Saturday, June 23, 2012

    I wake up early, have a good breakfast, and think about the long day ahead. I raise my anchor at 7:30 AM and head for the bridge. BTW the depth of the water where I am anchored again corresponds to the chart depth. I get up to the bridge and notice that the depth of the water there is 20 feet. The chart says 15 feet. So I figure high tide? It turns out that right now it is low tide. So maybe all the SW winds have raised the water level in this area? . But why not where I was anchored? I don't know. Maybe they dredged under the bridge? I don't know. So anyway I am just about to go under it and I get the feeling that the mast won't clear. I turn off. There is no yard stick on the side of the bridge indicating clearance in feet. So I decide to use a trick that I had used a long time ago in the past. I raise my main sail. Pull in in tight, and again head for the bridge. The wind was not blowing too strong, but still it might help to heel me over a little. So as I get up to the bridge I slow the boat down to a crawl. Reason, if I hit, I may just get hung up as oppose to breaking my mast. I put the boat in auto pilot, so that I can stay out of harms way, in case the mast comes down. As I get under the bridge I look up and see my VHF antenna, which is not very long, bending on the bridge.Now I duck. a few moments later I look up again,  I am clear. Great,  I am on my way again.
    The rest of the day goes pretty good. I cross the Albemarle Sound and go into the North River. I go about 10 miles up the North River and anchor behind Buck Island. This is a quiet little ancorage with protecton on all sides from the wind. The only thing to upset the water here, are the tugs pushing barges. BTW, these are big barges. The barges are very wide and long. To tell you the truth I don't know how they do it.

Friday, June 22, 2012

   I left Ocracoke around 7 AM, hoping to get a good start in my effort to push North. Wind predications were 10 - 15 knts SW, increasing to 15 - 20 knts SW later this afternoon, another reason that I wanted to get going earlier. The only way I would go against the wind on the Palmico Sound, and also the Albemarle Sound is if the wind is predicted to be 10 knts or less. So SW winds are good for me today. The ride was pretty descent until the winds started to pick up, then it got a little bumpy. Remember this is a shallow sound, as a result the waves are close and sharp. You have to be careful of the weather on this leg because if things get nasty there are no places to pull into. I knew that when I took off this morninng that to anchor I would have to get close to the west shore. In this way I would at least be able to decrease the fetch of the waterway. It would still be bumpy, but that would be the best that I could do.
     On the West side of Roanoke Island there are two bridges. the first is a 65 foot bridge. The second is the 45 foot fixed bridge, that I had mentioned yesterday. So I go under the tall bridge and head toward the West shore. The depths here all correspond to the chart, ie: when I was pulling into a darker blue area on my chart which indicated 6 feet depth that is exactly what my depth guage said. I mention this because it will have some importance tomorrow when I take off.
    So I arrive about 5:30 PM, and anchor. I am exausted. Still concerned about that 45 foot bridge I decide to go on the internet to see if I could look up the specs for the mast height  above water for my boat. The spec says that it is 40 feet. I am relieved. I did measure it corectly. I have the normal dinner. Then, being very tired,  I go off to sleep.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

    Orental is a nice harbor. Restaurants, fuel, and dinghy dock all close by. Anyway time to leave. I am on my way to Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks. The trip takes about 8 hours. I leave at about 8:30 AM. I am lucky, the Neuse river is very calm today. Winds were 10 to  15 knots most of the way. It isn't till the afternoon whan I am approaching the head buoy for Ocracoke that the winds start to kick up. Anyway I pull into Ocracoke. Pulling in you see the Ferry Boats. I'm not sure of where they come from, but they are continuelly on the move. This is a pretty nice harbor. Not too big, and not too small. . The harbor is surrounded by restaurants, ice cream stands, and gift shops. Of all the places that I have visited this is the nicest one.  They rent out Golf Carts by the hour, half day, full day, and week. I always brag about Block Island and how great it is. This place though seemed nicer. Not as crowded, and maybe more colorful.
     I was told by a friend of mine that bad weather is coming, so my feelings are that this place is a little exposed, so therefore tomorrow I will leave.
   I have to tell this story. While at anchor I see a boat that was also anchored near me in Oriental. I say hello, and the guy invites me on board and serves me a beer. We chat. At one point he tells me that the mast on his boat is 43 feet tall, but he has no trouble getting under the Oriental 45 foot fixed bridge. I look up at his mast, then I look over to mine. I tell him that I just measured mine the other day by running a string up it, and that mine is 40 feet, and for some reason, mine looks taller then his. He agrees with me. So with that i say that maybe I measured it incorrectly, and that tomorrow I will measure it again. This was important because on my trip north I plan to go under a 45 foot fixed bridge.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

