1999

West Palm Beach to Washington DC

We left bright and early at 7:00 am on June 19, 1999 from West Palm Beach.

	The Crew (L to R): Norm, Mike, Ruth, Will, Bryan and Sandra
The second day out we found an abandoned boat. We contacted the F/V Fried Conch in Key West, FL who acted as relay to the Coast Guard for us to verify that the survivors had been taken off the boat the day before.
Bryan suffering from sea sickness decided to brave the elements rather than go inside and face the consequences!
	The morning after the big storm, the seas were still a little choppy.
	It's amazing what a little chop, can do to items not properly stored!
	Due to the shifting sands at Ocracoke Inlet, the Coast Guard offered an escort in an out of Ocracoke Inlet.

We left bright and early at 10:55 am from Ocracoke, NC.

	Sandra catches some rays with Mike (left) who is lounging while not on watch. Norm (above), takes time to contemplate the sailing life.
Besides catching rays, there was also dolphin watching! Though we found we wondered who was watching who. Along the way we had to do some repairs. Mike actually volunteered to go up the mast!
	And spent time with some very good

West Palm Beach to Washington DC Sights and Oddities

September 28, 1999 -- Dink to Annapolis

Today, we decided to take the Dingy to Annapolis to pick up fuel filters and spare parts for Tinky, and to see if we couldn't find a new Icom to replace the one on our fly bridge that died. 

It was a beautiful day, in the mid 60s with not to much wind. 

We headed out about 1000. We throttled up to planing speed at the mouth of Selby Bay, then out into the Chesapeake Bay. We cruised out around Thomas Point, and I discovered that in the chop, while I wasn't getting sprayed, I was getting bounced up and down. There were several times when the entire dingy went airborn! (the prop was still in the water) We found that the dink rides much better in a beam to quarter sea rather than head into the sea, or in a following sea. We played with the throttle till we found a speed at which we could move forward, but still be comfortable. 

At the mouth of the Severn River, we stopped so we could make some phone calls as we also needed to head to the bank. It turned out that we would be better off just mailing our deposit. We then headed out again for Annapolis Harbour and the Dingy Dock there.

As we were coming in, we saw a beautiful sailboat that must have been 140 feet long. It was an awe inspiring sight. We also took the time to look at the mooring balls to figure out if we wanted to anchor out or tie up to a mooring ball. 

We headed toward the dingy dock at the harbour and discovered, at least initially, that there was no space at the dock. There must have been 20 dingies there. So, we pulled up to Fawcetts where I checked to see if they had any Icom radios and to see if we could use their mail drop. 

As it turned out, we missed their mail pick up, but there was a mail box on the other side of the circle. So, I told Mike I would be heading there to drop the letter in the mail, and I would meet him at the sea wall. He managed to find a spot to tie the dingy up so we headed over to Bay Country Electronics to see if they had one. We struck out there as well. 

That should have been our fist sign to just return to Selby Bay. 

From Annapolis Harbour, we headed back down to Back Creek to find the place that had the Northern Lights filters for Tinky. Unfortunately, Mike forgot to bring the name of the company, or the directions on how to find it once we got on land. We spent the next several hours tooling around the Back Creek and Lake Ogleton looking for something that would spark Mike's memory. This did not work!

Very frustrated, we headed out of Lake Ogleton and back toward the South River. On the way back, the chop had picked up a bit on the Bay and I was bounced all the way back. I am still not sitting properly! 

We pulled into Selby Bay frustrated and grumpy from the unsuccessful run. Oh well, atleast we got a letter mailed.

September 18, 1999 -- Time to Go!

We left Capital Yacht Club at 2035 this evening bound for Smoots Cove. Smoot's Cove is just past the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Washington, DC. The reason for going such a short distance, approximately 5 miles, was to ensure that we could see any debris that was washed out from the edges of a hurricane that hit 4 days previously. 

At 2202, we passed under the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and proceeded to our chosen anchorage just outside of Smoot's Cove off of red 90. The bridge, again, had a problem closing but was finally closed by the time we dropped anchor. 

We dropped anchor at 2228, and performed our first 'official cruising act' by putting up our St. Brendan's Isle burgee below our Capital Yacht Club burgee. 

September 19, 1999 -- Breton Bay Here We Come

We left Smoot's Cove bound for Breton Bay at 1050. Around noon, Liz, our guest for our first week of cruising, earned her keep by swabbing the decks. What can I say, it was a boring trip!

On our trip to Breton, things were slow so we had the opportunity to play with our charting program and figured out how to upload waypoints at 1830. Thus, we dubbed our computer Hal. 

We entered Breton Bay at 2000, and dropped anchor at 2024. All in all, it was a peaceful trip. 

September 20, 1999 -- Mill Creek or Bust

We weighed anchor at 1010 heading for Mill Creek on the Great Wycomico after performing our regular checks on the engines and transmissions. The port and starboard engines required a quart of oil, the port transmission required a quart of oil and the starboard transmission required a gallon of oil. I don't think our replacement heat exchanger bundle did the trick. 

At 1500 we reached the mouth of the Potomac and decided to try to sail. We altered course just slightly so that we would be on a starboard tack rounding Smith Point and out came the sails. We rode the wind for a while and watched big ships running in the shipping lanes. At that point, we decided that it was time to tack (a little to early), and wound up loosing ground. Instead of going through that again, the sails were put back in at 1531, and we resumed our course with the wind on the nose, as usual. 

At 2208 we decided to stop trying to anchor. We had tried Mill Creek and several spots on Cockrel Creek. Everyone was becoming fussy so we tied up at the Crazy Crab Restuarant. 

September 21, 1999 -- Reedville

After waking up and listening to the weather forcast for the day, we decided that it would be the better part of descretion to stay tied up at the dock. We spent the day doing a little clean up, and wandering around Reedville. There are some beautiful homes there. 

On our way back to the boat, we stopped at Peppermints, a small ice cream, sandwich and soup place. There we met Patsy Self, proprieter and real estate broker. She has been in the Reedville area for 45 years. 

September 22, 1999 -- Yet another Mill Creek 

At 1226, we set out for Mill Creek on the Patuxent river. We decided to go ahead despite the small craft advisory that ran to Smith Point, the point that we would reach just after leaving the Great Wycomico. 

There were stormy seas, with gusts of wind to 40 knots with seas a consistent 5 feet, sometimes as high as 8 feet. We moved to the inside pilot station where we could be warm and dry. Mike made rounds on the boat to make sure that everything was ship shape. While in the V-berth, he discovered that the windlass cover that we had used to block lights shining into the stateroom through the hatch was allowing water to drip in. He opened the hatch and pulled it in, then proceded to become sea sick from going airborn while on his back several times. He quickly threw his harness and tether on and went outside. Unfortunately, we didn't have our jack lines down and his tether was to short and he hurled on the deck. The next wave that came by rinsed the deck down, so once again he was saved from having to clean the boat. 

Liz was the next to go down. She went to the main saloon to get some Rolaids for me, and came back up slightly green. She too donned a harness and jack line and went outside to ride out the rest of the trip. 

At that point, we decided to head in the Potomac and up the St. Mary's river instead of beating into it. Just as we entered the Potomac, Liz who had been holding back, ralphed over the side of the boat. 

At 1809, we dropped anchor at Horse Shoe bend on the St. Mary's river. We were still having problems with Tinky, so we investigated and found that the 500FG Raycor filter desperately needed to be cleaned and changed. This was the true source of the fuel supply problems we had been experiencing with Tinky. 

September 23, 1999 -- Patuxent? Nah, lets go to Selby Bay! 

After finding out that Point Lookout Marina had the filter cartridges we needed, the only one we forgot bring extra of, we dropped the dingy and headed there to pick up some. We returned to the boat to clean and install the new filter. 

At 1530 we weighed anchor, it still ways 140 lbs, to head to the Patuxent River. 

As we headed out of the St. Mary's, we discussed our plans for the next several days. After reviewing the fact that we would need to be at Selby Bay by 1300 to pick up Sarge, we decided to cruise the afternoon and evening there instead of stopping at the Patuxent River. We laid in our course, creating a route on Hal to be sent to the autopilot. 

We expeirenced a miracle, when we turned to run up the Bay, the wind was in an appropriate direction for us to sail without really tacking. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough wind for us to sail without engines. 

During the trip up, Tinky was having some fuel problems. We realized that when we changed the Raycor filter, we had forgotten to change Tinky's primary fuel filter as well. Mike made the offer to change it, but I figured we could make it to Selby Bay before having to change it. 

Two miles from the entrance to the South River, Tinky's load had to be dropped again because of fuel. At that point, Mike went to replace Tinky's fuel filter. Liz and I navigated that last two miles the old way, plotting our longitude and latitude, and looking for buoys. 

