All Hands On Deck   Adventures on land and at sea

Lee said this last week and now it pops into my head a few times a day.

It’s not every day that I get to do extreme things, just most days.

It’s so true. By extreme things, he means driving the dinghy miles upwind back to Pirat in the dark through steep wind chop after going ashore in Oriental. That was a little incident I forgot to mention that week.

Most recently, we set off into the ocean again and found no shortage of challenging conditions and trying events. First off, it was (and still is) really, really cold. I’m no cold weather wimp. I’ve lived in Colorado, Rhode Island, and Maine. Cold like this when you’re trying to sail and generally living half outdoors on the water is ridiculous. My face freezes and I can’t talk right. My hands get so cold I can’t operate zippers, turn keys, or light the stove. Did someone forget to tell North Carolina it’s not in the North?

Other than being cold, the sail here from Beaufort was a forceful shove back into ocean sailing after too much ICW cruising. We left before dawn and it was already blowing 15+ in the harbor. Squeezing past the huge dredge to get out of Beaufort was harrowing. Lee and I studied the lighting patterns that dredges display the night before so we knew we should pass on the side with the green lights, not the red ones (the side with the length of pipe across the water). Still, there were tugs pushing the dredge around, boats exchanging crew, and plenty of rough water to make the situation interesting.

It was a relief to get out to sea until I went down below and remembered that I get seasick. I took a Marezine then but I knew it was too late. I barely finished making Lee’s pot of oatmeal before I was sick. In retrospect, I know that an empty stomach makes me more prone to seasickness and we hadn’t had breakfast yet that morning. I should have had a bite to eat and a Marezine at least 20 minutes to half an hour before we left the harbor.

I won’t get into the details of my seasickness. This was the first time in years that I’ve gone beyond just feeling seasick. It was not fun. I spent most of the day incapacitated in a bunk while Lee did a masterful job sailing the boat. He clambered around on deck in his red suit. It was very, very wet. A close reach with seas directly abeam meant every few waves one would smack the hull just right and fly onto the deck.

Pirat flew along at 7-8 knots or more with the solent and a triple-reefed main. We were overpowered for the gusts and probably would have gone just as fast with the storm jib and main. Maybe we would have switched head sails if I had been able to help more.

Lee took this great video on the foredeck.

I was just starting to feel human and had collapsed down below after putting all my foul weather gear on when I noticed something strange. The boat was flattening out. The sails were luffing and it felt like more than just a header. We were tacking. I was up in an instant because I knew a tack was not in the plan. Lee told me the auto pilot had shut off as I tended to the jibing main. The auto pilot hadn’t actually shut off. It had decided we were going to do circles. The rudder was over not quite all the way and the wheel was stuck – held by the auto pilot – so we couldn’t regain control.

I don’t know how many circles we did before Lee ran down below and cut power to the a.p. and chart plotter. We gybed three or four times, then dropped the main and eased to jib to stop the turns. It’s amazing how long it can take to do something that seems like an obvious action in retrospect. Lee realized that he could have just shut off the chart plotter to fix the problem. Some sort of bug in the software brought up a weird auto pilot mode when Lee tried to turn the a.p. on. At least no one was hit with the boom. The boat survived. We survived.

We arrived in Wrightsville Beach, NC shortly after that. It was perfect timing. If our boat was any slower we would have come in after dark. Days like that make us so glad we have a fast boat that really sails!

Next stop: Southport, NC on the other side of Cape Fear. We decided to take the ICW because it’s about half the distance of sailing out around Cape Fear, doing a 180 degree turn, and beating upwind to the inlet. As long as we leave at high tide we’ll be fine in the ditch.

My uncle just sent me a picture of Doc, my dog, from Thanksgiving. I miss Doc but he would not like boat life at all. He gets the starring role here because he makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This morning, like many mornings, Lee and I are transfixed by our various electronic devises. Lee is working on Boatlogger programming on his computer. After reading the LA times on my kindle over a big bowl of hot cereal, I’m wrestling with the local wifi on my computer. It connects. It disconnects. I manage to read one email. Hey, it’s free internet.

