She's a brick house . . . boat

Our boat is literally filled with concrete in the keels and overbuilt in general. So she is heavy and sturdy but not necessarily speedy. However, it's one thing to know that your boat is not built for speed. It is another to be constantly reminded of it over two days.

That's what we got when we went from Hampton, Virginia to Cape Lookout, around the dreaded Cape Hatteras. Our friends on Pendragon and Good Trade both have faster light air boats and before long left us in the dust, especially with the middling winds we experienced on day one of the passage. The winds were so flaky that we had to motor-sail most of the first day to ensure that we didn't dawdle and get caught rounding Hatteras with unfavorable winds. However, the seas were relatively calm and the lighter-than-forecasted winds were better than the alternative of too-heavy winds.

As we approached the Cape, which is notorious for making its own bad weather due to the mix of warm water and cool air,  we heard the Coast Guard broadcasting over the VHF radio about the rescue efforts of a boat that was taking on water at the Hatteras inlet. We were curious about whether or not their troubles were weather-related. "Hey Coast Guard, could you take a break from your rescue efforts to broadcast the conditions at Hatteras for the listening audience?" Yeah, I didn't think so.

As it turned out, the Cape was a non-event and the seas stayed mostly calm.  Day two was more exciting and the wind and waves picked up considerably. Matt put in another reef as the winds repeatedly topped 30 knots. The boat saw a top speed of 15.5 knots down some of the waves and everyone felt a bit queasy.

Taken by Joe (Pendragon)

We finally reached Cape Lookout in the early afternoon. We noticed that the path we had taken previously into the anchorage and shown to be a clear water path was now covered with a wide sand bar. It's a good thing we didn't come in at night, which was one of the options we had discussed. After getting safely anchored, we were all happy to be done with this leg of our voyage south.

The highlight of the overnight passage for me was seeing bioluminescence in the toilet as I flushed with seawater in the dark. It was even better than chomping Wint-o-Green lifesavers in the dark because it's "natural." Yes, I'm actually an adult.

Following the passage, we spent a few lovely days at Cape Lookout just hanging out with our friends on Pendragon and Good Trade. It was much less crowded than the July 4 weekend and the fishing was much better. Clams and grey trout headlined the menu on one night.  The next day, after discussing how much everyone liked sushi, Matt and Ross from Good Trade got the harebrained idea to set off in the dinghy for the "local" fish market--11 miles away past Moorehead City and across 6 miles of the ocean.  Boondoggle though it was, they did dutifully return a few hours later with some beautiful fish that was turned into a sushi feast. The next day we had a fun pumpkin-carving party.

Joe working on shell boats of his own design with the boys.

Who knew he was so creative?

We said good-bye to our friends as they continued to make their way south, while we headed over to Beaufort for our haul-out, scheduled for Wednesday. We hope to keep it down to a week but the to do list keeps growing.

Hampton, VA - Mad boater friendly

Our anchorage in Hampton. Our swing radius brings us
within ten feet of some of the boats docked nearby.



Look familiar? If we had been here earlier, maybe
we would have been on the cover of the visitor's guide.

Hampton goes out of its way to welcome boaters. In addition to the free internet that some progressive cities provide, the city marina offers $1 hot showers (including complimentary hair dryers and flat irons), the use of free bicycles, and fresh herbs for the taking.  This year they even organized a "Snowbird Rendezvous" which attracted a large number of boats. We heard about it too late so didn't get to participate in the free meals and booze they were dispensing, but Matt attended a few of the seminars while I stayed with the kids. Not quite sure how they financed it, but we did see one officer writing 4 speeding tickets in the course of 1 hour. So watch it if you arrive by car instead of boat.

 

One of the seminars focused on weather planning for the journey south.  The expert basically said that it is crazy to attempt to go south around Hatteras and you should NEVER DO IT. Multiple slides devoted to "meteorological bombs" and other weather horrors had the audience ready to sign on for a quiet tour of Afghanistan rather than get within 100 miles of Hatteras.  That was a little disappointing to hear, since that is our plan (and only option) as soon as the weather and wind is with us. Of course, the expert's audience was smaller boats that have the option of using the ICW. And all our research indicates that as long as winds are from the northwest, or pretty  much any direction other than north east, we should be okay. But having every other well-meaning cruiser make it sound like we would be approaching the seventh circle of hell can start to make a person have doubts. Despite all this, we will probably be leaving Wednesday or Thursday with a couple of other boats. In addition to the worrying about the weather, we will need to leave red-eye early as we want to time our departure so that we don't have to fight the considerable tides that can flood the inlet to the Chesapeake.

In the meantime, we have been enjoying the attractions in Hampton. The Virginia Air & Space Center, the official visitor center for NASA Langley Research Center, is fantastic and the perfect field trip for kids living on a boat. With three stories, a Mars rover that you can control, lots of interactive exhibits and an IMAX theater, the boys never wanted to leave.