Just as we passed the first buoy in the South River, Tinky came back up. Unfortunately, there was to much air in the fuel filter and Tinky very quickly went back down again. He restarted relatively quickly, and stayed up long enough for us to get to the mouth of Selby Bay where we dropped anchor at 0130.

September 24, 1999 -- Where to go, where to go? 

We picked up Sarge at approximately 1300 and tried to figure out where to go. We finally decided to go to the Magothy river so we could arrive during daylight and have dinner at a 'normal' time. 

We motored out of the South River and put our sails up. There was enough wind for us to sail again! This time, we even cut our engines. We tacked across the bay 3 times, each time, making good forward progress. Unfortunately if we had continued this, we would not have made the Magothy until late that evening. We turned the engines back on and headed for the Magothy directly. 

We dropped anchor at 1730 and settled in for the evening. 

September 25, 1999 -- Dragging anchor

At 0800 Mike woke me up saying that he needed my help. When I asked him what for he told me that we had dragged anchor. I was up like a shot. We checked out where we were and found that had we drifted another 100 or so feet, we would have been in roughly 2 feet of water.

We fired the engines up, raised the anchor and moved to anchor again, where we held for the rest of the time on the Magothy. 

We went for lunch at Deep Creek Marina on Dividing Creek. It must have been a sight seeing all four of us in our tinky dink! 

We spent the rest of the day lounging, and touring in the dingy. 

September 26, 1999 -- Our Triumphant Return? 

At 1300 we weighed anchor to head back to Selby Bay to drop Liz and Sarge off. This was when we discovered that our starboard transmission was not engaging. Well, it was, sort of, but something wasn't engaging right and the engine RPMs would drop down to almost nothing. We called our mechanic who told us that it sounded like it was our forward clutch that had gone bad. He told us to find a place to tie up at and he would be out the next morning. 

After calling around to all of the marinas in Selby Bay, I found one that had 10 feet of water. I spoke with them and verified where we were supposed to go and then called our mechanic to let him know that we would be at Selby Bay Yacht Basin. 

We motored out to discover no wind, or atleast not enough to do us any good, so we motored with only one engine. We still made a respectable 6.7 knots! 

We started heading in to Selby Bay and through a series of errors, wound up running aground by the Selby Bay Yacht Club about an hour after high tide at 1850. The manager of Selby Bay Yacht Basin tried to tow us off, but could not. Tow Boat Annapolis tried to tow us off, but could not. Finally at 2200 or so, everyone gave up and waited for next high tide. 

September 27, 1999 -- Floating off

At 0445, we found that we had drifted further into the channel. We started up the engines and managed to power our way off. We immediately headed out, dropped anchor and waited for day light to go in to the Yacht Basin. 

As soon as daylight came, we motored in were starting to make our turn when we ran aground again, in an area that was supposed to have 10 feet of water. We lowered the dingy in record time, and Mike used it to drag the boat off. He then went to the dock to help get the boat in from there. I powered the boat over to the dock on one engine, and at the same time ran getting lines moved from the starboard side of the boat to the port side as Mike wanted to come in on the starboard side. 

We got the boat docked at approximately 0730. We immediately broke the booze out and had cocktails, we figured it was 5:00 pm somewhere in the world! 

At 0830, we started wandering toward the marina office to register and took a tour of the Basin and the boats in it. We saw several Pacemakers and a gorgeous Roamer, as well as a really cute little boat. 

Because we figured that we had a transmission problem we scheduled Fischer-Panda service to come out on Wednesday to fix our generator and Clean Fuel to come out on Friday to clean our fuel tanks, as long as we were layed up anyway. 

Our mechanic showed up at 0930 to investigate the problem with the starboard engine. They set immediately to work, disengaged the starboard shaft and checked the transmission. It appeared that the transmission was working correctly. I also taught our mechanic something! We had read in the owners manual that the forward and reverse clutches could be replaced without removing the transmission from the boat. He called Twin Disc and verified that it could be done and found that I was absolutely correct! Once again, we thanked the first owner for selecting the transmission model he did. Our mechanic called a diver who said that he would try to come out today. As a bonus to all of this, our mechanic did find the leak that has been haunting us, atleast we hope. Stay tuned! 

At 1700, the diver came out to check the starboard shaft. He found a line had indeed wrapped around the shaft and was binding it. He removed the line, and inspected the rest of the bottom and found only minor scratches in the keel. Unfortunately, one of the anodes on the port shaft had come loose. That is fine, there is a spare one on the shaft. 

So, now we have both engines again; unfortunately we are here through Friday when the tanks are cleaned as there is quite a bit of muck in the tanks that only gets stirred up when we are moving.

On October 28, the highlight for the day was getting the Fisher Panda repairman out so that he could replace the dead Earth Switch Relay unit that had gone bad on our generator. One would think this would be a relatively easy task; however, the Fisher Panda owners manual leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to technical specifications as well as consistent information! Of course, he also forgot his shop manual as well. He prevailed though, and we got a crash course in reading combined German and Japanese wiring schematics! That evening, we met Steve and Laura from CYC for dinner at the Annapolis Yacht Club. This is a very posh Yacht Club, with a beautiful interior and a waiting list of 2 years just to join! There are 3 levels, 2 restaurants and a fantastic bar. They do something that I find intriguing in that they have a cashless system, including gratuities. Everything is automatically figured in the bill. The dinner was fantastic, and after closing Skip Jacks, we walked out and met the restaurant manager. We let her know the great job our server had done. Finally it was time to say so long to Steve and Laura and get back to the boat. We hopped in the dink, sat down and immediately stood back up because of 'wet butt' from the dew! Mike says he perfers plain old 'wet butt' to 'salt butt' from Ocean spray anyday. Let me tell you, it was a cold trip back to the boat! 

On October 29, we were planning to have dinner with Liz. Unfortunately, her plans were dependent on dropping her boyfriend Sarge off to help move a boat down to Washington, DC and his plans changed so she could not make it. Instead, we went to the cruisers rendezvous at the Eastport Yacht Club. This was obviously the partyers yacht club. We met a number of cruisers there including Bob and Sherrie on Shamal and Scott and Shirley on Sur La Mer. 

October 30, was the day that we would get doors! The converted cabinet, the soda machine and the entertainment center would now be both easily covered as well as easily secured! Paul came out in the morning and installed everything. He did a great job.

Very early in the morning October 31, we left Annapolis bound for Deltaville again. It was an easy run with very little wind. As is usual, the wind was right on the nose. We saw a sailboat that was moving pretty good that had turned its Main sail out and seemed to be getting a lift from it. We tried the same thing, and we seemed to go faster. The day went smoothly and quietly. As we neared the turn into the Piankatank, we put our main sail in and found that our speed increased by two knots , did we have the 'brakes on' or what? Bet you didn't know a sailboat had brakes! We pulled into Jackson Creek just after dark and tied up at the fuel dock for the night. 

As soon as we were secure, we went in search of Sharman. We found her snug on Sara up on the hard and finally got a quick view of the inside. We had intended only to stay for a few minutes; two hours later, we left and went in search of food. The delivery pizza place was closed so we tried a new recipe that neither of us particularly cared for.

September 29 - October 27, 1999 -- Lots! 

Since we were expecting to be at Selby Bay for the greater part of a week, we wound up having to stay there through Friday morning, October 1, when we talked with the folks from Clean Fuel about cleaning our tanks. Unfortunately, they could not help us because of the baffles in our tanks. 

Braving the tradition, we left out of Selby Bay on Friday to come up to Annapolis. It was a quiet cruise, and extremely short. We dropped anchor off the Naval Academy where we planned to spend the next week or so. 

On October 3, we were up early and heard that there would be an Annapolis cruisers net for the duration of the boat show each morning at 8:00 am. During the first cruisers net, we heard about the SSB net that happens each morning at 8:30 am each morning. I quickly became involved in doing both nets, which Mike was extremely happy about, as I now was getting up, voluntarily, before 8:00 am. 

On October 7, we went to the first day of the US Sailboat show. We met up with Steve and Laura, and Joe and Peggy from Capital. We wandered around the show talking with various vendors about items that we are having problems with, as well as items that would allow us to further projects we were working on. We met up at the end of the day for drinks with everyone, and a good time and good conversation was had by all. 

On October 9, we participated in the Seven Seas Cruising Association GAM. Don't ask me what GAM means, I don't know. However, it was fun to listen to different speakers and we again met up with Steve and Laura. 

On October 10, we left Annapolis and headed to the St. Mary's river. It was a peaceful cruise. 