Unlike other mornings, I’m torturing Lee with Christmas music today! It’s December so now I can listen to my favorite Christmas album (Mom, you know what I’m talking about). Thanks to Doug, Pirat has a fancy-shmancy stereo and we can blast our music of choice inside or outside. Outside, it’s “not a warm one”, to quote Lee. Frigid temperatures have descended over North Carolina. The locals tell me this isn’t normal. Everyone here is very, very nice, by the way. Southern hospitality is real and it helps us figure out where to anchor, get free drinks at a local bar, and generally feel welcome in this otherwise foreign land. The owner of a local clothing store even gave me a free hat leash when I told him about losing my windproof beanie.

We spent last night at Beaufort Docks, where we picked up new alternator #2. Lee installed the alternator and it seems to work. It is so nice to have power again!

Yesterday afternoon we moved over to an anchorage on the other side of Beaufort. The guy at Beaufort Docks said this was a good spot and that “the Canadians like it” over here. Well, there are no other boats at the moment, let alone any Canadians. I have a theory about Canadian cruisers, by the way. We see a lot of them and I suspect that they travel south a little later than their American counterparts. Maybe they leave around the same time but end up at the end of the pack because they have farther to go. We are certainly at the end of the pack now. Lee was looking at how far we have to go and estimated that we might get to the Bahamas in February if we keep up this pace. While trudging down the U.S. coast is certainly interesting, we’d rather get to the tropical island part of our journey sooner than February.

Tomorrow we’re leaving the ICW for the time being and sailing down the coast to the Masonboro Inlet. We’ll try to waste some time there before heading to Cape Fear. Our replacement wind generator should show up at a Cape Fear marina, although the company neglected to ship it from England until day before yesterday. Grrr.

These next couple ocean sails will help Lee and I decide whether we’re ready to pick up the pace. We could cover a lot more ground if we sailed in 24 hour (or more) spurts. There is also the problem of figuring out there we’ll be by Christmas. I really, really want to go see my mom and her new house in Seattle for Christmas but to make reservations we have to know where we’ll be and find a safe place to leave Pirat. The fact that Southwest doesn’t fly out of anywhere on our route till Jacksonville, FL is motivation to speed up.

Here’s a little video from a few days ago. Lee is having fun with the new camera.

        I realized the other day that the boat has become my home. That may sound silly – of course it’s my home…or of course a boat could never really be a home – but the feeling snuck up on me. When I’m away from Pirat I find myself missing the bunk Lee and I share, the jam-packed but cozy space we inhabit, and the small pleasures of a relatively simple life.

        We spent the weekend with our friends Sarah and Derek and Derek’s dad, who was visiting for Thanksgiving. The trio ventured across half (maybe more) of North Carolina to meet us for a sail on Saturday. It was a beautiful, sunny, but cold day and we all really enjoyed the sail. After a tasty lunch provided by our visitors, Pirat took us downwind out of Elizabeth City. Eventually we had to turn around, since it would take much longer to sail back upwind. The crew hiked out on the windward rail and Captain Sarah tried her hand at the helm. She did an awesome job and wasn’t at all phased by gusty, shifty breeze.
        Pulling back into the slip wasn’t as easy as Lee and I thought it would be with extra hands. For no particular reason it seemed harder to get all the lines in place on the pilings. When Pirat was safely docked, it was cleanup and move time! The crew from Carrboro got a head start so they could work on dinner when they got home. Lee and I tidied up, picked up some more ice, and hopped in our suburban to drive inland! Oh, did I forget to mention that we rented a suburban? It turned out that renting a car for two days was cheaper than taking the bus one-way back to the boat. When Sarah and I showed up at Enterprise on Saturday morning they didn’t have the compact car I’d reserved. All they had was a suburban (identical to Sarah’s rental suburban she’s taking to Virginia for work). I took the ginormo car for the price of the mini-car. Oh well. I felt like a soccer mom with 12 invisible children in the back!

        In Carrboro, our hosts fed us delicious food, provided comfy couch sleeping arrangements, entertained us with their cat, and gave us a little taste of the neighborhood. We went for a little “aerobic nature walk”, as Sarah likes to call it, then hit up the local bike store, co-op, and delicious Mediterranean restaurant. Sarah and Derek are adventuresome cooks and enjoy the bounty of locally grown food in their area. They prepared flounder from the NC coast for dinner. For breakfast, they dished out homemade bacon and home baked bread. Yum!

        It was so wonderful to spend time with friends. Lee and I don’t have much of a social life on the boat and there are moments when I really, really miss my Denver Anthro crowd.

