We are underway across Pamlico Sound, headed for the Old House Channel and Wanchese, where we will have the stabilizers serviced. The yard probably can't start until Monday, but today's the window to cross the sound. It's a long day -- there are no decent anchorages between Ocracoke and Roanoke Island.
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Vector steaming toward the Cape Fear River. Photo: Bill Parks |
When last I posted I was just an hour and a half into my 2000-0300 watch offshore of Cape Romaine. The rest of the passage was quiet and comfortable; neither of us saw any traffic at all. The ocean was calm when I posted, and got calmer through the night. The Starlink dropped out once we crossed the 12nm line, and I moved our AT&T hotspot up to the soft top to get better range.
This group of dolphins swam with us for over ten minutes on our passage.
Not long afterward, even that started fading in and out. Realizing that on the rhumb line to Cape Fear there would be no coverage at all when Louise came on watch, I adjusted course to bring us back in range for at least part of the trip, adding 3/4 of a mile to the crossing. We were in the countercurrent for most of the crossing of Long Bay, and we still had plenty of time to the Cape Fear channel when I came back on watch.
As we approached the inlet we were hailed by a motor yacht coming out, and that turned out to be our friend Bill on the Blue Merle II. He was coming out with a hired skipper on sea trials for a survey, so I am guessing they've had an offer on the boat.
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The Blue Merle II. That's their dog in the graphic. |
We arrived to the entrance more or less at max ebb, and it was an uphill fight to get in. But this was the calmest we'd ever seen this channel, and we just pulled off-channel at the first safe spot, right off Bald Head Light (map) and dropped a lunch hook to wait out the current. That spot had us seaward of the Bald Head harbor entrance and so we did not have the enormous wakes from the fast ferries that plague the more protected anchorage further in.
We both had good naps, and lunch, before slack tide arrived around 1:30 and we weighed anchor. Just as we were pulling back into the channel we were again passed by the Blue Merle. Bill offered to meet us for dinner in Wrightsville Beach, but we are always complete zombies the day we arrive from offshore, so we took a rain check. They keep the boat in Wilmington, which is a short drive from Wrightsville, and we had seen it in the harbor there when we stopped last season.
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Our lunch hook spot to wait out the ebb. That's the Bald Head lighthouse, which I climbed when we stayed here a decade ago. |
Now with the flood behind us we continued upriver to Snows Cut and thence to Carolina Beach and north to Wrightsville Beach. We had the hook down in our usual spot in Banks Channel (map) by 5:40, and immediately splashed the tender and headed ashore to Tower 7 Baja Grill for dinner. This is a popular joint, and if you're not in by 6 there will likely be a wait for a table.
After dinner we walked over to Robert's grocery for beer, but opted to wait on other provisions until I could walk to the Harris Teeter in the morning, when I would have just enough time before we got under way for Mile Hammock with the tide. On our way in we had noticed that the Blockade Runner hotel, a long-time fixture of the waterfront, is now a Marriott property called Trailborn, and I tried to learn if that meant they'd have a better restaurant or dinghy policy, but got nowhere.
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Louise snapped this bald eagle on our way to Mile Hammock. |
After returning home we discussed whether to stay an extra day. That would let us recover a bit more from the overnight passage and make my provisioning trek into town less rushed. The fact that I crashed into bed before midnight spoke in favor of the extra day, but we woke in the morning to some text messages that sealed the deal.
Our friends Tim and Crisálida had left Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, bound for Norfolk in their sailboat, s/v Paquita. We, and they, expected them to be offshore the whole way, and we'd wave to them virtually as they sailed past us, but sometime after midnight, Tim texted me that they were coming in at Cape Fear. That would put them just a day behind us, but a short while later another text said they had changed course for Masonboro inlet instead. They'd be in the anchorage before we finished our morning coffee.
We watched them come in and get squared away, and before they turned in for the requisite post-passage nap, they invited us to dinner aboard. Now with a day off, I spent the morning wrapping up the plotter display repair, installing permanent 12v wiring to replace the jury-rig that had gotten us going on Wednesday morning. After lunch I made my pilgrimage to Harris Teeter by way of Beach Bagels, and later in the afternoon I went back ashore with the trash and for a nice walk all the way to the fishing pier and back.
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Paquita, motoring up to Mile Hammock. |
We headed over to Paquita a little before dinner time with a fresh salad in hand and a few beers. Tim fixed spatchcock chicken on his kamado grill, and we had a lovely evening over excellent food, way too much wine, good company, and lots of laughter. I only regret that none of us thought to take a photo the entire evening.
