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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
In the last dispatch I reported that we would be waiting for an appropriate weather window and then head north to New England. Well, things didn't turn out that way. The remnants of Tropical Storm Allison didn't cooperate. The low-pressure system just sort of hung around, finally slipping northward and joining a frontal system that was moving eastward. Bummer.
In retrospect it would have been perfect weather for heading northward before these weather systems made it out to sea. The late Tristan Jones was fond of saying that there are only three types of sailors: novices, pessimists, and dead. Having no wish to be in the latter category, I fall into the middle one: pessimist. Thus it was when looking at all the possible courses that Allison and its remnants could have taken, we took the pessimistic view and assumed that it would head out to sea and regenerate into a full fledged hurricane. Given that premise, waiting for it all this to pass was the sensible thing to do.
After a full day of waiting, things began to look as if we had missed a perfect window of opportunity. And here we were, at Wrightsville Beach, too late to take advantage of it. What to do?
Masonboro Inlet at Wrightsville Beach provides a good all-weather way of getting out into the open ocean. It also provides a good angle for attacking Cape Hatteras, notorious for foul conditions especially during times of strong northerly winds. Unfortunately for us the weather prognosticators called for winds with a strong northerly component for several days, and it would take several more for the seas to lay down enough for a comfortable passage around that cape.
Well, we could wait out the weather here, or we could take a long day's run to Morehead City and wait there. Morehead City, being north, won out.
Once in Morehead City we began scratching our heads. The weather still looked like we were going to be stuck there for a while. The obvious solution was to take the ICW all the way to Norfolk, Virginia, occupying our time and making northing while the weather did its thing. From Norfolk we could easily head out the Chesapeake for a shot at New England.
But that didn't really appeal to us. Certainly it was nice for the builders of the ICW to put that ditch along the coast here for folks like us to have a safe passage to points north or south. But to us, riding along in a ditch is much like riding along on a highway. Otto von Steerer, our autopilot, needs more room than a narrow lane to do his work, leaving us to do it for him. And that means long hours at the wheel. Our 70-mile one-day run to Morehead City proved very, very tiring. Three or four days of more of the same to get to Norfolk would not be fun, in spite of the beautiful areas that the ICW winds through along that stretch.
So we began to look for alternate routes and checked ways through the Outer Banks of South Carolina. Ocracoke Inlet would provide good access to the ocean, but lies to the southwest of Hatteras. It's a good (mostly) all-weather inlet used by fishing fleets, but still leaves us with the problem of rounding Hatteras.
Oregon Inlet lies north of Hatteras. The more we looked, the more we liked that alternative. It would take us two full days to get there, enabling us to be moving generally northward instead of sitting and waiting. Much of that time we'd be in open waters enabling Otto to do his thing, so it wouldn't be quite so exhausting. The first night we could anchor at Silver Lake on Ocracoke Island, an all-weather anchorage where we could wait in comfort and safety as the frontal system passes through. The next night we could stop at Roanoke Island, site of the "Lost Colony" (the first English settlement in the New World), providing us with some shoreside activities while waiting for our next weather window. Roanoke Island, just to the north of Oregon Inlet, also has good facilities for visiting yachts enabling us to top up with fuel before heading offshore. And finally, it's off the beaten track, appealing to us in its own right.
That decided, we got up at first light and headed out. There was still about 25 miles of ICW to traverse before we would be heading out into the open waters of Pamlico Sound. This we did without significant incident. Several big sport-fish boats even slowed down to minimize their wake when they passed us - something quite out of the ordinary elsewhere.
A section of the Neuse River forms part of the ICW that we transited on our way to the Sound. Along here it is a broad expanse of water and not very well developed. On our way back south a side trip up the Neuse to New Bern should make an interesting side trip. New Bern is one of the oldest settlements in North Carolina and the old stomping grounds of Blackbeard the pirate.
Once in the open water of Pamlico Sound Otto took over steering chores. The wind didn't cooperate so we motored.
There are two approaches to Silver Lake, both many miles long across shoal banks. The one we selected was the shorter of the two, but trickier to navigate. via a shoal channel. It was getting late and the nearly two miles saved would enable us to negotiate the entire channel and enter the anchorage in daylight. As we approached the second marker in the channel the engine alarm went off. Oops...
The iron stays'l was shut down immediately and the anchor was dropped. I put on my Chief Engineer hat and checked things out. Oops... No engine coolant in the engine. It was all in the bilge. I found a serious leak in one of the coolant pipes. Surprising myself mechanically, I made a temporary patch using part of a hose, some hose clamps, part of the lid to a cereal box and some liquid gasket material. If I had some chewing gum aboard, I might have used that as well. Since its installation the patch has shown no signs of leaking and could possibly serve for the duration of the trip.
The miracle fix took only a short time to put in place, but it was too dark to proceed by the time the job was finished. We resigned ourselves to spending the night anchored in the open waters of Pamlico Sound as a cold front passes through.
Pamlico Sound is relatively shallow. Fifteen to twenty feet depths are the norm. Where we were anchored we were in about seven feet of water. When the wind blows down the length of the Sound a wicked chop develops very quickly. As the front passed we saw winds gusting into the twenties, and Volant bounced as the chop developed. Not comfortable, but then not the most uncomfortable night we've ever spent on the boat.
At first light we set out for the town of Manteo on Roanoke Island. After the front the winds were light and the chop lingered. This made it difficult for Otto to keep his course under sail alone, so we motorsailed. During the middle of the day the wind filled in and shifted enough to give us a nice lift, so we were able to sail for several hours. But as the day wore on we had to motorsail and eventually drop the sails altogether.
The Salty Dawg marina was selected from the guidebooks. They have fuel (necessary for us to top up our tanks before heading offshore), a full service facility (useful for affecting a more permanent repair to the coolant pipe), a courtesy car (useful for doing the tourist thing), a supermarket across the street (useful for replenishing provisions), and showers.
Next week we'll be focusing on exploring Roanoke Island while we watch for the weather window. When it comes, we plan to head out the Oregon Inlet for an offshore shot at Newport, Rhode Island.
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