        Lee and I headed back to the coast on Sunday afternoon. We stopped at Trader Joe’s (yay!), Lowes, and Best Buy on the way. I guess the big car came in handy. At Best Buy, we picked up a replacement camera, since mine has officially drowned. Our new little waterproof digital camcorder is so cute and takes such awesome videos (coming soon)! It’s the most cost-effective option for what we wanted but it doesn’t take particularly good pictures. I guess that’s where the DSLR on my Christmas list comes in…too bad we didn’t have a camera while we were in Carrboro.

        What’s the latest disaster to befall Pirat and her crew? Another alternator meltdown. This time the regulator that tells it how fast to charge the batteries failed. Lee happened to check the voltage while we were motoring this morning and saw that it was way, way too high. He had to disconnect the alternator so it would not fry our batteries. That means we can’t charge things up with the engine, don’t have a wind generator, and can’t expect the solar panel to cover all our energy needs. Fortunately, the company we got the alternator from agreed to send a new one asap. We’re picking it up in Beaufort, NC, which is a couple days away.

Tonight we’re anchored near Belhaven, NC. We’re keeping energy use to an absolute minimum and are pretty confident we’ll make it to Beaufort to get our alternator. What luck we have.

Check out our updated map!

Go SWE!

I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful Thanksgiving. It was a cool day with some sun and just enough wind. Lee and I left Coinjock, NC around 8:30 in the morning and continued down the Virginia Cut portion of the ICW. My camera could not be resuscitated so it was frustrating to watch all the beautiful scenery going by without being able to take pictures. I tried to pay more attention to the sights, appreciating them in the moment rather than saving them for later.

When we got out into Albemarle Sound, Lee proposed that we set the spinnaker. This has been an obsession of his ever since we got the boat. When are we going to fly the spinnaker? How exactly would be rig it? What kind of conditions would be good? Do we need more people? How fast would we go? There have been lots of spinnaker discussions. Yesterday was the day to give it a go. The sound was flat. There were no other boats around. The wind was coming over our stern quarter at 8-10 knots. We raised the main and shut off the engine. I rigged the sheets, squeezed the bulky spinnaker out of the aft cabin and up on deck. We set up the pole, something we’ve practiced a lot with poling out the jib, attached the halyard, and double checked everything. I reviewed the procedure for setting the chute with Lee, who has only used one once (with his dad and me on the Sylph). It was very intimidating to be the one who supposedly knew what I was doing, even though I’m used to being part of a full racing crew when doing this kind of activity.

I pre-fed the guy. Lee jumped the halyard while I tailed and then jumped to the cockpit to trim the sheet and guy. It was up! Pirat instantly picked up speed with the billowy, rainbow-colored kite pulling her downwind. We adjusted the pole height, and I instantly fell into the rhythm of trimming, something I’ve always enjoyed. It was a beautiful, triumphant moment! Lee snapped a few pictures with his phone to document our accomplishment. We cruised downwind for an hour or so, reaching around 5.5 knots in 7-8 knots of wind. Not bad for a couple people on a loaded down old racing boat.

Lee is such a ham, taking picture of himself with the sail!

Eventually the time came to drop the chute, something I’d been dreading. I pictured it wrapping around the forestay or going in the water because I couldn’t gather it up fast enough. It did neither. We were sailing a little by-the-lee (past dead down wind in the wrong direction) so instead of just being blanketed by the main, the spinnaker kind of backwinded into the pole. Lee manned the halyard and I managed to get the on deck without any trouble. It was the kind of thing that would not have worked with more wind.

We finished the day with a little wing n’wing sailing while I started working on Thanksgiving dinner. We motored into Elizabeth City around 3:30. The free slips were a bit sketchy but Lee did a masterful job docking. I went into high-gear on dinner and Lee busted out the barbecue for his turkey breast. People kept stopping by to talk to us – random locals as well as a guy from a trimaran around the corner. He and his wife are inexperienced sailors heading South too! Hopefully we get to talk to them again today.