I half expected Paquita to go right back outside in the morning for the crossing of Onslow Bay, but the weather was too sloppy even for a sailboat (and way too sloppy for us), so they opted to take the ICW route. Tim was having trouble with both his depth sounder and his tablet app that shows the Army Corps of Engineers depth surveys, and they decided to just follow us out of the anchorage in the morning, across the tricky spot where the Motts Channel meets the ICW.
They ended up following us the whole way to Mile Hammock, which turned out to be a good thing when we had to pass an oncoming tug and barge that needed center-channel and took most of it. I was running well outside the marked channel using the survey data alone. Tim has since got his surveys working again. In addition to the barge, we had the usual amount of weekend traffic, but its manageable here, whereas in some places like SE Florida and Myrtle Beach it often keeps us in port until Monday.
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A Camp Lejeune local caught Vector in the anchorage. Photo: Tommy Blanton |
We had the hook down in Mile Hammock Bay (map) on the Camp Lejeune marine corps base by 3pm, only the second boat to arrive. Tim had some electrical system issues just before arrival, but made it safely into the anchorage even though he had to drop anchor by gravity; we had rigged fenders in case they needed to raft to us.
I dropped the dink and headed over with my tool bag to assist. It turned out to be a wonky Perko battery switch -- Tim had already isolated the problem by the time I arrived. I could see the plastic case was slightly deformed from ohmic heating. I've taken these kinds of switches apart before to clean and grease contacts, but it involves drilling out rivets, and Tim opted to just order a replacement.
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Tim caught us in his sunrise photo as they weighed anchor. Photo: Tim Boehmer |
We spent about an hour digging through the panel and bypassing the switch (there is another switch closer to the batteries), removing some obsolete wires in the process. I left with homework to try to source a breaker to replace one that looked to me to be getting brittle. No sooner was I back at Vector than we turned right around for another delicious meal aboard Paquita, this time a pot roast that had been cooking all day, and another salad we brought with us. I'm really glad I scored the penultimate package of romaine at Harris Teeter.
It was really great to get to see them two nights in a row. Especially so because they will likely have already departed on their Atlantic crossing by the time we catch back up to their interim destination of Rhode Island. They will be doing the Atlantic Loop, crossing to the Med, spending a season there, then crossing back to the Caribbean. We will be following their journey with great interest. Once again, we forgot to snap a photo.
Paquita left first thing in the morning, wanting to put as many miles behind them as possible. We had a more leisurely start, decking the tender and weighing anchor at 8:15 for the 9am bridge lift. It rained most of the day, and a mid-day thunderstorm brought us face to face with a boat anchored in the channel with its navigation lights on. It took us a while to understand he was anchored and not headed right for us on the wrong side of the road, and I gave him a lecture after we dodged around him. The thunderstorm ended up being a non-event.
We had the anchor down in Beaufort, in our secret spot crammed between a daybeacon and a range light (map), before 3pm. Louise was feeling crummy most of the day, with the beginnings of a bad cold, but she pulled herself together for dinner and we tendered ashore and walked to the Front Street Grill. This after first walking out of Black Sheep, which was packed with kids; we were halfway down the block before we realized it was Mothers' Day.
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Beaufort has a new payment system for parking. And the rates went up. Dinghies are still free. |
Front Street is a bit more upscale and spendy, so it was a more adult experience, and I had a very nice filet that was the day's special. We've spent a lot of time in this town, including once when we spent a whole week and I walked pretty much everywhere. We've eaten at all the restaurants at one time or another, and its just a very familiar and comfortable stop.
We had figured to spend just a single night, but by bedtime, Louise was so miserable we started to think about staying in quarters another day. Apart from that, my Monday project was to start calling boatyards, starting with the nearby Jarrett Bay Boatworks just outside of town, to arrange a haul-out to replace our stabilizer seals. The port fin started squealing when we were still on the west coast, which is a sure sign the seals need maintenance.
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This view of Vector provided by the Town of Beaufort. |
I had figured to call Jarrett Bay first thing, and make my other calls underway, but staying planted for the day I just made them all in sequence in the morning. Jarrett Bay did not return my call until late in the afternoon, which aced them out of the running. Hoping to go offshore around the Delmarva peninsula, I looked at every yard from Beaufort to Hampton for the magic intersection of a 70+ ton lift, technicians who can work on stabilizers, and availability on the schedule. I also asked for recommendations online.
By the end of the day we had nailed down a yard in Wanchese, on Roanoke Island, Safe Harbor Outer Banks, who had the lift, help, and time. They even had the parts on order before the day was out. This fit in with our hope to take the Pamlico Sound route on this pass and avoid the slog up the Alligator River. That did mean we needed a two-day weather window on the sound to make the trip.