On October 11, we left the St. Mary's, only to turn around and head back because we felt that the bay was a little bit rough for us. The winds were blowing around 25 knots and seas were about 3 feet. Around 5:00 PM, we decided to head out for an evening cruise to the Rappahanock. It was a beautiful night with a bit of tug and cruise ship traffic. We arrived in the Rappahanock around midnight and anchored. We were looking for fish traps when our spotlight shined on what looked like a W.W.II mine! We quickly weighed anchor and headed across the river to drop anchor again. We reexamined our charts and discovered a mark that indicates a large mooring ball. The only thing we can think of is that there is a mooring ball there for tugs to drop barges off.

On October 12, we met up with Henri and Anne aboard Sea Flat. They were meeting up with friends so we followed them in and docked at the Tides Lodge inn. We spent several days there and had cocktails and hors d'ouvres several afternoons. All in all, it was a lot of fun. 

On October 15, we left Carter Creek and dropped anchor off of Urbana on the Rappahanock. We spent a day and a half there, going in to town twice and wandering around. 

Halfway through the day on October 16, we heard that Hurricane Irene was headed our way. After reviewing our plans and alternatives, we decided to head into the Piankatank and drop anchor in Fishing Bay. 

On the morning of October 17, Irene was coming sooner rather than later. We felt that the wise move would be to head into dock, and a fantastic wind break, rather than remain anchored where we were. Fortunately, Deltaville Marina was accommodating! We pulled in around 11:00 am. 

While we were at Deltaville Marina, we became acquainted with Jay and Paul, a pair of Canadian brothers who were bringing Jay's 29 foot sailboat to the Caribbean. They had pulled in for a little bit of work. We spent many a fun evening together playing card games. Unfortunately, Anderson Boatworks fell behind in their schedule because of rain and could not accommodate the work we needed. So on October 26, we pulled out of Deltaville marina and made the run to Annapolis, 105 miles in just about 10.5 hours. 

We pulled out of Deltaville to 20 knot winds and 2 to 3 foot seas. However, we were in a following sea and the wind was blowing a broad reach! We motor-sailed, usually at about 8.5 to 9.2 knots. As we went along, the winds dwindled to under 10 knots and the seas settled to less than 1 foot. 

On October 27, we are in Annapolis, awaiting a repairman to finish the repairs to our large generator, and our wood guy to come and put of the doors we commissioned. Today was Little Bit's last day as Net Control for Wednesday. Next week, I take over Net Control. We spent the day leisurely, headed into town around 11:00 am and were back aboard by 1:30 or so. The rest of the day was lazy, filling out warranty cards and using Muratic acid on our heads and lectra-san units, and finally, of course, writing logs.

We decided at that point to start wandering around, partly to find something to eat, and partly to see if we couldn't find the parts somewhere else. We had lunch at this little Mexican place in a remodeled church. It was kind of cool, though the food was only OK. 

After lunch, we continued walking towards the center of town where we knew that another hardware store was. On the way there, we were seduced by a book store, a Harley Davidson store, and then a camera store. We now have more books to read, a couple of new T-shirts and an underwater camera to take pictures with. 

After a short distance, we finally came to Hughes Lumber and Hardware. We looked around there and finally found one of the items we were looking for, but no filters for our water maker. We finally gave up and decided to return to the boat. Unfortunately, the marina shuttle makes a daily run to West Marine at 2:00 PM and had just left, so we had to take public transportation. Mike found that the line that we needed would leave the Visitor's Center at 2:15 PM so we had to hustle to catch the bus. 

After huffing and puffing, carrying 15 pounds of books, T-shirts and camera, we finally made it to the bus stop. Mike had misread the schedule; we still had another 20 minutes to wait for the bus! 

By the time we returned to the boat, we decided that we would take the rest of the day off and just relax, and that is exactly what we did!

We arrived at the inlet to a totally unexpected sight. The waves were down to less than three feet, and the wave period was exceptionally long. I looked at Mike and asked him if he was up for a trip to Charleston. He thought that it was a little to late for us to leave. I reminded him that it would be a 22 hour trip, so even if we left at 3:00 PM EST, we would still be in Charleston by 1:00 PM EST on the 29th. We both decided that we probably would not have a more opportune time to leave since the seas where to start building over the next several days as Gale conditions developed, so we headed back to the boat to get it ready. We had a deadline, we needed to be underway in less than thirty minutes. 

We set to the last of the work that needed to be done, securing the dinghy on deck, taking down the antenna and day time anchor ball, completing the deployment of jack lines and finally, raising the anchor. We completed everything in record time, and got underway at 2010 GMT (3:10 PM EST). 

We headed out into 2 foot rolly seas with SSE winds of 7.5 knots, just enough to give us a slight boost from the sails while motoring. But, we were in the ocean with our sails out! Does that count as sailing? 

At 2245 GMT, we saw three dolphins playing in the rollies. Other than that, we never did see any other wild life. 

The moon rose at 0405 GMT. I was on watch at the time. When it first started coming up, it looked as if it was a giant luminescent ship. It wasn't until I looked through binoculars that I realized it was the moon, and then I was transfixed. It was so huge! 

It hit me, again, as we were nearing Charleston that, "Wow we are actually doing this!" In some ways, I still can't believe it. We are taking our home down the East Coast with us! It is an amazing feeling. 

As we were pulling into Charleston, we were hailed by Tom and Mel aboard Chez Nous. They had listened to us making reservations at the town marina and wanted to know if they had a dinghy dock. We passed on our information to them and then returned to VHF channel 16. Then we were hailed by 3 boats in succession, Buena Suerte, Effy and Wyndom. Buena Suerte wanted to let us know the information on the dinghy dock and availability of a shuttle provided by the marina. We chatted for a few minutes before returning to 16. Effy and Wyndom hailed us at approximately the same time, and we wound up having a three way conversation. 

After everything settled down on the VHF, we called Chez Nous to relay to them the information that we had received from Buena Suerte. At the end of our barrage of VHF talk, I turned to Mike and commented on the change in this entry from the last few. It was nice to talk to folks that were already here. 

We pulled in to dock at the city marina, as near shore winds of over 30 knots are called for and everything we have read and herd from folks is that holding ground here for anchoring is poor. We quickly secured the boat, connected electric, and cleaned up from our passage. After checking in at the dock office we had lunch out and then came back to the boat for a nap. 

After a short nap to recover some, Mike woke up and then woke me up so that I would be able to sleep later that night. We went out and had drinks on the aft deck, as we where sitting there a lone dolphin went slowly swimming by.

Today was the day that the Parade of Lights occurred. After discussing this with Yvonne, we decided to invite everyone out to the boat to watch both the parade as well as the fireworks afterwards. 

We spent the morning cleaning up the boat; I even vacuumed! We ran out to the store to pick up potato salad and ground beef for burgers and then returned to the boat. With a little bit more work, the boat was ready. We rewarded ourselves with a little bit of quiet time.

Yvonne called to let us know that they were leaving the house to come down, then Joe called to let us know that they found a parking space at the dinghy dock. Mike stayed on the boat while I took the dinghy out to pick everyone up. Two trips later, everyone was on the boat. Shortly after everyone was on the boat, we decided to walk to the festival to see what was for sale. Three trips later, everyone was off the boat and headed towards the festival. 

We wandered around the festival and saw some interesting crafts, though the only thing that really attracted us was the food booths at the end! After a leisurely walk back to the dinghy dock, we headed back out to the boat. Three trips later, everyone was safe aboard the boat, and it was time to start working on dinner. 

The most complicated part of making dinner was making the beef into hamburgers; it was a terribly complicated process! Dinner was a smashing success and completed with enough time to chat for a bit before the parade started. 

We did learn something new about boating well actualy about anchoring, that Mike dubbed, the Wrightsville Tug. You see as we where waiting for the parade to start we where watching all of the boats come out to anchor and watch. Well it seems that a large percentage of the folks here have come up with a new way to anchor that involves tossing or lowering the anchor (this depends on the size of the boat) allowing it to touch bottom that let out about 5 to 10 feet extra of rode. This is in comparsion to the normal way, that involves 3 to 7 times the amount of rode as the water depth incluesive of the distance from the water to bow roller depending on the bottom type and rode type. Anyway we would then watch them Tug on the anchor rode to see if it was set instead of backing down on it with the boat. One to fine minutes later we would watch as they hauled up the anchor and try it again because there anchor was dragging and not set. We watched several boats do this at least 5 time each. Needless to say this did our nerves a whole lot of good, especialy when they where trying to anchor near Nightwinds. Mike with his Type A personality had a hard time controlling his need to get on the VHF and instruct these boaters in the proper way to anchor, but he did manage to keep off the radio. He really wanted to take to the VHF and provide harbormaster service to boats, telling them how much rode to put out and the exact spot he wanted them to anchor in.

The parade was incredible. There were about 20 or 25 boats involved. You could tell that a lot of thought went into the creation of the floating works of art. People did everything from a jungle scene, complete with monkeys to the standard Santa on sleigh with reindeer to a Y2K scene of the New York sky line and ball dropping, inclusive of the lights going out! 