The turkey breast-roast (that’s what Butterball calls it) took a while on the barbecue but Lee did an awesome job with it. It smelled and looked sooooo good…I almost wanted to try some. We sat down for our first Thanksgiving dinner on our own, away from family, and carried on the Magnusson tradition of saying what we’re thankful for. The list is long and somewhat corny. I won’t bore you. Our feast included delicatta squash stuffed with my own invented bulgar stuffing, roasted green beans and potatoes, rutabegga that accidentally ended up really, really tasty (I followed to recipe and just cooked it off and on till the turkey was done), homemade cranberry conserve, and of course BBQ’d turkey and gravy. Not bad for Thanksgiving on a boat, huh?

We fell into deep food comas afterwards but I was awake enough to make rendezvous plans with Sarah! She and Derek and Derek’s dad are coming on Saturday morning so we’re in for a fun weekend with friends!

        Oh yeah, we’re in Norfolk, VA! We are farther south than we’ve ever sailed and this is starting to feel like a one-way trip through territory we’ve never seen before and will probably never see again. There is no turning back. Lee and I are thoroughly converted to cruising life and our hunger for exotic shores increases every day.

        The long stay in Ocean City was a bit frustrating. It really wasn’t a bad place to get stuck but it got old fast. The shiny sport fishing boats, denuded landscape of waterside McMansions, and runs down busy, sidewalk-challenged roads didn’t really make us feel at home. We had to deal with our mechanical problems before we could get on with things but that, as usual, was a frustrating process. The alternator Lee ordered eventually arrived but it needed some adjustments before it would fit on the engine.
        We were not quite ready to go by 3pm on Friday. There was still a lot of cleaning up to do and Lee hadn’t had a chance to change the oil in the engine, which was long overdue. We postponed departure on more day and were glad we did. Most of Saturday was spent stowing things on the boat, changing the oil, getting diesel, and chatting with our dock neighbor. Ben came in on a steel ketch which he sails alone. His boat looks like it’s been through a lot and the stories we heard from the owner more than confirmed that.

        Ben has been sailing around for 20 years. He’s weathered hurricanes and had close-calls of every kind imaginable for a sailor. He told us a smattering of stories about life in the Caribbean, the people he’s met, and how he lives aboard. I asked what his favorite place is in the Caribbean and when he came back with the Dominican Republic Lee and I were not surprised. We’ve read rave reviews of the D.R. from Bruce Van Sant in his Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South. Apparently our seasoned dock neighbor knows Van Sant and shares his love for the D.R.’s relaxed atmosphere and friendliness to foreigners. It’s high on our list of places to visit.

A milk crate on the beach!? I’m looking for one to put on my bike rack but this one was missing one side.

        When we finally left on Saturday afternoon Lee and I were ready to say goodbye to Ocean City and Assateague island. I had seen my ponies on the island during a morning run on friday. Four of five of them watched us suspiciously from the dunes as we ran down the beach. I felt like a giddy little girl again when I saw those ponies. Who can resist wild ponies that live on an island? I thought of them galloping through the sand as we made our way through the inlet and turned South.

        Within a few miles, we encountered a boat that had pulled in to the marina the day before. It had left earlier on Saturday and appeared to be heading back to Ocean City. We thought that seemed a bit strange but were even more perplexed when they reversed course after we passed them. Why were they following us? Did they leave to sail South, turn back for some reason, and then change their minds when they saw us going South? It was very mysterious. Yesterday they pulled in to the Norfolk anchorage where we had settled. Weird.

        The passage was easy. It was a calm night and we had to motor most of the way. Lee plotted our course well around potentially dangerous shoals and we each kept one eye on the depth gauge and the other scanning the darkness for breaking waves. I say darkness but it was anything but dark. The moon was so bright I could have read my book on deck without additional light. Unfortunately I was too cold and restless to read during my shifts. I listened to my ipod and looked around at the moonlit ocean instead.

        Lee stood the 8-11pm watch while I slept down below. Then I was up from 11pm-2am before Lee was on again from 2-5am. I stood the sunrise shift, watching the orange ball melt out of the horizon while Lee caught a bit more sleep from 5-7am. It was a long night but there were no crises! We turned the corner into the mouth of the Chesapeake shortly after sunrise and spent the morning avoiding shipping traffic. Some traffic controller even hailed us from land to warn us about two container ships whose courses we’d be crossing. Lee had already seen the ships on AIS and he ended up ducking behind one.

Big ships like this were everywhere.

