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Trick or Treat

Treats for all!  No tricks, not after Ms Sandy; that was enough. We treated ourselves to a two-night marina stay at Morehead City Yacht Basin after moving from our hurricane hole.

Wednesday was a day of boats on the move; the radio was alive with passing arrangements and comments about swift currents. We kept the VHF on to listen for any problem areas, Coast Guard announcements and get a beat on the whereabouts of boats we knew.

Halloween night was our second night and not only did we treat ourselves to dinner at Floyd’s 1921, but we had trick- or-treaters come to the boat!  Of course I was not prepared, this being a new possibility in the lives of a boat seldom at a dock. We quickly put some of my (confession time) peanut M&Ms in three snack baggies and handed those out. M/V Makara, a captained ninety footer with one woman crew member, was docked behind us and they were prepared with a basket of goodies. The woman confessed that her mom had sent the candy to be sure they had some. Next year I’ll be sure to buy a bag of M&Ms snack size- just in case. 🙂

M/V Makara is way more prepared with treats!

Even cruising kids want to Trick or Treat

Thursday we headed out, hoping that the 65’ highrise bridges would not have too much water under them.  Storm surge and the recent full moon made for very funky tide ranges and currents; no one could accurately plan ahead. Lady Luck was your best bet. Usually, we prefer to make a coastal trip between Beaufort and Wrightsville Beach. Two good inlets and doable in 10 hours- roughly.  Jumping out here avoids having to time the scheduled opening bridges. Unless you want to get going at  o’dark thirty, the average sailing vessel won ‘t make it to Wrightsville anchorage via the ICW in daylight. Conditions weren’t right for a jump outside and we’d been hanging out in NC long enough; so ICW it was.  Using ActiveCaptain, we located a place with good depth (for us that would be between 5 and 10 ft), room for several boats and an easy approach; Sloop Creek.

A few hours into our trip, just north of Swansboro, NC, a monohull (Pearson I guessed) just ahead hailed us. A few seconds before I’d had the binocs on them to see the boat name in case we needed to call them about passing. I put them down quickly when I saw theirs were trained on us. Umm, odd.

The radio comes to life with, “This is the sailing vessel Lutra calling the catamaran behind us.” Did they want us to pass, or not to pass, or maybe they wanted to know what make of cat we were? “Can we switch to 17?” asks a pleasant-sounding female voice. Now comes the classic land neighbor question; you know, the one about borrowing a cup of sugar.  My face must have registered surprise, delight and confusion all in a 30 second time span. The woman on Lutra wanted to know if we could spare two eggs as this was her uncle’s birthday and she wanted to make cookies but realized had no eggs.  Luckily I had plenty, even though Russ had used three to bake Challah bread. How to make a safe transfer? I wrapped the eggs in paper towels and placed them in a plastic (non-zip style) bag leaving a bit of air and secured with a twist tie. Russ didn’t want to snug up too close, therefore an egg toss was out of the question. The boat hook was called into use and we wrapped blue tape around the neck of the bag and I went to the bow for the hook, wrapping the remaining length of tape just before the actual hook.

Eggs, set, go! I am so nervous at this point.

I even did a quick weight test to be sure the tape would hold the bag. The wind had other ideas and when I extended the precious cargo toward Lutra, halfway across the bag was torn off and into the water it went! OMG!   But the bag was floating and Lutra turned around to execute a masterful retrieval.  As this scene is playing out, a small sportfish behind us is being entertained.

Lutra (Sea Otter) goes back for the floating egg bag

A few hours later as we waited for a scheduled opening bridge (the great equalizers) Lutra caught up and passed a bag of chocolate chip cookies to us via boat hook. Lucky for us they approached our stern fairly close and the bag was hooked on to the hook part. Cookies for lunch dessert!

An ICW cookie exchange. Successful pass by Lutra!

Later on we passed along info on our anchorage for the night. A convoy of four boats entered together but all had plenty of room along with a lovely marsh grass view.

You may recall our friends on MoonTide, a beautiful Shannon 53 with a too tall mast. They need 64′ and inches which can be problematic in normal conditions with certain bridges, but post-Sandy was extra ugly.  We came upon them anchored before a highrise bridge that looked to be only 63ft- at low tide. We took it slow, MoonTide watched and reported we cleared with room to spare. That tells us we may only need 62 1/2 ft. Note to selves: next time Benj goes up the mast, have him measure the instruments on top.