After the parade ended, Fireworks were set off. Of course we figured they were for us, celebrating our continued residence in Wrightsville Beach. 

After the fireworks ended, we waited about 45 minutes for most of the boats to clear out before delivering everyone to shore. After that process was completed, we settled in for the night.

Mike woke up a little bit later and fired up Tinky, our Northern Lights 12.5 Generator.

I got up and checked into the Cruiseheimers net. A little bit later, Chez Nous checked in, or at least attempted to. When they broadcast they were pretty broken up. I decided that it would probably be a good idea to let them know how broken up they were. First though, we needed to find out what was wrong with Ling-Ling. 

We lifted the floor up in the main saloon, and then removed the sound shield from Ling-Ling. After reviewing our documentation, we finally identified where the raw water pump was. We also found that the raw water pump belt was completely destroyed. While Mike worked to remove the raw water pump, I commenced searching for a replacement belt. Mike and I completed our jobs about the same time. 

After checking the impeller and finding it good, we replaced the belt and started reattaching the water pump to the generator. Mike discovered that he could not get the pulleys to line up. After reviewing the documentation, he decided to remove the pulley from the water pump and reseat it. When we removed the pulley, the plastic washer and pump bearing were bad on the pump! We believe that this came from the factory like that. We called Don from CYC who is now a Fischer-Panda distributor who told us that he would have Fischer-Panda send us a new raw water pump on Monday. 

Since the generator was completed, I decided to head over to Chez Nous. I pulled up and let Tom know about what I heard on the radio, then asked him about his dinghy lift system. He passed the contact information to us about the guy that designed and built it for him. We chatted a bit more before I returned to Nightwinds. 

I called Yvonne since we had some shopping to do. She was still waiting on my brother to call. He is on sea duty somewhere in the Caribbean with the Coast Guard. Mom and Joe picked us up and we headed back to Yvonne's for some lunch before doing the running around we needed to do. When we got there, she was on the phone with David. After she finished talking to him, I also talked to him for a bit. 

After lunch, Yvonne took us to an auto parts store for some stuff, then to West Marine where we found out that we could only order a catalogue part from the catalogue if we wanted it shipped anywhere other than to the store. We gave up and headed back to the boat.

At 3:00 PM, EST, Yvonne came to pick us up. We arrived at the house to the smell of everything cooking. It was definitely Thanksgiving. Mike and I spent the afternoon moving between the kitchen, living room and outside for cigarettes. Dinner was served at around 5:00 PM EST. Everything turned out great. After dinner, Bonnie and Dave came over and we hung out at Yvonne's for a while. 

Our boat has a built in timer. We can not be away from the boat for more than about 7 hours. We are now in the habit of shutting our generator off when we are away from the boat. The freezer, which can only run when the generator is on, needs to be reinsulated, currently it will only stay cold for about 7 hours. 

At 8:30 PM, EST, we returned to the boat with Bonnie, Dave and Yvonne. Dave received a tour from Mike and me, while Bonnie and Yvonne sat, first on the aft deck, then in the main saloon, chatting. We all came back together in the main saloon and sat talking and drinking the night away. 

Finally, we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer and called an end to the evening. I dinked everyone back to their car, returned to the boat and went to sleep.

We spent the morning doing pretty much nothing other than basic maintenance. At one point, I decided that I would clean up the boat. That phase lasted for about twenty minutes but I accomplished a lot in that time. Mike watched me cleaning, saying that, me cleaning was a spectator sport. After that spurt of energy, I looked around and decided that there really wasn't anything else that I could accomplish quickly since we were waiting on the phone call. 

At noon, Yvonne called and told us that they were done with their shopping and were actually quite close to us. We told them we would meet them at the dinghy dock. 

On the way to the house, we stopped at the store. This was a good thing since Mike and I had missed lunch. It must have been a sight, we were all wandering slowly through the store; five adults and three kids perusing aisles, while Mike and I chowed down on a sandwich and donuts. 

Once back at the house, we unloaded the car, put away the groceries and commenced to talking and generally hanging out. At 4:30 PM EST, we left for dinner at the Golden Corral. While this is not our first choice in dining pleasures, it was convenient and easier on the kids. 

After dinner, Mike and I returned to the boat and spent a leisurely evening in peace and quiet.

First task, haul the secondary anchor aboard. This time we used the danforth instead of the 2nd CQR as the bottom type was hard mud and the Danforth holds better in that. Sounds simple right? Well, it would be, were it not for the fact that the two anchor rodes were wrapped six plus times! We unwrapped the anchor rode slowly but surely raising one anchor then the other, then lowering our CQR anchor again to work the counter wraps down. Finally, the secondary anchor rode was free! We raised the anchor as far as we could; unfortunately, the anchor was not freed from the bottom. We hauled out our spinnaker pole and attached the rode to that with a block and tackle. We hoisted until the anchor broke free. Round one to us! 

Next feat, get the anchor aboard without damaging the boat. We lifted the anchor as far as we could with the spinnaker pole, then grabbed the chain and hoisted with brute strength. We got a hold of the shank, and between the two of us, we managed to get the anchor on our toe rail, outside the life lines! We pulled the hose out and rinsed off the anchor then moved it on deck. We were successful! We disassembled the anchor and stowed everything. Next on the list, the dinghy! 

This would be the first time we put the dinghy aboard with the new extended spinnaker pole lift line. We dropped the pole all the way down and hoisted it aboard. It worked well, and as it turns out, we never did use the lift to move the pole further up the mast! 

We needed to complete one more task and we would be underway! This one was easy. We used the windlass to raise our CQR and headed down the channel. 

Before we left our anchorage, we could hear the surf breaking on shore. When we got down to the inlet, we could see the surf breaking on the jetties. We saw the wind increase from 5 knots to 18 knots. We could see the big rollies coming in. We headed out. We made it out to the sea buoy before deciding to turn around. While I am sure we could have made the run to Southport, we decided it would be easier and more comfortable and go back to Wrightsville Beach and wait for better weather. 

We turned around, and just as we cleared the beginning of the breakwater we spotted about 10 dolphins playing in the big rollies! Initially I became concerned, as we were bearing down on them, that we would hit them. Mike told me not to worry about it, they would get out of the way; we were more constrained by draft than they were. Of course they saw us coming and headed towards our bow wake! 

We dropped anchor approximately 20 yards from where we left from. Our anchor set on the first try. We decided not to put out the second anchor as that makes for a very long morning the day we leave. We did ensure that we had sufficient scope out for the exceptional high tides though. 

We had been there for a few minutes when Mike saw something floating in front of the Blockade Runner hotel headed towards the channel. It was a piece of floating dock with a dock box on it! He radioed the Coast Guard who came out and towed it away. He is getting quite good at finding things and calling the Coast Guard.

After that bit of excitement, we dropped the dinghy and settled down for a nap. A couple of hours later, we noticed the boat was not completing its anchor swing turn with current and wind. We flipped on the depth sounder and discovered we were in mud. We grabbed the hand held depth sounder, hopped in the dinghy and made a circle around the boat sounding. We had plenty of water all around us, except where our keel was. We flipped on the sonar and saw a small shoal right under us, but clear everywhere else. 

I climbed back in the dinghy and tried to pull the stern of the boat off the shoal. That didn't work. We then tried to tow the boat off from the bow. I didn't think it worked. However, the boat started turning with the wind. 

We decided that it would be good, since we were staying in place waiting weather to have our mail sent to Yvonne's. We called the mail service and requested the mail be sent out Tuesday overnight. The woman was very confused, momentarily and informed us that today was Tuesday. After a few minutes of conversation, assuring us that it really was Tuesday, she said she wasn't sure if they could get it ready to ship in time but they would try. We then spent a little time trying to figure out where Monday went. 

We pulled out the control panel for our inverter figuring that we could at least complete that. WRONG! We need a whole host of stuff to complete this, including rewiring our solar panels, and our port 12 volt alternator (when we get it working). So much for completing our inverter! 

My parents were due in to Yvonne's sometime that afternoon. Yvonne and I discussed several possibilities for being picked up. We were still waiting for the boat to complete one full swing so we knew for certain that the anchor was set. That never happened. So, I called Yvonne to let her know that we would not be visiting until Wednesday as we felt uncomfortable leaving the boat. Mike insisted I go by myself saying that he could handle any problem that might arise. I felt that I had an obligation to stay in case there was a problem. I also didn't think Mike would be able to get the anchor up and handle the helm by himself with the snubber in place. Without the snubber, it would have been easy enough, but since we have all chain rode, we put a rope snubber in to absorb the shock load.

