. “Sure kids, just keep playing on your laptops.”

That afternoon, we finally met SV Heartstrings face-to-face when we went to a BBQ joint downtown Carolina Beach (Carolina BBQ!). That kicked off a fun week of hanging out with these good friends!