Soaking up the weather before a trip home

We left Wrightsville Beach when the weather report suggested that we would be tailing behind the storm front that had rained us in for the last several days. We were promised 14 knot winds and clear skies. The good weather actually even blew in a few hours earlier than expected, but with the rain finally clear we decided to take the morning to see the actual beach at Wrightsville before leaving. The beach is a beautiful sandy beach with intermittent entrances between beach houses and long grass and cacti. It was very nice to walk along the beach. The waves were quite generous coming up on shore, reminding me of the surfing waves in Hawaii. After the beach walk, we stopped in at a small hot dog shop for a specialty dog each. We very much enjoyed our morning. By the time we were back at Seasura and ready to leave, it was 1:30pm. We put up the mainsail at anchor so that we would be ready to sail as soon as we got out between the jetties, and motored out of the bay. There was some wave action, but the forecast and our friends who had left a few hours before, reassured us that these would settle as we rounded Cape Fear. The waves settled, but the wind didn’t come. After watching our mainsail flop back and forth for 40 minutes we put it away. We were so disappointed. Where was the wind we were promised?! Turns out, it was coming at 3am!

We finally got over our disappointment and settled into a day at sea. Once the waves settled a little, we were able to play some games and have soup for lunch and enjoy the weather. We rolled into a proper dinner and taking turns at the helm for watch duty. Actually, dinner wasn’t that easy. I made most of it, roasted pork loin and rice, and prepped the veggies, when suddenly the wave action got to me and I couldn’t finish. Kevin cooked the vegetables. It seems to come out of nowhere sometimes. As a result, we decided that we have to improve our passage meal-planning. I will be trying to make pre-prepared soups and stews from now on so that we only have to heat them up. Or we can even try having a simple cold dinner. We have been told that other boats have cold pasta salads or cereal while passage. We were still determined to have our well-rounded meals including vegetable stir-fries!

At 3am the winds suddenly filled in and was perfect for sailing. But did we sail? No. With Owen in bed, Kevin and I didn’t want one of us going to the mast in the dark to raise the mainsail. We talked to other boats when we got to Charleston and they all experienced similar weather, the wind filled in around 3am. However, for them, they just had to push buttons on their electric winches, with the button at their helm station! We would of course use the jacklines and clip in if we went forward, but because we have to secure the head of the mainsail when it is down so it doesn’t flop around, unsecuring is difficult. We are working on system that doesn’t require me to climb up the mast to do this. We will get there but we aren’t there yet. We also have to clean the cars and track on our mast that the mainsail goes on. They are very sticky and it is difficult to bring the sail down without actually tugging on it. Our friends on a similar boat have replaced the barings in their top most cars and it made a lot of difference for them. So, I suspect we need to do this (as well as cleaning the track and applying some fresh grease).

Luckily, despite not sailing, we did pick up speed when the wind came in. So, we ended up arriving in Charleston around 8 in the morning! After much debate, we anchored near the Yorktown Aircraft Carrier again. We wanted to try someplace new, but Kevin was worried those anchorages would be too busy. Turns out he was right to choose the one we did. Another kid boat tried the other anchorage but ended up having 2 foot waves rolling them constantly, so they moved to our anchorage. It was lovely and calm where we were.

We rested up after the night shift and then headed to shore for a walk and grocery run. We ran into some of the other kid boats while on shore and the kids had a great time playing games in the playground while the adults talked. It has been almost game changing having other people to swaps stories with. It makes us feel that so much of the stresses we are experiencing are normal. It is good to laugh about it all with other people.

We spent the next day on the boat. Kevin decided it was time to get the power to the bow thrusters working. He spent the better part of the day with Owen putting in new battery chargers for the bow thrusters. Unfortunately, because of an error, one of them ended up getting fried and has to be replaced. However, they still managed to set up the rest of the system and had one of the bow thrusters working by the end of the day. The other one was fixed a few days later when the new battery charger came in. Now we will be able to manipulate the boat position more easily when needed in marinas.

The following day we made plans to host some of our friends on our boat. So, we headed out in the morning to get some groceries. Kevin decided that we should go to the further dinghy dock which would take us to a larger more accessible grocery store. Furthermore, it meant a scooter ride, which is always fun. So, we headed out in the dinghy and went around the corner of the inlet to Shem Creek and the public dinghy dock. This track takes us over a shoal. It was a nice scooter trip but while we were in the grocery store the clouds opened and it poored rain. Thankfully, it settled by the time we got out. We got back to the dinghy and loaded it up with all our scooters and 4 large backpacks of groceries and headed out back to Seasura. However, by this time the tide had gone down. We were therefore being cautious about where we were going in the shoal area and trying to give it a wide berth without having to follow the official channel out of Shem Creek. But, we hit bottom. And then despite trying to change course, we hit bottom again and got stuck. Up came the outboard and in went the oars, and Kevin and I started paddling. At first, we went nowhere. With the current we were being pulled in one direction and we were trying to paddle ourselves out a little further around the shoal, in the opposite direction. We literaly were going in circles. Eventually we decided to stop fighting the current and let it take us back to the channel. Once back in the channel, we put the outboard back in the water and followed the channel all the way out into the main harbor and around back to our boat. By the time we got back to Seasura we had done a 45 minute dinghy ride! Next time, we will check the tides and plan better so that we can head there and back over the shoals. It must have been funny to see us in our packed down dinghy a distance off the channel turning circles!

Once back at the boat, we did a fast turn around, cleaned up the boat (Kevin finally got our white cushions clean with the help of a Mr. Clean Erasers) and cuts the boys’ hair before our guests arrived. We had a lovely dinner, however, there was one more damper/twist in our day. Poor Simon got his thumb slammed in a door. Right at the hinge with lots of leverage. He did some real damage to his thumb and there was a lot of blood. I was happy not to have to put my suturing skills to use, but really, the only reason I didn’t was because it was through the nail and not the pad of the thumb. His poor nail has a literal crack across it. Luckily, it doesn’t involve the nailbed itself so there is hope he will have a normal fingernail again one day. He will definitely lose this one though. Simon has been put on notice – no more injuries on this trip!

The following day I started to get ready to return home. I did a lot of laundry. The downside of drying things an a line in the seabreeze, is that sometimes there are unexpected rainy periods! I think those clothes got wet about 3 times before they were finally able to dry the following day. We also went to shore for a walk and dinner out, but I think we were all a little glum knowning that we had to part ways the next morning.

With the full sunshine finally back in Charleston, we all got up early on Saturday and took me to the airport. My flight was at 11:30am so we had a chance to grab breakfast together before I set off. My flights were uneventful and I was very happy to see my mom’s face when I arrived in Victoria. I have a week away from my family to ‘look forward to’ and after 8 months of near constant interactions, this seems like way too much time. I am going to hand over the weekly reports to Halyna because the family will remain behind in Charleston for another week while they put the boat in a marina before coming to join me. She can report on all the exciting things they do without me while I am working.