  I wake up about 5:30  this morning to my cat crying that he wants eat. I feed him and then go back to sleep. Now in my boat in order to have air circulation  I open the front hatch, and then leave the back campanion way hatch open about 4 inches, so the cat can't get outside at night. I don't like him outside unless I am there. So anyway I am trying to sleep and I hear the cat lunge up to the small opening of the hatch. He grabs onto the opening, pulls himself up while pushing open the hatch. On hearing this I wake and go over to the companionway to see where he went. Well I slide open the companionway hatch, and the cat falls like a sack of potatoes onto the floor. He must of been sitting on top of the hatch. He does not get hurt, but he fell a little more then 6 feet.
   Other then that, I pick up some fuel, some water, and then go over to a cafe to enter my blogs.
   BTW, Since I have not put my boat into a single marina since I have been on this trip, I feel that I deserve to treat myself to some good eating while on shore. I am off to a restaurant right now.
   Tomorrow I plan to sail to Ocracoke on the Outer Banks.

 Today is Tuesday, June 19.
    I leave Belhaven around 7 AM.  I go down the Pungo River into the Palmico River. I cross the Palmico into Goose Creek. Goose Creek is another canal which eventually goes into the Neuse River. I travel west on the Neuse River into Oriental, NC. Cute little harbor. I anchor behind a stone break water, a dinghy dock about 300 feet away. Restaurants right at the dock. Time for a little rest.
   When I leave here I will start to head North. along the Outer Banks eventually to Norfork.

Monday, June 18, 2012

   I'm up at 5:30. The winds are very calm. Good time to straighten out my sta_sail. I raise it spool it in and all goes smoothly. I eat breakfast and go over my charts. I am feeling better now, as opposed to the way I felt last night. I am about to go into the Alligator / Pongo River Canal. The Canal is about 20 miles long. I figure about 4 hours to get past that. After that I will head for Belhaven, NC.
   So I travel through the canal. Sceanery is OK. The trip is bascially uneventful until I am passing the 125 mile marker. There are markers along the ICW every 5  miles. The GPS's and Charts also have these marks on them. Anyway I am passing this marker and decide that I want to take a picture of it. Since I am using my Iphone, and it does not have a telephoto lens, I decide to get a little closer to it. Now it stands about 30 feet off the bank and I am about 15 feet off the sign. I do not feel anything out of the ordinary about what I am doing. So I ride by it, snap my picture, and at that point my autopilot decides it is going to head for the shore. Seeing  this I jump over to the wheel, disengage the  autopilot, and turn the wheel. At the point the bow lurches up, the mast swings to starboard, and the boat slides off to port. I think that the engine does not sound right so I lower the throttle, check the speed, then increase the throttle, the speed increases. All OK. I must of hit a tree stump in the canal, and went up on it, and then slid off.
    I continue on to Belhaven and anchor about a quarter of a mile behind a long breakwater. I decide to get some fuel and water if available. So I motor over to a marina, about a half mile, and inquire about diesel fuel. they tell me that they don't carry  fuel at this marina, but there is another marina about another half mile away which carrys fuel, but may be out. So I motor over with my dinghy, and luckally they have some. So now I decide that I want to boast up my cat food supplies, just in case I get marroned somewhere I am covered. So I motor into the town dinghy dock and inquire as to how far the Food Lyon  super market is. I am told only about 1/4 mile. So I start walking along their main street and stop in a sandwich shop and inquire again.  they tell me that you just go down to the red stop light, make a right, and then it is only a quarter mile down the road. So I start walking. The red light winds up to be about a mile down the road. After the turn, the supermarket is about a half mile down on the right. Long walk. Anyway I am in the pet food aisle, and as I am picking out my cans of cat food a man comes driving up the aisle in one of those handicap electric carts. He tries to grap a box of kitty liter, which weighed about 25 pounds and couldn't lift it. I seeing this , I grab the box and put in his cart. He thanks me and continues on. I completely forget about that until a few aisles over I run into to him again. I ask him "Did you drive here?" He answers "Yes". Great, I tell him that I had just sailed into the Harbor, and that I found it a long walk from there to here. then I asked him if he could give me a ride to the city docks when he finished. He said yes. Great. It pays to be assertive. Back at the boat I had dinner, and then to sleep.