About the time we arrived at the shopping center, we realized we hadn't had lunch so we took a quick detour to a small restaurant and chowed down. When we walked out, we saw that the hardware store was also a marine supply place. We walked over and picked up several things there, but not the terminal ends! 

West Marine was the next stop. We headed directly for the Electrical aisle and found the terminal ends we needed. We also picked up 40 feet of 10/3 AWG wire for the AC portion of the inverter. 

Upon arriving back at the boat we decided that with the access room we had, we should try to run the wiring to the fridge before completing the inverter installation. We tried to move the fridge with no luck. Next we unloaded the cabinets next to the fridge and then enlarged the access hole. We found the plug for the fridge; it was plugged into an outlet strip. God only knows where the outlet strip is plugged into! 

It was starting to get late, and we planned to move the boat the next day so we stopped the inverter installation and put the boat back together trying to prepare for going offshore. 

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, or what was left of it! We sacked out at 0200 GMT since we needed to get up at 0930 GMT.

Having made that decision, we decided to hang out with Yvonne for the day. We pulled out the fixings for hamburgers for lunch, then met her at the dingy dock. We managed to forget the hamburger buns, so we headed on to Hannafords to pick them up, as well as some other stuff. 

Lunch was pretty good, except I overcooked the hamburgers. Later on, the Good Humor guy came by and we capped lunch off with ice cream. 

When we headed back to the boat Bonnie, a friend of David and Yvonne's, came along and we took her out to the boat for a quick tour. 

The rest of the afternoon and evening has been spent lounging and playing games. All in all, it was a quiet relaxing day.

Of course, the great debate is, do we stay or do we go? The weather forecast for today really sounded like it would be great for us to leave. The sky, on the other hand, told a different story. It was kind of gray with thunder bumper clouds all over the place. Since we still had some time, we decided to pull weather faxes to see what the surface analysis showed. After reviewing everything, we decided to seek Herb's advice on when to leave. 

First, we cleaned the boat preparing to get underway so that we would not have to worry so much about getting underway tomorrow. Then I hoisted Mike up the mast so we could change out our spinnaker pole line. This new line would allow us to wench the pivot point of the pole when we bring the dink back aboard. Theoretically, this will make this process much easier. After that, we headed into town for lunch and a last tour of the grocery store for beef. 

After that, we headed back to the boat. I took a nap while Mike played with our radio. At 2:30 PM EST, Mike woke me up to so that I could check in with Herb. Well, he wound up checking in with Herb and I finally got up around 3:00 PM EST. 

We talked to Herb at around 5:30 PM EST, he told us that he didn't generally do coastal advice, but that it looked like we should be fine to leave tomorrow. So that confirmed our feelings and we headed below to fix dinner and write logs.

So out we went, but not before we met her next door neighbor Bonnie and saw Bonnie's new appliances. 

We headed out to Krazy's Pizza for lunch and then over to Office Max so Yvonne could pick up a printer ribbon for Kimberly's printer. 

The rest of the afternoon, we spent relaxing with Yvonne until it was time to get Kimberly from school. Shortly after we got back from that, it was time to head back to the boat. We packed up the last of the boxes and headed back to the dingy dock and then the boat. 

It was a great end to a fun week that was so much more enjoyable because we were able to share it with Yvonne and the kids.

We were out to meet her at 9:15 so that we could be at Sears when it opened. We arrived at 9:30, but Sears didn't open until 10:00. We did not know this until we where in the store and everything was dark. It turns out we had walked in the employee doors. We thought we had just walked in through the pick up door. We found it hard to believe that no one stopped or questioned us, we turned around and walked back out. Fortunately, there was a grocery store by Sears, and we had not found everything we needed for dinner. We headed over there, and again I was accused of over shopping when I bought all of the enchilada sauce they had on the shelves! After that, it was back to Sears. 

We arrived right at 10:00 am EST exactly. We ran in, found what we needed and were back at the van by 10:10 am! We had completed everything we needed to do with an hour to spare. When we arrived back at the boat, we stowed the supplies and Mike set to work on removing the chargers while I started checking the battery water level. I completed 6 of the 16 8D batteries using just about 1 gallon of water when Mike needed my help to lift the charger off its screws. I contorted myself inside the battery wiring closet to lift at the back of the charger while Mike lifted at the front and handled the 2 screwdrivers and a crowbar to help lift it. Now the access to the wiring closet is only about 1 ½ feet wide and about 2 feet tall. Needless to say I was going to need a crowbar myself to get out of it! After several attempts, the charger came loose and was supported by 2 screwdrivers, a crowbar, Mike and me. He started working the battery connection cables out. Unfortunately, there was not enough clearance to get the terminal ends out. Together, we slowly worked the battery charger forward until we could knock the terminals through. 

Now came the real feat! We had to fit a charger that was 4 inches longer than the hole it was seated in through the wall. First we tried leaning the charger back. That did not work, we could not support the weight (about 75 pounds) of the charger at that angle. Next we tried sliding the back of the charger in while pulling down. This worked better except for the fact that the back of the charger hit a support beam. Once again, I contorted myself into the battery wiring closet to lift the charger to rest on the support beam. That did the trick! The charger came out easily and we set it on the floor. We took a quick break then I went back to checking battery water while Mike started working on the second battery charger. 2 gallons of water later, I was done with the batteries and Mike was ready to remove the second charger. This one proved much easier in ways and much more difficult in others. A support beam for the stairs going up to the pilot house prevented us from doing the same thing as we did on the last one. As we were working with charger, a support piece that had been jointed in to the wall worked loose. When we checked the other side, we discovered that removing a single screw would allow us to remove the support piece. While I held the support piece and the charger, Mike unscrewed the piece and then with a bit of effort we removed it. From there, we easily removed the charger. 

By the time we finished, it was almost 3:00. Yvonne and the kids were coming over at 4:30 to see the boat and have dinner with us. We cleaned up the tools, the boat and ourselves, pulled out our boarding ladder then headed in to town to pick up our laundry. 

At 4:30, we picked everyone up at the dingy dock and came back to have dinner on the boat. After the tour, the kids watched TV and the Rug Rats movie while we sat in the main saloon and had a relaxing evening. 

Everyone packed it in around 7:30 PM EST after a great dinner and we enjoyed the rest of the evening lounging comfortably and vegging in front of the TV.

This was the day we decided to set aside for working on the boat. After all, we had an inverter to install, batteries to check, oil to change, and lots of stuff to clean up. 

First thing on the list was laundry! We headed into town and dropped off our laundry at the wash, dry and fold place. At $0.60/pound, it was too good of a deal to refuse! While we were there, we met the folks off of Kindley Light. Meeting people on other boats is always interesting. I have found the discussions occur something like this: 

1. Identify yourself, apart from your boat
2. Identify your boat. 
3. The conversation really takes off from there because you now know who you are actually talking to! 

   We invited them over for cocktails that afternoon. 

   Next on the list, grocery shopping. We walked down to the little grocery store and wandered the aisles purchasing what we would need for dinner for a few days as well as picking up some stores for the boat. 

   After returning to the boat we again left to walk to West Marine. There are just some things that we prefer to have the label marine grade. We picked up more supplies for the inverter installation as well as new line for our spinnaker pole and a couple of other things then walked back to the dinghy with all of this stuff. 

   Once everything was put away, Mike turned his attention to taking out the 2 battery chargers we planned to remove. I got to work changing Ling-Lings oil. My job was over quickly and I pitched in helping Mike. We got as far as removing the trim and the bottom screws on the lower charger before we encountered our first problem. We couldn't find our "enforcer" 18 inch screwdriver to loosen the top screws on the charger. At first this did not appear to be a problem as the charger could be removed without removing the screws; we only had to lift it ¼ of an inch. We could not get sufficient leverage to lift the charger straight up! After more than an hour of this we were both getting frustrated. We decided that we had worked long enough and would pick up again when we had the proper tools, and it was a good thing we did to! 

   Just as we were finishing our clean up, we saw the folks from Kindley Light coming up in their dinghy. They came aboard for a tour and a drink. After a bit, we headed over to their boat for a look. This is an incredible center cockpit ketch rigged boat that is all wood! They refitted the boat themselves with the exception of the finish work on the interior. It was an amazing bit of work and very nicely done. I was treated to a Caesar for a drink. According to them, it is the national drink of Canada. I found it to be quite tasty, especially if you like Bloody Marys. After the tour and talk of boat remodeling, we said goodnight and headed back into town for a cheap dinner. 

   When we got back to the boat, we continued configuring our second PC to basically duplicate our first. Unfortunately, we still could not find several of the disks we needed! Next we tried using an application mover to move our mail program from one PC to the other. That also did not work. Mike gave up about 11:00 PM EST; I finally gave up around 2:00 am EST!