        It took a while to find a place to settle for the night. We investigated an anchorage and Hampton that Ben had recommended but it was way too shallow. Going straight to Norfolk made the most sense. That’s where the Intracoastal Waterway starts and our guide to ICW anchorages described a decent spot along the Elizabeth river. After passing countless Navy ships and commercial monstrosities, we joined a handful of other boats in an anchorage surrounded by city. More boats came in after us, including the one that followed us out of Ocean City and a couple of others we’d seen traveling together on our way to O.C.

Norfolk across the river.

        A full night of sleep restored us and we spent the afternoon exploring Norfolk a bit. The plan is to leave tomorrow but I’m nut sure where we’ll end up. I’m really excited to see Sarah and Derek in North Carolina so she and I are coordinating that plan.

        It finally feels like we’re getting somewhere…and going somewhere. We are in a new and interesting place and have many new and interesting places ahead!

This is getting ridiculous. You’ll see what I mean.

Enjoying tea and reading my kindle on a nice sail to Cape May.

On Saturday we dragged ourselves out of Atlantic City. It was somewhat hard to get moving again after what happened on our way there. Plus, the waves were still HUGE (they actually got bigger) and life tied to a dock is so cushy! Saturday ended up being the perfect day to leave. It was sunny. The waves weren’t bad at all once we got away form the inlet. There was wind but not too much. We even sailed wing -n-wing for a while.

By mid-afternoon we were snuggly anchored in our favorite spot next to the Coast Guard station in Cape May, NJ. There were a couple other cruising boats there and more arrived later that night. It felt good to finally get to the place we set out for exactly 2 weeks prior. Too bad we didn’t make it there in the 2 days we’d planned to take.

As nice as Cape May is, Lee and I decided to keep the momentum going. We were heading into a few days of very calm winds so we knew we could make progress down the coast by motoring. After a morning run, we took stealthy showers at the marina where we stayed briefly last time we were here. Then we pulled up the anchor and joined the throngs of weekend fisherman heading out to sea.

The day of motoring was uneventful. It was sunny and actually almost warm! I only wore one or two long sleeve shirts and fleece pants all day! The waves, however, were painfully annoying. They were huge, rolling swells coming from just aft of abeam (a little towards the back of the boat from being parallel to our path). They rolled Pirat like she was a bath toy and there was nothing we could do about it. Raising the main as a stabilizer would just flog the sail back and forth all day, adding a really annoying sound to the already annoying motion we were experiencing. I have bruises all over the place from our past couple passages. I bang my sides, shins, and knees into all kinds of things when the boat is rolling all over the place. Cooking is a riot. Anything I put on the counter slides back and forth with every roll and I can’t put any liquid-containing container without a lid on any surface but the stove, which moves with the rolls. Fortunately I tolerate the motion reasonably well seasickness wise and Lee has never been seasick in his life.

Ferris wheel! There wasn’t much to take pictures of till we got to Ocean City.

So ends another successful day, bringing us 40-some miles closer to the Caribbean? Oh no, we didn’t get off that easy.

Waves crashing on the breakwater at the Ocean City inlet.

We pulled in to the Ocean City inlet which was swarming with mini fishing boats (Does everyone in New Jersey and Maryland fish on chilly fall weekends?). Lee drove Pirat towards the purported anchorage area down a channel on our left. We knew the depth would be limited but we figured we’d be OK if we stuck to the channel. It wasn’t low tide. Barely two minutes after we turned the corner the depth dropped from 10 feet to 7 feet, then 6.5…and we were aground. It wasn’t very dramatic. We’ve run aground in Chesapeake bay but never had a problem simply backing out of the soft mud. This time we hit sand. Pirat slowed rapidly like someone had put on the breaks. Lee reversed the engine quickly but our keel was solidly aground. Sigh

At that point a couple in a small fishing boat came by to tell us about the rocks out beyond our bow. I thanked them, but said we were aground so we weren’t going anywhere near the rocks. They offered to help and were getting ready to give us a tow when we finally got unstuck under our own power. The man in the fishing boat said he’d show us the anchoring spot a ways down the channel where we were heading so we followed him warily. Lee could see that we were heading for an area that was way too shallow, according to the chart plotter, so he veered to starboard to avoid it. Suddenly we were aground again.

The couple in the boat turned back and, oblivious to our lack of movement, slight list to one side, and downtrodden expressions, directed us to continue our path towards the anchorage. “We’re aground again.” I told him. “And I don’t think we’re going to be anchoring here after all.”

