June 17, 2008.

Well, the forecasted 15 knots of wind never materialized. Last night just before sunset we had great southwest wind and I jokingly asked Christy if she wanted to get underway right then. We should have done it. We got up this morning to 6 knots of wind right over the stern.

We had the main up with a preventer and ended up having to motor sail. After a few hours the wind completely died, so down came the main sail. We had 4 foot rollers coming under the starboard stern. The only problem with that was that they were practically right on top of each other only 5 seconds apart. It was a little uncomfortable but we were making good time as the seas helped to propel us towards our destination.

After lunch we did get our little bit of breeze back and were able to unroll 2/3’s of the genoa to help boost our speed. It was a long dull day of motor sailing. We were the only boat on our part of the ocean all day.

We did use the VHF to listen to the boats that had opted to travel up the ICW. We heard several hailing SeaTow after having run aground. We heard a few more sitting, waiting for bridges to open. I was glad that we had gone outside again even though we had to motor sail the entire way. We covered 71 miles in 11 hours so we made pretty good time. None of the boats that left with us this morning, that decided to go on the inside, were able to make the trip in one day.

The only “obstacle” on our route is an area of Camp Lejune. Camp Lejune actually straddles the ICW and today was one of those days that they closed the ICW, as they are actually shooting across it. We heard several boats waiting for the ICW to open up again so they could continue their travels.

Out in the ocean there are 2 Camp Lejune areas of concern. One is in close to shore and is a restricted area with no boating allowed what so ever. The other is just marked “dangerous” on the charts. Our rhumb line took us through a 20 mile stretch of the “dangerous” sector. In the past we’ve heard boats hailed and told to alter course to get out of the dangerous sector. It was a shortcut that we opted for with no contact from anyone.

As soon as we reached Beaufort Inlet the wind started to build. The Coast Guard was making Urgent Notice to Mariners broadcasts every few minutes because of several nasty storm cells moving through the area. 30 to 50 knots of wind were predicted.

We’ve never anchored here before and we were pushed by the incoming tide into the anchorage. Taylor’s Creek is the preferred anchorage and we were a little disappointed, to say the least. It’s extremely crowded with random moorings. The locals have this anchorage pretty well sewed up with not much room for anyone else. We went far enough into Taylor’s Creek that the moorings started to peter out. We dropped the hook in a very narrow section of the creek near a few small moored boats. As soon as we had the anchor down we launched the dinghy so we could set another anchor. We had to drop one hook upstream and the other downstream as the tidal current just rips through the anchorage.

We just got the second hook set when a nasty squall came through. The temperature dropped 20 degrees and the wind jumped right up to 20 knots. The wind topped out at a short lived 33 knots. The anchor to windward held just fine and the storm passed quickly. The VHF was alive with people bitching about who dragged into who and all kinds of wind related problems. When some friends of ours were here 3 weeks ago they had a front come through and smack them around with 50 knot gusts before it was over. So we were timely in getting our ground tackle set and a little lucky to boot.