Sunday, June 14, 2012

    I'm up at 6 AM, make my coffee and meet Chuck on the dock. I was feeling, slightly,  the effects of the wine dinner the night before. Anyway, Chuck who has made the part of the trip that I was about to go on, many times, was giving me last minute instructions and strategy for my trip down the Pasquatank River, then across the Albemarle Sound, and then down the Alligator river. Then Dale comes over, asks if she can say a last good by to Sam. After that we say good bye at the dock and we get each get on our way. We just happened to leave the slips at the same time and in passing we wave. You meet a lot of people while cruising, but it is not often that you meet someone that you really click with.
    So I start on down the river. The winds were still around 15 kts from the NE. After a while I decide to put up the mainsail. So I make my way to the mast and free the halyard so I can raise it. As I do that and then step down to the deck, for an instant I lose my balance. I grab on to the lifelines and the hand rail. I make my way back to the cockpit. Sit down, and start talking to my self that I almost did it, ie: fall overboard. I was very scared. I was wearing my PFD, but I was not connected to the boat. The river at this point was probably 4 miles wide, no chance of swimming to the other side if I went over. It also had a pretty good chop on it. I always had the attitude that I wear my PFD on inland waters, and my harness while on the ocean. Figuring on the ocean no need for a life preserver because no one is going to see you anyway. Also I realize that the wine last night did not help my situation, my legs, I guess, were not that strong. Any way I come to the agreement with myself that I will also wear the harness while on the inside for now on.

    A little later I go to raise the mainsail. It gets jammed halfway between the boom and the spreaders. I could not pull it up or down. So I sit back and think about how this is going to affect my anchoring  later on. I figure that there is not that much sail up out, and that it will only act as a riding sail while at anchor. No big deal. Actually the main halyard got jammed at the connection of the lazy jacks on the mast. This never happened before. I decide that maybe if I loosen the lazy jacks that maybe I can wiggle them and this will free the halyard. I try it and after a while the halyard frees. At this point I decide that I do not want to fool around with the main anymore. I'm a little disgusted so I lower it and tie it up. A little later I let out the sta-sail and let that pull me down the river. As I said the river had some chop on it, and this along with hundreds of crab pots, was making the trip miserable, but onward I must go.
   Eventually I run into the Albermarle Sound. This is a pretty big water way, almost like the Long Island Sound. Only one difference though. The Albemarle sound is only 18 feet deep. It turns out that when a good wind blows along something this long and shallow, it creates, not large, but sharp and close waves. For two and a half hours I felt that I was in a washing machine. For you other boaters out there it is like when you enter an inlet, going slow, and you start to get hit with waves in the inlet and the reflections of waves coming off the sea wall. If you had that experience then you can appreciate what I was feeling.
  After the Albemarle I turn into the Alligator River. The entrance to this is a little tricky, and add to this some unmarked shoals. By the way just before approaching this river I go to spool in my stasail and it gets jammed. Well I have to watch my navigation so I just ignore it for now.  I get into the river, and head down to the Alligator River swing bridge. Actually this river is about six miles wide, so the bridge has very long approaches. I was the only boat heading south. Ten boats were coming from the other side going north.
The river, it seemed, went on forever. It was very dismal. Not one thing on this river warmed my heart. Along the way I was able to lower the stasail, and tie it up to my life lines, I figure at anchor when the wind stopped that I would straighten it out. Eventually the river narrows, and at the bottom it turns into a nice little anchorage. I have not had too much to eat all day, my breakfast after I got moving and some snacks along the way, ie: trail raisins and nuts. After I anchored, I started for the first time to feel down about the trip. I was wondering if maybe I should turn around here and just head home. I had dinner. My favorite: rice and beans, and went to sleep.