After dinner we officially met Patti (Captain of Lutra) and her uncle, Don. Patti is a single-hander who occasionally has company and help along the way from family members or friends. Don’s leg will end in St. Augustine.  Overall, this was a memorable day and a much-needed reminder of why the cruising life is so special.

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Settling in for Sandy

Just as the anchor drop was about to take place I got a call from my friend Linda back in CT (soon to feel the brunt of Sandy). I said I’d have to call her back when we were done and finally, two hours later I did. The process never takes that long, but here’s why it did this time: wind was out of the south now, but would switch to NE overnight and stay N to NE, so we used our dinghy anchor off the stern to keep our bow pointed N, and dropped big boy Rocna; then we switched out the little anchor for the larger Fortress using the dinghy which had to be launched first; finally we raised and re-positioned the Rocna. Phew! No way was I going to complain at the time it took to get us anchored correctly; sleeping reasonably well was tops on my list!

I called Linda back, got voice mail and when she called me back, guess where I was? Yep, up on deck working on another Rocna re-position. Only this time it would not come up; you could see the bows dip down at the pull and the anchor chute was about to come loose. Thus began a major effort using the dinghy to pull up on the trip line (we rarely use one but this time needed to know exact location of anchors) but with minimal success.

We opted for wait and see, and don’t you know it but that anchor came up easily the next morning.  Chain must have gotten caught on lord knows what and I don’t want to know. When the wind switched around during the night the chain got free. One down, one to go. Placed the Fortress about 20° west of big boy. The morning passed quickly; the resident blue herons were entertaining and naturally photogenic. Storm prep completed; now bring ‘er on and let’s get this done with.

The mandatory on-scene photo shoot- so close to shore

A patient heron snags his snack

Pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that when we over-prepare the worst does NOT come to pass; and this event was no exception. Yes, Sandy was nasty, huge and long-lasting. Folks back home in CT began feeling the effects before she’d bid farewell to us. Much appreciate all the calls and emails we received from so many checking to see if we were OK.  By Monday we were the ones doing the checking up. Our spot was so protected that the gusts to 45 mph recorded by the weather buoy in the river two miles away, hit us at less than 30. Given we sat about 100ft from the marsh grass shore, fetch was not an issue nor could I say we even had wavelets on the water.

Sunday morning the wind had blown enough water in (from Pamlico to the Neuse to us) to raise the depth by two feet, giving us a comfortable 7.3ft. But you know the saying, right?

The heron’s perch is now mostly under water

Not long after I’d uploaded the last blog post, we got a surprise email from cruising folk we’d met in the spring of 2011 on Patience.  The usual boat card exchange had taken place and they’d been following us. Freaky thing was that when I was re-organizing my boat cards that morning, I’d come across theirs and noted they lived in New Bern… in fact they lived 10 mins away and wanted to help us in some way.  Can you feel the love? Ended up making plans for us to dinghy up to Duck Creek Marina Monday where they’d pick us up for lunch, a town tour and end up at the grocery store. Sat and Sunday had rained all day but Monday was just overcast with a threat of rain.  I can only say we were cared for in a way only another cruiser could and with all the understanding that goes along with it. We talked about other places to move to, because the wind, as it switched to SW was going to push water out. Happening already; we were now sitting in 4 ½ ft.  We discovered they have solid plans to land cruise in an RV and I’m happy to know that it’s not uncommon for boat cruisers to become land cruisers.

Mon 10/29- getting close to very mean low water!

Not wanting to find ourselves sitting in mud during the night, we bravely and carefully brought up both anchors (I am usually nervous Nellie at the helm in tight quarters) which due to the shifting wind we’d moved again in the morning. We opted to head over toward the west shore of the Neuse for protection from the SW wind. As we stuck our nose out of the creek we learned just how protected we’d been. Ugh. Monday night the wind howled and while our new spot was no Duck Creek, it was Ok for one night.  Our plan was to secure a spot at the dock at Morehead City Yacht Basin for Tues and Wed night ; fingers crossed they’d have space when I called in the morning.