Lee brought the heavy stern anchor line from down below and we managed to pass one end to the other boat so they could pull us off the sand. They were driving kinda crazy and nearly sideswiped Pirat a few times in their maneuvers. While the woman (I assume the wife) tried to tie off the line, her husband managed to circle the boat around in such a way that the line went under our stern and hooked in front of the rudder. Excellent

After making sure our rescuers weren’t going to drive off while our rudder was hooked, I reached into the water with the boat hook and miraculously hooked the line on the other side of the rudder. Lee came over to assist but suddenly the line was being pulled out of my hand and rapidly twisted around. It only took me a few seconds to realize it was wrapped around the prop. Lee had bumped the throttle on his way over and the engine was now in gear rather than idling in neutral. Lee immediately took it out of gear and shut it down. Then we spent the next 20 minutes untangling the line from our prop. Fortunately, Lee was able to get at it from the dinghy. The process mostly involved untwisting an impossible curlicue of rope.

Our rescuers waited patiently at anchor while we freed the prop. Then Lee brought them one end of the line with the dinghy and we set things up for a tow. They managed to pull us off after a little engine revving and we shot backwards into deeper water. They untied our line and we thanked them profusely for their help as Lee got Pirat moving forward again. I had called up a nearby marina that said they could accommodate our draft. Lee and I were done playing Russian roulette with the bottom and ready to pull into a slip. Lee followed the power boater’s instructions to get to the marina, sticking very, very close to all the buoys.

Finally, we tied up in a slip at Sunset Marina. Oh but our afternoon trial wasn’t over yet! Lee noticed that the engine was vibrating more than usual and the cabin smelled very smokey when we went down below to investigate. Upon opening the engine compartment, Lee identified the alternator as the source of the smoke. The alternator uses the engine to charge the boat’s batteries (used for all our power). A bolt that secures one of the engine mounts was also loose, causing the vibrations we’d felt. Great. In one day we grounded Pirat twice, wrapped a line around the prop and damaged our engine! Why oh why?!

It turns out the alternator problem was probably totally unrelated to our grounding. I worried that we’d strained the engine and blown out the alternator by trying to power off the bottom. Lee pondered this, did some research, and concluded that our actions would not have harmed the alternator. He eventually pulled it out to inspect it and immediately discovered the problem. The part of the alternator that is supposed to spin was totally frozen, stuck, jammed. Lee explained more about it but I’ll leave the technical stuff to him and his future post on the subject (at repairpirat).

The implications of yesterday’s fiasco aren’t too horrible. Lee took the alternator to a nearby diesel shop where they said they could send it out for repairs and have it back in “a couple of days”. It can probably just be rebuilt, which saves us from having to buy a new one. Meanwhile we’re stuck in this very nice and not overly expensive marina (as marina’s go, it’s at least cheaper than Atlantic City). We have to decide what our next step is when can finally leave here. Stopping at the two “sketchy inlets” where we’d planned to break up the distance to Norfolk, is not very appealing now. Negotiating channels with breaking waves on either side and never knowing whether the water is deep enough isn’t much fun. Without those stops, though, we’ll have to sail over night to get to Norfolk, something we swore off of for the time being after our experience off Long Island.

At least that decision can wait a few days. In the meantime, there’s groceries to resupply, laundry to wash, and a boat to take care of.

        One of two things is going to happen: either Lee and I are going to get used to crazy, horrifying disasters or we’re going to perish in the ocean. That’s what I’ve decided the fates have in store for us after our latest and greatest adventure.

        Let me set the scene.

        We’re motoring South along the Jersey coast, almost to our destination of Atlantic City. We spent the day jibing back and forth in 15-20 knots of northerly wind and large waves. Pirat reached her top speed since we’ve owned her (12.2 knots baby!) surfing down one of these waves. It was a long day. We left the 79th st. Boat Basin at 4:30am and successfully navigated New York harbor in the dark without getting run over by a freighter, tug boat, barge, or ferry. The city lights were beautiful but they made spotting boat lights difficult. Once again, we were glad we had our AIS and RADAR (not to mention my sharp eyes).

Oh boy, sunset. That means dark!