After we had put together our lists, we headed to shore, called Yvonne and then walked down to the little grocery store for some breakfast. Just as we were finishing breakfast, Yvonne arrived and we headed off. 

Our first stop was Sears. Yvonne needed to pick up some stuff for Little David's room, so that worked out well for everyone! Next on the list was Lowes. Unfortunately, when we reviewed our list, we couldn't figure out exactly why we needed to go there. Eventually we figured it out and picked up circuit breakers for our inverter. Our third stop of the day was Office Depot; we found almost everything we needed there. 

We were passing by Office Max when we spotted a pizza place and pulled in for lunch. Since Office Max was next to the pizza place we wandered around there next but didn't buy anything. 

Finally, we went to Circuit City, another place that Yvonne needed to visit for a Windows upgrade. While there, we found what we were looking for and purchased that as well. 

Upon returning to the house, we immediately tore into everything, unpacking, consolidating, and getting rid of packing material. 

After all was said and done, we returned to the boat with our various new things to use and stow. We spent the evening configuring our new computer for use as a log and mail PC but couldn't find several disks that we needed to completely configure the system. The idea is to only use the ship's PC for weather and navigation. This way it will allow the machine to be stable with less chance of crashing, since very few changes would be made to it.

After all was said and done, it was a relaxing day!

Today was my birthday. Mike started the day by trying to fix me breakfast which was a partial success. This is good for him, since the foods he fixes best are dinner foods! Next we dropped the dinghy in the water and started heading for shore. On the way, we stopped by a boat that had a congregation of dinghies to find out where the dinghy dock was. 

As we were tying up, we met the folks off of Indecision and Willet Road Anyway, we stood around talking for a bit relaying the bits of local knowledge that each of us held. We phoned Yvonne, my sister-in-law, then walked to a local grocery store to see what we could get for breakfast. 

Yvonne picked us up and we headed back to her place so that we could review mail and the packages that we had shipped from various vendors to Wilmington. The mail package was huge! I guess that is what you get for not picking up mail for a month! I couldn't tell if Yvonne was happier to see us or to be getting her bedroom back! 

After spending the afternoon looking through mail, and examining various and sundry minor problems with her computers, we decided that going out to dinner to celebrate my birthday would be nice. 

After the kids arrived home we loaded about half of our stuff in the van and headed back to the dinghy dock to drop the stuff off. When we got to the boat, both of us had the feeling that something was wrong, though neither of us could tell precisely what it was. At that point, we glanced out the pilothouse window and everything became clear. We had dragged almost 60 feet! We fired up the engines, and backed down on the anchor to make sure it would hold us. We then headed back to the dinghy dock because there was nothing else we could do at that point other than make sure that our anchor was as set as possible and there was no wind and no wind called for. 

All through dinner, we were both slightly fidgety. The meal was enjoyable, and for the most part even the youngest of the children (2 1/2) was well behaved. By the end of dinner, we both felt that we could not linger and had to get back to the boat. 

Once back on the boat, we found that the anchor had held nicely, and we had not moved at all! At this point, we decided not to do anything about the anchor till morning. As we settled in to get some sleep , our DGPS started giving alarms because the differential signal kept fading in and out. Finally Mike couldn't stand it anymore and spent a cold night in our main saloon where visibility out was much better so he could check the boats position. I stayed in bed where it was warm because the GPS anchor alarm would wake me there as well as it would wake me in the main saloon.

We left the Beaufort channel expecting NW winds. Every forecast we had seen said we would have NW winds. We were really hoping to sail. Unfortunately, the wind was coming from the WSW, almost exactly the direction we were headed. While we could tack back and forth into the wind to get there, we would not have arrived during the day doing this.

Shortly after we left Beaufort, we saw that a catamaran was heading the same direction that we were. We called them on the radio and set up a loose check in with them periodically. Island Princess was indeed heading to Beaufort. Right after that, dolphins joined us for a quick swim in our bow wake. 

Between 1400 GMT and 2100 GMT, we watched the barometer drop about a millibar per hour signifying that the low that wasn't supposed to come in until evening arrived early. We were on a frontal boundary! We watched the waves grow from nothing to almost 6 feet, and of course, there we were pounding into it! Periodically, we would take spray over the bow that would cover us in cold salt water mist, we were glad we bought that new foul weather gear. At 1700 GMT, we had a 'bell ringer.' A bell ringer is a wave that is large enough to build our momentum, or stop it suddenly enough, that the Ship's Bell clapper swings of its own accord and rings the bell. This occurred frequently until the seas started to calm around the entrance to Wrightsville Beach at the Masonboro inlet. 

The Masonboro inlet is very well marked, as well as comfortably deep, we never had less than 10 feet under the keel. The breakwaters extend out from shore at least 200 yards giving a relatively well protected and easily navigable inlet. We did a final check in with Island Princess to let them know that while getting to the inlet is rough, at the inlet the seas calmed and the wind died. 

At 2120 GMT, we anchored in Wrightsville Beach and celebrated with cocktails in the aft seating area.

Storing everything is actually relatively easy, if a bit tedious. We managed to accomplish this task in surprisingly little time! We ran into town to get a new binder for our home made off shore log, and wound up also stopping by Satan's Breath, a hot sauce shop. When we got back to the boat, we tried spinning the boat with our dinghy since the anchor chains had become twisted. This did not work, to say the least. 

We had a few free beer tokens that we kept forgetting to take with us when we left the boat, so since we knew Annual Hope was going to stay for another week we planed to drop them off to them before we left town. Mike suggested that we head over to Moorehead City after dropping them off. So we then pulled over to Annual Hope and dropped off the tokens, Rick and Evelyn insisted that we at least have a beer with them and see their boat. We told them we where off to Moorehead City, so they suggested that we stop by on our way back.

Off to Moorehead City we went with Mike at the helm of the dink after clearing the idots that had anchored in the Beaufort channel to fish. This can always be a problem, but so far NC seems to be the worst area for this that we have been to. This is dangerous and illegal as a large ship would not have the time to turn before hitting them or a smaller boat could run aground if there is not enough room to clear them and their anchor rode, or hit there anchor rode and cause both of them problems . Anyway back to the topic, after entering the Moorehead City channel the dink started to run out of gas. We moved over to the side of the channel and switched fuel tanks (this is a easy and fast process) and headed off again. Well we had forgotten it was the weekend and everyone was out. Needless to say the traffic and wakes were incredible, so we figured that it would be safer to just head back, since most of the traffic was sport fishing boats that where seeming to be under the Damn the Torpedo's Full Speed Ahead mentally with no consideration for anything around them as we watched about a million accidents almost occur.

After taking on gas for the empty dink tank, we pulled along side of Annual Hope to take them up on that beer. Mike accepted a beer while Evelyn fixed hot chocolate. We received a tour of their boat, that they refinished on the inside themselves. We got some ideas for things that we would like to do to our boat. We wound up spending several hours there talking about plans for traveling, and goals of places to visit over the next several years. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing until we put the dink aboard, stored our fenders and covered it. We were now ready to head off shore again. 

We watched the weather, pulled weather faxes as well as Navtex. From what we could see, our weather window would be closing after Sunday, and would not open again for at least a week! We decided that Sunday would definitely be the day to go!

They came over in the morning to trade boat tours. We gave them a tour and spent the morning discussing various things from being new cruisers to the prospect of using electronic charts as a sole source of navigation (we both agreed this is not a good idea). It was fun and educational. 

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Beaufort, looking in the stores and basically window shopping. The museum was intriguing, containing images, models and historical information on pirates, sea life, and a history of the origins of the Coast Guard. 

At 6:00 PM, we called Wyndom as we were supposed to head over for dinner aboard their boat. They had spent a frustrating day aboard their boat and were ready to head out on the town. So, we went over for a tour of their boat and a glass of wine before dinner. They have a fantastic boat with a great layout. The conversation touched on everything from the type of inverter they have to their SSB configuration. They installed their SSB themselves utilizing an uninsulated backstay and the life lines for the negative pole of their antenna. 

After a little while, we headed out for dinner at the Beaufort Brewery for some local brewed beer and burgers. Unfortunately, the Beaufort Brewery has stopped brewing its own beer, and to top things off, the chef there is vegetarian so does not serve burgers! On the flip side, we had some great sea food and the beer was still really good. 

As the evening drew to a close, we dropped Britt and Elana at their boat, then headed back to our own. All in all, it was a good day and very enjoyable both touring the town and forming a new friendship.

After 2 days at the dock, and no weather window, we decided it was time to move out to anchor instead of paying the $1.35/foot per day prices of the Beaufort City Docks. With the help of Bob from Shamal, we scouted a spot to anchor, then moved the boat off the dock. Bob gave us a little push on our bow as boats where packed in and the current and wind where in the wrong direction. We moved over to the area that Bob and I had scouted out for anchoring. 

