The biggest scariest start to our adventures…

For some reason it has felt like every part of the past year of thinking and planning was culminating in us getting around Cape Hatteras - the notorious eastern point part of the East coast USA where shipwrecks were everywhere on the bottom of the sea. So much of our focus on weather forecasts was watching that part, and for good reason. Finally after a week in Virginia, the window came up on PredictWind and all our other weather apps agreed. So this year we had a slightly strange Thanksgiving day compared to most, which was that we headed off with our buddy boat and about 10 others from the Norfolk area and down the final stretch of the Chesapeake Bay. First was getting through/ over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/ Tunnel, the waves were on the beam and it was really pretty choppy for a few hours, but we had dolphins guide us through the narrow space and once we turned the corner down Virginia Beach it was calm beautiful weather. We were motoring - this stretch of the coast was not one we were planning on taking our time to sail and be slow over, and by the end of the night we had overtaken most of the boats we were with and went into our first night on passage - ever. Pete took the first shift till about 2am and then I took over - but happened to wake up as we were rounding Cape Hatteras which was very special as we sat there in silence with the moon lighting our path.

The moon then carried us on and we headed towards our initial destination of Beaufort, NC. It was about there we made an error of judgement which was that we and the boat were feeling good, so we decided to take advantage of the weather and carry on for another 12 hours or so to Southport, NC (the entrance port to Wilmington NC). We carried on and eventually reached the famous Frying Pan Shoals, keeping well out their way, but as we neared them the water got really choppy and the wind rose, and as we turned to head into the 10 mile pass to Southport, we were bashing into (semingly) boat-breaking waves head on, the kids were flying around their forward cabins and it was real scary. We relocated the kids to the stern of the boat where it is a lot calmer and steadier, however about 45 minutes into the bashing we called it. Neither we nor the boat felt like another 2-3 hours of these conditions and so Pete turned the boat around and we headed out to sea again, immediately calming as the waves and wind carried us more gently, and finally the kids could sleep. It was a real learning moment for us both, reflecting on the fact that we needed to be much more mindful than we had been about state of tides coming into a port, as well as wave period and the winds. Depressingly for us both, even though we had been going for 36 hours we now knew we had another 10 or so to go before we got to our final port for this passage, Georgetown SC.

However the weather wasnt done with us yet - over the next few hours the waves built behind us till we were surfing down 10-15ft swells, the boat carried on and was not bothered but the height of them compared to our solar arch at the back of the boat was pretty freaky. We then turned side on to those waves for the final hour of the approach, at which point our port side engine stopped working. That was another scary moment but the captain did the most amazing job of watching the waves, surfing down them to get the harbor entrance approach just right, and navigated us between the markers into calm waters behind the breakwater.

It was one for the diaries that we would reflect on again and again for the next few days. Not too many photos of the really bad parts thankfully….. The learnings, how well the boat coped, more importantly in a way how well the kids coped….. (Annabelle on waking the 2nd morning to the huge seas came outside, looked at the waves, looked at us both on the helm pretty freaked out and went ‘That’s intense’ and went back inside. She is awesome :) ) One of the best parts of that second day was the dolphins. You would actively see them heading towards the boat as the sun rose, and that morning we had about 20 minutes where a pod of dolphins stayed with us, relishing being in the big surf, jumping clear of the waves and seeming to guide us safely in. Not sure I will ever get sick of the sight of dolphins under the bow. I hope we don’t……..