        By 6pm the wind had died and Lee and I had taken down the sails for the last 10-15 miles to Atlantic City. Thanks to the recent time change, it was dark. The moon hadn’t even risen yet. Lee and I were sitting across from each other in the cockpit, finishing our sweet potatoes from dinner, when I looked over my shoulder and saw a wall of whitewater approaching the boat. It was a breaking wave. It was seconds from hitting us. I yelled something like “Oh my god, Lee!” and we both sprang into action.

        Lee got behind the wheel and looked at the chart plotter to see if we were drastically off course for some reason. My first thought was It’s a rogue wave! Must close the hatch so the boat doesn’t fill up with water! I dove for the hatch and somehow got down the companionway. This is where things get fuzzy. I don’t know if I got the hatch closed before the wave hit us. The boat rolled violently to starboard and I flew backwards onto the nav table seat. I heard and felt all kinds of stuff go flying from the high side of the boat. I also felt a violent jolt as the keel hit bottom. We were running aground. The waves would smash us and we’d sink. As Pirat righted I stood up, grabbed the ladder, and looked out the hatch. Lee was at the helm, looking appropriately freaked out. There were more waves on the way. The water all around us was white like in the surf zone at a beach.

        I remember screaming “What is this?! What is this?! What are we gonna do?!”
        â€œIt’s an uncharted shoal.” Lee answered.

There were more frantic exchanges. It’s not on the map? How do we get off? Hold on!! Hold on!!
        Apparently a couple more waves hit us. We probably hit bottom a second time. Everything is a blur now. I know I clung to the edge of the hatch, swinging as the boat heeled way over again. There was a lot of crashing – of water and debris down below. I think it was when I looked up through the hatch the second time, exclaiming “What do we do?!” that Lee said “I don’t know. I can’t steer!”. That was not good. Our rudder is smashed. We’re crippled and stuck on this shoal in these waves. I’m going to have to call the coast guard. Do I set off the EPIRB?

        I hung from the companionway as Pirat went down again. This time I screamed – all-out screamed in sincere terror. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.

        My next mission was to get our life vest/harnesses. I pulled them from the starboard pipe bunk and crashed back up the ladder to give Lee his. We were so stupid to not have them on, so stupid. As we frantically buckled the harnesses, the waves seemed to give us a break and Pirat forged ahead, the engine still running. We weren’t aground but we were clearly in very shallow water.

        Lee went back to the helm to try the steering. “Oh! I know why I can’t steer!” he said. “The auto pilot is still on!”
What a relief! He turned the auto pilot, off and asked for the big flashlight. I brought it from down below, stepping in something slippery on the way. The flashlight didn’t help but I could see more breaking waves ahead to port. Lee managed to avoid those breakers and drove us safely off the shoal.

        It took a while for our heart rates to return to normal. We looked at the boat, at each other, and at the malicious ocean around us. Everything seemed to be intact. How could we have hit an uncharted shoal less than 2 miles off the coast of New Jersey? Lee double checked the chart plotter. It was supposed to be at least 20 feet deep where we we’d hit bottom. A shallower sand bar must have developed recently and the ginormous waves exaggerated the shallowness by sucking up water, leaving their troughs barely above the bottom.

        Eventually I went below to check for damage. I was afraid to turn on the light but when I did there wasn’t anything too horrible to see. The floor was strewn with fruit, gloves, pots, dishes, the smashed rest of my sweet potato, and a few items from the galley cupboards. Our extreme leans to port dislodged things that had always been secure before. My recipe box, for instance, sits on a shelf with a substantial rail on it next to the galley. It had flown off and spewed it’s contents on the galley floor. I lifted up the floor boards but found no more than the usual water. The keel bolts looked fine.

        Lee and I weren’t out of the woods yet. We had to get to Atlantic City without passing over any more 20 foot depths, which we now considered potentially dangerous. Lee took Pirat way out beyond any potential shallow areas but the long channel into the harbor passed over the shoals and had a few single digit depths. I suggested we call up the Coast Guard station in Atlantic City to make sure the inlet was safe in the current conditions. Lee got a hold of them on the VHF and they said we should be fine as long as we go all the way out and straight in through the channel.

        The last hour of our trip was a white knuckle ride spent glaring at the depth gauge and scanning the dark water for breaking waves. We made it to the channel, then down it to where the breakwaters stopped the swells. We’d given up our plan to anchor in a spot we’d never tried. It was too dark, too cold, and we were too shaken. We helped ourselves to one of the many vacant slips in the Trump Marina, where we stayed on our previous Atlantic City stops. Docking took two attempts. Our brains and bodies were shutting down.