We also joined in on a tour of the nearby Fort Monroe offered by the Snowbird Rendezvous.  The tour was led by Greg, a local sailor who spent part of his Army career stationed at Fort Monroe. Among other interesting facts we learned that Jefferson Davis (bonus points if you remember him from high school history) was imprisoned for two years at the fort and that Edgar Allen Poe was amazingly whiny while he was in the Army at Fort Monroe, judging by his letters to his dad. 

Annapolis to Solomons Island

Tilted chairs at the closed up bar are a sure sign the summer season is over.

We had our visit to (and departure from) Annapolis all planned out because we are such awesome planners (I'm pretty sure we can use the word awesome even though we have probably less than a 1-in-3 success rate). Although pretty much nothing worked out the way we thought it would, we are much better off because of it. This is in spite of nearly a week of solid rain and chilly weather in a roll-y anchorage.

We had planned to visit our friends, pick up a few things and then leave Annapolis before the boat show to avoid the crowds and the unnecessary expenditure of money. Well, we got sidetracked waiting for parts and ended up staying for the boat show. In the meantime, Mark and Conrad spent many days playing with their friend Zach. They also met new friends on boats anchored nearby. We adults had our share of fun with great conversations and laughter with our friends and meeting a lot of wonderful new people.

We even went to the boat show (thanks for the tickets Derek!), which was a different experience after having owned our boat for almost a year. Refusing to step onto any of the new boats to ward off envy, Matt had fruitful conversations with many vendors and was able to solve some of the issues on our list. He was able to meet a surprising number of people he has dealt with solely on the phone or over email while troubleshooting many of the boat's systems over the past year.  We also met Greg and Deneen, from Mantus, the company that manufactured our anchor.  We already love the anchor, but really appreciated the customer service when they discovered we had an early model of their anchor hook.  They've since made it even better and they insisted we have a newer version of the hook--for free.

While on the topic of customer service, we also have to give a major thanks to Steve and his folks at Bacon's.  They went out of their way to deliver (on multiple occasions) a spinnaker pole and various parts to us at a local dingy dock since we didn't have a car.

Another benefit of sticking around was that we even got to see our good friends Nick, Kate and their daughter Francis, who happened to pop into Annapolis, took us to lunch and brought us the most delicious homemade brownies and Virginia peanuts.

 

Finally, over the strenuous objections of our kids, we left Annapolis this morning with our first partly sunny day in a week and arrived at Solomons Island. With the season mostly over, things are sleepy here. And our anchorage is perfectly still for a change--no water taxis or 2-mile fetches. We head south again tomorrow, towards Norfolk.

Here I come to save the day (sung like Mighty Mouse or Andy Kaufmann, your choice)

After getting questions from the kids on when we were heading back south (almost every other day- all summer long) we finally got back to Annapolis so that they could have their Lego battle with the Mighty, Mighty Zach. Once the battle ended ("We made peace," said Mark), we sailed with our friends Cindy and Doug and their two kids, Zach and Naia, on Majestic to visit some areas around Annapolis that we missed during our race up North to visit family.

After a quiet (and shallow) evening in the very secluded Granary Creek, we headed over to the more populated area of St Michaels.  As we took the dinghy to shore, we saw the boat pictured above heeled over a bit. That would be normal for a monohull except that this one was anchored. Apparently the owner had spotted her friends' boats and headed directly for them, realizing too late that there was a very shallow area in between. Her boat was aground enough that it wasn't going anywhere without assistance. Mistakes in boating can be hard to hide.

We headed over to see if they needed help, not really expecting to be able to do much with a modest dinghy crammed full with four adults and four kids. Doug and Matt grabbed a couple of halyards and used our dinghy to pull the sailboat sideways. This pulled the boat way over while the owner gunned the engine. After a couple of tries, the sailboat finally broke loose and the halyards sprang back to the sailboat. I was mildly surprised that everyone stayed in both boats and there was no major injury or damage. Matt did have a bit of rope burn but he injures himself regularly doing far more mundane things, so I consider it a win.

We had minor flashbacks to a previous episode of ill-conceived endeavors. But it was a happy ending and it was exciting for the kids, who wanted to save someone else immediately. Matt asked whether he could make a "women drivers" joke and I reminded him how he was driving when we hit our bottom. We will be hauling out in Beaufort to fix the damage from that little accident.

 

St. Michaels is a charming town with the best Maritime Museum we have visited so far. Cindy wrote about their visit a few months ago during an intense heat wave. Our weather was much more pleasant and we almost had the place to ourselves.  With warmth but no wind, we motored back to Annapolis where our nice spot in Back Creek had been taken.  Dozens of boat are arriving each day in anticipation of the upcoming boat show, so we've been forced to anchor out in the much more rolly main anchorage. 

The morning after we arrived back in Annapolis, the kids almost got to rescue someone else.   A sea plane was circling overhead and about to land.  A boat came by and said they were supposed to tow the sea plane to a  nearby dock but their dinghy was having engine trouble so  could we help them out? Sure!  Sounds like fun.  So we lowered our dinghy and headed over. Unfortunately, after landing, the plane decided "I don't need no stinkin' dinghy", zipped down the main fairway and docked itself.  Of well, it was still cool to see.