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No motorized vessels. I will need to kayak over the next time I want a pizza. |
Louise was down for the count the whole day, and she even tested as part of a study she is in; the tests were negative for COVID, flu, and RSV, so really just a bad cold. I ordered a takeout pizza at dinner time, landing at the Fishermen's Park dock, which was a lot closer to the pizza joint, No Name. I was on the street before I learned the dock did not allow motorized craft, but I figured no one would notice me for ten minutes on a cold rainy day anyway. I would not have minded a longer walk, but I only had a short gap in the rain, and I did not want the pizza to get cold.
The weather on the Neuse and the sound was not forecast to be favorable on Tuesday, and so we planned a short day just to the mouth of Adams Creek. An 8am departure would have given us a fair tide, but I wanted to walk some more and it was pouring all morning, so we stayed put until 2. I had a nice walk around 11, but we ended up with 1-2 knots against us the whole ride, and what would have taken two hours at 8 took over three at 2. Oh well. We dropped the hook in a familiar spot in Adams Creek (map) and had leftovers aboard.
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The minuscule dinghy dock at the Community Store is hidden behind other docks, so they put up a sign. |
Yesterday was perfect cruising weather, and we weighed anchor and launched into the middle of the northbound conga line of loopers and snowbirds. It was a fairly long day to the Silver Lake anchorage in Ocracoke, a pace we've not been in four years. The entrance channel, Big Foot Slough, is notorious for a narrow, shallow chicane that the enormous car ferries have to navigate, and you never want to meet one there. As we approached we heard the ferry call a sailboat; the latter turned out to be aground. We watched the ferry pass them close aboard.
We have good surveys now, and I always put a track on the ferry, so we had no issues with the chicane. The sailboat had freed itself by the time we arrived. It's a good 45 minutes from the channel entrance to the lake, where we had a tight squeeze into the anchorage among the ten boats already there (map). I tendered ashore stag to reacquaint myself with the lay of the land. There are dinghy docks at the National Park Service marina near the ferry terminal, and at the Community Store.
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The Ocracoke Variety Store was well-stocked, if a bit pricey. |
Louise was feeling up to dinner so long as it was close, so we headed ashore at the Community Store and went to Dajio right across the street, which was decent and had a couple of nice drafts. After dinner I dropped Louise back at Vector and returned ashore for a longer walk. I walked all the way through town, stopping in the well-stocked grocery-cum-hardware store, and ending at Howard's Pub, where we had parked Odyssey on our first visit to Ocracoke nearly two decades ago. From there I took the town,s free tram back, really an oversize golf cart, learning that it could get us to pretty much any joint in town with just an easy stroll.
I had checked in with the yard before they closed, and they allowed that Friday was unlikely and the haul-out would be Monday. Louise checked the weather and it looked like we maybe should just stay in Ocracoke another day, with another window on the weekend. We left the tender in the water. When we got up this morning, however, forecasts had again changed, and while there might be another shot on Sunday, it's risky, so today was the day.
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The tram runs at least every 20 minutes (I found it more frequent) and will get you anywhere in town. |
We decked the tender and got back underway before 8am for the nine-hour trip. The sound was pretty flat all morning, but as I type here after lunch, we have rolling 1-2 footers behind us. The plotter says we will be in Wanchese before 5pm, but after the yard closes for the day, and we have exactly one possibly anchorage opportunity along the Old House Channel, but until we get there around 3:30 we won't know if it will be comfortable at all.
My preference is to anchor tonight if we can, and arrive to the yard tomorrow fresher and during business hours, but we're ready to come in after hours if we have to. With any luck they will have all the parts in hand to get the stabilizers done Monday, and I also asked them to order a five-gallon pail of paint (the smallest it comes) to freshen up the bottom, which I hope can be done by Tuesday for a Wednesday launch. But things in a boatyard gang aft agley, to plagiarize Burns.
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I took this pic of Howard's Pub for old time's sake. |
While we've been through Pamlico many times, we've never taken the Old House Channel around the east side of Roanoke Island, and there is a reason: From Manteo north, the channel is 6-7' deep. We need a confluence of good weather, favorable wind direction, and high tide (what little there is here) to even try it. I'm hoping we can get through, whenever we leave the yard, because it is a very, very long way back out to the south.
Update: We are anchored between a pair of small islands right off the Old House Channel (map). It's comfortable here even though it's blowing 15-20 knots, but we had no way to know that until we got here. A storm may blow through this afternoon or evening with hail and gusts up to 50kt, and we're happy not to be trying to dock in that. We'll continue to Wanchese tomorrow.