So unsuspecting…this is shortly after sunrise outside New York. That hat was the only thing lost overboard last night

        A good night’s sleep and more thorough inspection of the boat has us on the mend. We laid low today, cleaning up the carnage and enjoying unlimited power after plugging in at the dock. It’s hard to face another day in that ocean but we need to keep moving. We’re not going out in dangerous conditions or anything but we’re going to leave tomorrow even though the waves will still be big. The run to Cape May isn’t nearly as long as yesterday’s passage (over 100 miles with all our jibes). We have to get back on the horse, again. I’m just a little paranoid about waves now. I can’t get the image of that breaking wave out of my head. I know it was really the shoal that was the problem and we’re definitely going to play things on the safer than safe side where those are concerned from now on.

        New York city was really fun, by the way. It was cold and stormy but we enjoyed a couple long runs in Riverside Park and roamed around the city. We spent some time in internet cafes, visited the enormous and beautiful Natural History Museum, and had a nice dinner at a Greek restaurant. Most importantly, I got some new warm socks to replace the pairs I left behind. I’m gonna need those socks until we get to the Caribbean!

We’re so close, how can we not stop in New York city? After spending a few fun-filled days on a mooring at the 79th street boat basin during the summer we know it’s an opportunity not to me missed.

This was actually a much more difficult decision than I make it out to be. Pirat is currently moored in Manhasset bay, adjacent to Port Washington, NY on the south end of Long Island. We got here yesterday afternoon after a fabulous sail from Stratford (15-20 knots on a beam reach, Pirat screaming along at almost 9 knots with the current). We stopped here last time we went down the sound too, so we knew right where to look for the FREE town moorings. The next step in the plan was to head through Hell’s Gate, cross NY harbor, and anchor in Sandy Hook, NJ. Looking at the weather, conditions won’t be good for a jump down the Jersey coast until the middle of the week at least. That means we’d be sitting in Sandy Hook with a strong North wind howling into an anchorage that’s totally unprotected from that direction – not a very appealing scenario.

Our options? Stay in Manhasset bay – the mooring is free, we know where to finangle showers, and there’s a cool little Greek cafe/market with wifi. The problem with this plan is it puts us on the wrong side of Hells Gate should the conditions change and we want to head south sooner. We’d also have to go through the city during the winter norther that arrives tomorrow.

Just going to Sandy Hook and dealing with the wind is another option. Our third option is to turn right up the Hudson after riding the current through Hells Gate and pick up a mooring at the boat basin. That would put us in a secure, sheltered location next to Riverside park, a subway station, several cool NY markets, and the incredibly disgusting shower in the little marina. After lots of back and forth we opted for option three this morning. An increase in the forecast wind at Sandy Hook put us over the edge.

Lee and I are having a relaxing morning, enjoying the time change, and catching up on down time. Lee is messing with the wind generator, which seems to be permanently burned out. He was going to give it another chance but it’s not producing any voltage so we just took it down. Frankly, we need power. Since the fuse blew during our Death Sail last week, we haven’t had solar or wind power. We’ve had to run the engine instead. Just the solar panel, which is reconnected now, makes quite a difference but we could still use more.

Lee’s parents drove down to visit Lee’s grandmother this weekend and met up with us on Friday night. They brought Lee rubber boots like mine and some extra pairs of yellow gloves for both of us from Hamilton Marine. They also brought our mail and my bag of winter clothes so I could pull out a few supplementary items – fleece tights, long underwear bottoms, and another fleece top. We all went out for a tasty but late dinner and then made a grocery run. We can’t have Lee’s parents follow us all the way down the coast so this was our last rendezvous. What would we do without all their help?! The same goes for Conor and Kristen. It was great to see them again and sooooo nice to have a warm, dry place to hang out while it rained. Showers, laundry, and powerful internet are luxury items that we really, really appreciate when we can get them.

The only unfortunate result of visiting our Stratford friends is that I left both my pairs of Smartwool socks on the drying rack in their basement. They just weren’t quite dry and I knew I’d forget them but I hung them up anyway. Oh well. I bet I can get some warm socks in New York.