We dropped our first anchor, unfortunately, by the time we reached the proper amount of scope, we were to close to the channel, perhaps even in the channel! With the big fishing vessels that regularly went to the fish processing plant, we decided to haul the anchor and try again. This time, we almost did too good of a job because we wound up being only about 70 feet from the boat in front of us when all was said and done. After we were sure that the first anchor was set, we paid out approximately 110 feet of chain before dropping our second anchor and pulling ourselves back forward with our first anchor. We were now set; but almost to close to the boat in front of us. We would find out for sure when the tide changed. We snubbed our anchor chains and waited for the tide to turn. 

Would that our anchoring had gone as smoothly as it is written. What isn't included are the arguments that ensued while anchoring. There were a few times where we both wanted to use the other as part of the anchor! 

Anyway, the tide turned and we found that we had a comfortable, if small distance between us and the next boat. We also found that we had a great semicircle anchor swing. 

We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the boat, right up until it was time for bed. As we were settling in for the evening, we heard these loud noises that were all around us. We quickly got up to check the noise. It turned out to be the chain rubbing against itself! The sound was then transferred to the rigging and that was how it sounded if it was all around us. We certainly didn't like that sound! 

By morning, thanks to the wind and current, our anchor chains where completely twisted. But we Held!

After so many months of anticipating leaving, I never expected that we wouldn't even have the opportunity to fret about it. After going down the Elizabeth River to the Atlantic Yacht Agency marina and Ocean Marine to investigate a problem with our small generator and check the Hertz which had been getting lower and lower, we fueled up, checked weather, both Navtex * and weather fax, and quickly came to the conclusion that it was time to leave. We hadn't been expecting to leave, but all of the conditions pointed to a favorable trip, so we figured we would complete last minute preparations in the roughly 2 hours it would take to get out of the Bay. 

* Navtex is a text broadcast that contains weather and local notice to mariners data for off-shore and harbor entries.

While Mike did an expert job of handling the boat with all of the shipping traffic on the Elizabeth, I grabbed our list and started working. Out came the 'Oh Shit' bag or as most folks call them the abandon ship bag, to be deposited in a safe place on our back deck. Up went our final offshore window, out came harness and jack lines and finally it was time to start rigging the sea anchor. Because both of us were required to rig the sea anchor, we turned to Hal and Herc, our computer and autopilot, to handle the boat while we worked on running the sea anchor line forward. Both of us donned harnesses and secured ourselves to the jack lines that attach us to the boat both fore and aft and while keeping an eye out for shipping and other traffic, we started running the line. Let me tell you, this is not a trivial task underway in the bay in 3 foot seas, especially considering that the line has to be run outside the life lines and rigging, secured by cable ties. I worked on hands and knees securing the line while Mike handled feeding me the line and keeping it tight. After securing the line to our bow cleat, we then started cleaning up the fore deck and putting away deck lines. I then asked how much longer to the Ocean and Mike said we had been in it for about 20 to 30 minutes. At the end of all of this I was turning slightly green so I stayed outside while Mike did a final sweep inside. Next he did a sweep outside, including looking over our bow rail. When he saw no dolphins, one could hear the call go out, "Here flipper, flipper, flipper!" It didn't work. 

We both agreed that we would listen to and check in with Herb who does weather analysis for many cruising boats that are off-shore on frequency 12359.0 at 1930 GMT (1430 PM EST). He told us that it looked like this was "as good a time as any to go around Cape Hatteras." We were set and on our way. At 2019 GMT, I saw what appeared to be a water spout from a whale. Though we looked, we never saw more evidence of whales though. The Coast Guard puts out a NAVTEX message every couple of days, basically advising that running into whales is not good for them or your vessel so we kept a eye out for them. Mike took the first watch and sent me to try to get some rest since he figured he wouldn't be able to rest until we cleared the shipping lanes. 

As the evening progressed, the winds died down and the seas grew calmer. At 2232 GMT, we were hailed by the Sharon Anne with the Galagers on board headed to Wrightsville Beach. We set up a periodic radio check with them for as long as we were in range, this gave each boat someone to talk to during the lonely night . At this time, we were traveling just over a knot faster than they were. 

As the night wore on, Mike and I traded off watches about every three or so hours. It was a beautiful crystal clear night, except to port where there was fog off the Gulf Stream. Mike saw a flying fish skim across the water at 0111 GMT, as he said when all you are seeing is smooth flat water any thing is exciting. At 0740 GMT on November 9, we were hailed by the S/V Phoenix that was being delivered south for the winter. 

At 0900 GMT (4:00 AM EST), Mike called me on deck so that we would both be awake for going around the Diamond Shoals light and Cape Hatteras. At 1000 GMT we changed course; we had passed the Cape! Very shortly after that, Mike went below and tried to sleep. I was alone for the sunrise that was an incredible array of light and color dancing on the nearly glassy surface of the water off of Cape Hatteras, it was a most spectacular sight, and one that is relatively new to me as I prefer to sleep in late. At 1050, we were hailed by a container ship to let us know that he would turn to starboard to give us better clearance. Mike, upon hearing the radio, was up like a shot; he wanted to know all of the particulars of what was going on. After that, being hungry, he fixed us both something to eat. At 1200 GMT, we saw a huge sea turtle floating around and soaking up the sun. After our first experience with a Turtle off of West Plam Beach, Mike figured it would be better not to get to excited over this. The first time he saw a Turtle he yelled Turtle, Turtle, Turtle and pointed to it so Ruth and I could see it. I thought he was yelling turn, turn, turn and pointing to the way he wanted me to go, I ended up chasing a Turtle for about 50 yards as he tried to get out of my way. He did manage to make it.

At 1510 GMT, shortly after we turned on our water maker, we discovered a small oil spill at 34° 50.45' N by 75° 47.47'W. We notified the Coast Guard at Cape Hatteras of this. 

At 1934 GMT, dolphins responded to Mike's earlier call and swam past the boat. Unfortunately, he was soundly asleep and missed them, so they put in another appearance at 2049! 

At 2130 GMT, we headed into the Beaufort Inlet. This is a difficult inlet to shoot due to all of the shore lights; so by the time we made it to the anchorage and City Docks, we opted to tie up instead of anchor in the darkness with boats everywhere. This also allowed us to get a good nights sleep. 

We tied up at 2345 GMT, and then watched a number 4 red daymark, with 30 foot piling attached, float down the channel at between 2 and 3 knots due to the fast current they have here. Mike reported this to the Coast Guard since it was a hazard to navigation as well as a hazard to the boats anchored! 

Finally, we went to dinner and then slept for 12 hours. We completed our first ocean passage south in just under 29 hours, with 228 miles under our keel.

On November 2, Anderson Boatworks came out to start the work we had wanted them to do previously. We continued on our list of work, including putting on most of our Offshore windows and removing the insulation tape from around our antenna wire. That evening, Sharman and Cliff came over for dinner and we had a wonderful time! 

It was my first day (11/3/1999) as Net Control for the Cruisehiemers net (8152 at 8:30 EST/EDT, I am net controller on Wednesdays). The propagation was lousy for me, and I almost considered switching the frequency as 8158 was almost perfectly clear for me. This is the alternate frequency, that the controller may use if 8152 is unclear. However, after considering that in the previous 2 months participating on the net, We had never heard the net switched, and that it was my first day, I decided not to switch. Later, I found that I could have, of course, and it would have been perfectly acceptable for me to do so. Oh well, live and learn. The net went well and I received many compliments for it! After that bit of excitement, we continued working on the boat getting her ready for our offshore adventures. 

On November 4, we didn't do a whole lot. We decided to have a get together that evening and focused on cleaning the boat rather than working on it. This still accomplished an offshore goal of stowing things away. We had a great evening with Tom and Becky from the Honga, a Katy Krogen trawler, Sharman off of Sara, Yon off of Belong Datang (also on the hard) and Bob and Sherri off of Shamal. They decided to anchor in Jackson Creek since we were there. Actually it was a shorter exit for them the next day on their trip south. 

November 5th, since all the work was done by Anderson, we then put everything away that had been pulled out to give them access. At noon, Sharman and Yon came over for lunch since we were leaving the next day. (Sharman, had tried to convince us to come over to Sara, but when on the hard, up on blocks you don't have access to all of the power & water, etc. That you do in the water we insisted they come over to Nightwinds.) I cooked burgers and Sharman picked up some really good Potato Salad, Lettuce and Tomatoes to go along with lunch. After a wonderful afternoon of food, fun and friendship, we set to work again. 

