Heading South - Finally

While hanging out in Hampton doing boat things and waiting for weather, I decided that I needed to set up a place that I didn't have to take apart when I wanted to paint. The set up/put away thing is my biggest challenge with painting on the boat. Since our aft cabin is a storage room unless we have guests on board, I decided to claim the end of the berth for my art table. I can leave my work in progress and close the door if I don't want to look at my mess. There is one down side: being less limber than in my youth, I find it a little hard to stand up after sitting crosslegged on a cushion on the floor for a couple of hours. Here is my "Art Studio" (hahaha) but, hey, it works:

Southbound!

On February 1, we left to go south. We pulled out of our slip in Hampton at about 7:10 a.m. Per our norm, it took us longer to leave than we expected. Dave did an excellent job with undocking. He navigated safely all along the ICW, which is tricky business because so much of it is shallow. We made it to Coinjock, NC the first night. I think the motoring, while not as fun as sailing, is ok for now. 

Coinjock is kind of a neat place. Being located right along the ICW, they must see some fancy boats in the spring and fall when the great cruiser migrations happen. It was very peaceful. There are so many great places in the US that we are discovering. We are really looking forward to seeing more - especially the warmer spots. 

We anchored in the Alligator River on our second ICW night. We did not see any alligators. The anchorage was decent but pretty muddy and no decent shore access. The shore was a tangle of reeds, sticks, stumps and stunted trees with no obvious place to land a dinghy; it wasn’t clear if it was really land. The dog had to do her business on the boat. We took her to her "pee grass" on a regular schedule, sprayed it with the stuff that is supposed to encourage dogs to use that spot. She prefered to lounge on the pee grass. She is definitely not getting the idea. She eventually peed - below decks, near the companionway. She felt bad. Poor doggie. I feel bad for her. 

At this end of the ICW, there are many straight canal sections. It kind of reminded me of the Jungle Cruise in Disneyland. We were very nervous going under our first 65 foot bridge. Our mast height is 63.5 feet, plus the VHF antenna. Collective sigh of relief when we didn't scrape. There was one 64 foot bridge where we really held our breath. Our antenna did scrape on that one, but fortunately, it is flexible and just bent over as we went through. We have passed some cute towns, Belhaven being one of them. It would be nice if we weren’t trying to get to Beaufort before the big winds on Monday, otherwise we could maybe do a little more exploring on the journey. One thing I’m learning about the cruising life, so far, is that the journey isn’t too much about stopping to smell the roses. Maybe we’ve just timed things poorly with the weather?

Brrr! Our second morning was cold!. It was cold in the boat, out of the boat, everywhere. We ran the generator so we could use the heater and make coffee (Nectar of the Gods). We got warm for a little while. I think the dog is miserable. She hasn’t figured out about relieving herself on the boat. We moved the pee grass to hopefully a better spot. All the articles I've read indicate the dog will eventually go.

The second night, we were checking out a place to anchor and decided that it wasn’t as good as the place we had just passed on the other side of the channel. When turning around, we ended up getting into water that got too shallow super fast. The 4.8 feet depth was not good with our 6 foot draft. It took some time and a great deal of fancy maneuvering on the part of Captain Dave, but we got unstuck. Thank goodness. We were a long way from any Boat US tow services. Once we were settled in, it was a super calm night, very nice. Photos did not do the sunset justice. It was a panorama going from a peachy golden hue in the west to soft violet to light pink to the east. Serene is the best word to describe it.

We arrived at Jarrett Bay Marina Sunday afternoon. The dog was so happy to get off the boat! We are here for a few days while strong winds blow through. It is primarily a boat yard, lots of marine services and many very big boats on the hard. Beaufort is about 8 miles away. Kind of a bummer that it isn’t a “stroll to the grocery store, explore the cute shops” kind of marina. But that is OK as it is quite blowy and we are glad we are not out in it. Also, the marina is part of the Safe Harbor network so we are using our free transient nights. Free is good. Also, we get to be next to Dead Cow 53!

Early Monday morning (like 5:30 a.m.) we had some excitement - our NEST smoke alarm went off - red flashing lights, loud beeping and “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!” We woke up quick! We could not find any emergency and reset the device. About 30 minutes later - red flashing light and alarm beep again! Up again, did the check and Dave, master technical guy, tried to figure out what was going on with our NEST - clearly there was no emergency. Dave saw there had been an software update on the detectors and thought it maybe did something funky to the NEST thing. Then, the next morning, this time at 3 a.m., red flashing lights and "Emergency! Smoke in the Master Bedroom!" There was no smoke. There was nothing wrong anywhere on the boat. Once again, Dave, the tech master (he wears many hats on this boat - captain, weatherman, blog editor, tech guy), worked on figuring it out. He is now pretty sure there is something wrong with the sensor and he disabled the darn thing. We moved the device that was in the aft cabin to our cabin and have not had a repeat. So, we can add "fix the NEST or get a new one" to the to-do list.

We will venture offshore into the Atlantic for the next leg of our passage to the lands of sun and warmth. We will be offshore from Beaufort, NC to Charleston, SC. The plan is to leave on Thursday and do an overnight passage. It should be about 30 hours. That may be better for the dog since she would be sleeping during a lot of that time anyway. I’m excited and a little nervous. We haven’t done this long of a sail and we haven’t been in the ocean yet. We consulted with Captain Jeff and he thinks this is a good strategy. The winds will be light. We can leave on Thursday morning and arrive on Friday afternoon.

Even though there are times when I am tired of being uncomfortable or nervous about trying something new, I am glad that we are challenging ourselves to do this crazy adventure and reaching beyond our comfort zone in our sixth decade of life.