We pulled out of Deltaville on November 6 at 1130 GMT and headed for Willoughby Bay. On the trip down one of the sheets on the Jib came unattached so after dropping the hook Mike volunteered to go up the Jib and reattach it. The trip up was not very high about 10-15 feet, but up an angle instead of straight up like the mast. So Mike was attached to the jib and the mast to go up. All and all it was not a bad tripup he said, and it would make a great lookout spot for searching out coral heads, but I think we will look for an easier way to do this, because it's a lot of effort and after all that's what the Sonar is for.

On November 7, we spent a quiet day going over our list and making sure we had accomplished everything we needed to. By midday, we felt pretty confident that with one more day we would be fully ready. This wasn't a problem, the only thing we had planned for Monday was a service call for our Northern Lights and then a return to Willoughby Bay to wait our weather window.

With Mike awake and on watch, I headed below to sleep again. 

At 20:50 GMT, we saw dolphins! They also saw us! They made a beeline for our bow wake. Mike asked me if I wanted to go see the dolphins. We moved our tethers down into the forward jack lines keeping tethered in the entire time. Mike went forward port, I went forward starboard. We met at the bow and watched dolphins play for 20 minutes. They would jump out of the water, do 360 degree roles, and occasionally they would roll on their sides and watch us. We need to see how these pictures turn out also. 

At 22:00 GMT, I headed below to fix dinner. We were going to have stew. I was inspired by Mona on Mutual Fun. During their aborted trip to Bermuda, she fixed stew several times in near gale force the conditions. I fixed stew in two to three foot swells, and eight knot winds. 

After dinner, I headed below to get some sleep. At 22:48 GMT, Mike saw a single dolphin leaping out of the water several times about four feet off our starboard side. He received a private show. 

At 02:00 GMT, December 21, I came on watch to winds that were good for sailing. I let the jib out further. The wind, noting that I had put the jib out further, promptly changed directions. So I put the jib back in, not completely, but enough so that it was sheeted in tightly. 

At 05:00 GMT, Mike came on watch just as I was about to let the jib out again. He told me that he preferred the jib left where it was because it was night and the probability for squalls was high. Besides, common theory states that you should reduce sails at night. 

Shortly after I went below, the first squall hit. Winds gusted to 24 knots; Mike was very happy that I had not put the jib out further. In fact, when I came back on watch, Mike repeated this incident to me, and made me repeat, "At night, we reduced sail. "

I had about two hours of quiet on my watch before the next set of squalls hit. I noted a darkening of this sky forward, so I set the radar to view atmospheric conditions. I saw two heavy lines of squalls directly in our path. If I altered course to 164 degrees, from 175 degrees, we would pass between the two squall lines. I went below and set the port radar to view atmospheric conditions, altered course, and made a note in the log about what I had done. Mike woke up just as we were hitting the edge of the squall line and approved of my course of action.

After a magnificent sunrise, I went below to get some sleep. Little did I know that this would be the last relatively smooth portion of our trip. I woke up at 13:00 GMT to Mike talking to Eric on Ehlissia. They figured that they would give us a call on the VHF to see if we were nearby. They were located in Vero Beach. 

Shortly after I woke up, the seas moved solidly into the 4 ft. swell and chop range. There was also an occasional rogue of six plus feet. By this time Mike felt that it was too rough for him to get any sleep. So together we navigated the seas with multiple "Bell ringers" and many "Hold ons." The boat, of course, performed beautifully. Our nerves, and stomachs, on the other hand, were a tad bit frayed 

When we reached the inlet it was my job to bring us in. I have shot this inlet several times, so I knew approximately what to expect. Because of the prevailing northeast current, I took the boat almost even with the green buoy before making my turn. The boat passed through beam to beautifully. Now that I had the waves on my port aft quarter, my biggest worry was staying inside the buoys. 

Just as I passed inside the jetties, we saw a two hundred + foot boat heading out. We hugged the red buoys, they hugged the green ones. We passed port to port as is customary. As soon as it quieted down, Mike took the helm while I went below to plot our course to our anchorage. In short order we arrived and dropped anchor at 19:30 GMT. 

We cleaned up the outside of the boat, and brought in our "Oh shit" bag; then we both headed below for breakfast. While I cooked, Mike tried to sign on to send a mail saying we had arrived. We wound up calling my parents since we could not reach Yvonne who usually sends mails when we cannot get connected. After showering, we both sacked out. I woke up about 12:00 GMT or 19:00 EST. I managed to get connected and mail went out.

I went back to sleep at 23:00 EST. Mike was asleep the entire time!

On the third we were expecting my brother and his family to arrive in Charleston. We also knew that we might be in for a hectic weekend so we figured that taking the day off to rest up would be the perfect idea and that is exactly what we did. 

David, Yvonne and the kids arrived around 8:00 PM, EST. We stayed up until 3:00 AM, EST talking about everything from the Coast Guard to computers! It was the first time we had seen each other in over 6 months so there was a lot to catch up on. 

In the morning, everyone got up, and after a quick breakfast, we tried to figure out what to do for the day. I mentioned an open air market that was downtown and everyone thought that would be fun to wander around. 

We decided that we would take the trolley downtown. Mike and I had done this previously and it was a pretty fun trip. We made it downtown and then wandered through the market. There were several interesting displays but nothing that piqued anyone's interest enough to buy. Just as we finished going through the market, we decided that we really needed something to eat. Thus began the search for food! 

One person told us about a pizza place that was relatively close. Unfortunately, she did not know her left from her right and we didn't find the pizza place. Finally, we found a pub and had lunch there. 

After lunch, we started wandering slowly towards a place where we could catch a trolley back to the marina. As we were going, we found the pizza place that we had been searching for. We continued on to the trolley stop and began our wait. All three kids were starting to get very tired and that translated into fussy arguments followed by manic attempts to stay awake. We decided that we all needed to take a nap when we got back to the boat, and that is exactly what we did. 

It was peaceful for 2 hours. Everyone was crashed out hard. Finally, Mike and I got up and started fixing dinner while the kids watched TV. Everyone else got up shortly after that. The rest of the evening went quickly as we played Mill Bournes and Pigs. Everyone turned in by 11:00 PM EST; it had been a tiring day!

Today we cleaned. Today we shopped. Today we repaired Ling-Ling.

I hate cleaning. Shopping isn't so bad though. Working on Ling-Ling is just plain old painful.

We knew that my brother, his wife and three kids would be joining us for the weekend, and would be arriving on Friday evening. We knew that each of the older kids would need a place to sleep, as would David and Yvonne. We knew that all three staterooms were used for temporary storage. We knew that we had a lot of work to do to make the rooms habitable. We started cleaning. 

Michael's type A personality started surfacing; we didn't only focus on cleaning the three staterooms that needed to be done, we also cleaned the utility room, our stateroom, the main saloon and the pilot house; to sum it up, we cleaned the entire boat. While I worked on the staterooms, Mike started working on the utility room. 

I found storage places for the new TV antenna that hasn't been installed yet and stowed our harnesses and jack lines. That completed the port stateroom. Next, I focused on the starboard stateroom. There really wasn't much to do there. We have several 5 gallon boxes of coke syrup that needed to be stored; unfortunately, there really wasn't anyplace to store them. So I moved them as far out of the way as possible. Fortunately, the main living space of the V-Berth didn't require work since we try to keep that stateroom completely ready for habitation at all times. 

I emerged from the forward of the boat to see most of the contents of the utility room occupying the companionway aft and the main saloon. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done about the insulation that we still need to install; however, we managed to stow a sizable chunk of everything else in various storage areas. The utility room was now complete. 

Next, Mike focused on getting Ling-Lings new water pump belt installed while I worked on cleaning the pilot house. Mostly the pilot house needed picking up. When we travel offshore for a long period of time (more than 6 hours or so) things tend not to make it further than the pilot house, so at the end of each voyage, we have a lot of clean up to do with coats and foul weather gear and everything winding up on the pilot berth. It isn't difficult or time consuming, just tedious and as such is one of the last things we do. Generally, we wind up doing this the day before a new passage. 

While I completed the pilot house, Mike put the new plastic protector on the water pump and attached the new belt to Ling-Ling. To get the final tension on the belt right, it took both of us and 2 enforcer screw drivers. It was a good thing that we picked up several in Wrightsville Beach! Once that was done and the sound shield back in place, we could focus on the last bit of work in the main saloon. Since we spend a lot of time there, the main saloon was actually relatively easy to clean. 

Once everything was done, we took a break while trying to remember what else it was that we needed to do. Finally, it dawned on us. We would have 5 additional people on the boat, three of whom would be children; we needed to go grocery shopping to get food for the weekend as well as 'kid stuff.' 

Off to the store we went, and boy did we shop! Of course, I was concerned that we hadn't purchased enough 'kid stuff,' but Mike assured me we had. So after stowing everything, we realized that we would get a day off Friday. 

As a treat, we went down to a neighborhood bar and spent an enjoyable evening out.