4am Adrenalin Rush–Yikes!

We made the trip from Morehead City,NC, to St Augustine,FL, in 3 nights and 2 days. Not as much sailing as we would’ve liked. Most of the sails were during the night time breezes and the boat handled nicely. The days were pretty still though and we relied on our 65 horses to keep us going.
We left Morehead City Yacht Basin at about 9am to head out to sea. Problem was that when we got to the 65 foot clearance fixed bridge that was just around the corner from the marina, the reader board said 63 feet. The reader boards are panels of wood with the bridge height numbers painted on then: 62,63,64,65,66… As the water level goes down, the higher number shows up.We need 64ft 3in to get under. We headed back to the marina and tied off on the long fuel dock to wait for a lower tide. Took a walk into the waterfront of Morehead City and then we  borrowed the marina’s courtesy car. We drove over the offending bridge and into the old sailing port of Beaufort. Lots of 1700’s seafaring houses and commerce buildings- pretty place.
We left again and this time the bridge had 66 feet clearance. We sailed out the Beaufort Inlet. It is a 5 mile sail out to the sea buoy.
Now comes the exciting part. At about 4am we were motor sailing 32 miles offshore approaching Cape Fear. There was some moon, but the overcast skies made for a dark night. I was on watch, while Chris was sleeping in the starboard bunk. Crunch! The sound was like the old soda and beer cans, when they were thicker than todays paper thin ones, being stomped on on the sand. A metal crush muffled sound. I jumped up and pulled the throttle back to idle. Chris jumped up and reinserted her heart back into her chest. Having a medical background can be helpful in these situations. I looked behind me and there was 20-25ft cabin cruiser style fishing boat a few hundred feet off my stern. No lights! Just the gray looking outline of a white boat in the dark. It looked like a boat that was abandoned or just drifting. I turned the boat around to investigate. Then the green and red running lights turned on on the boat. I tried raising them on the radio, but no response. Eventually we came up close enough to yell to them, “Are you OK?” They said yes. We then yelled at them to pick up channel 16 on the radio. After a brief, somewhat strange conversation, he said he was fine, that we didn’t need to stand by.
Looking at our boat showed no damage. The best I can figure out is that we did a glancing blow with our 77lb Spade anchor on our bow. I had the Radar running at the time with a 2 mile guard zone. It is supposed to sound an alarm if anything enters the zone. This boats radar signature was just too small. Night watches became even more diligent from then on.
The rest of the trip down we played tag with the Gulfstream. The GS is a river of water that travels north along the East Coast. You get too close to it and the current pushes you way fast in the wrong direction (north). As we would get close to the GS the water temperature would go up to 79*. That’s swimming temperature and a hell of a lot warmer than the 50* water temperature we had in the Chesapeake just a few days ago. The current would also be 1 knot against us. Move in toward shore a few miles and the sea temperature would drop to 74* and the current would slow down or even sometimes reverse and start pushing us. We had dolphins playing with us when we were near the stream. Always a happy sight.
So we made it to St Augustine this morning after only hitting one boat (yikes). The plan is to stay on a mooring for 2 weeks while Chris is off to Zambia for a work project and I try to whittle down the never-ending boat project list.
Paul

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We are in Morehead City tonight and plan on leaving in the morning to go outside into the Atlantic. The plan is to leave Beaufort Inlet and head offshore to about 5 miles clear of Cape Fear. Then point at St Augustine, Florida. It will probably be about a 3 day passage, with possible stop off points like Charleston or Jacksonville if we don't like how its going.

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South toward Morehead City

We headed south out of Hampton to make our path through Norfolk. The area is inundated with Navy ships being worked on. We probably past 5 aircraft carriers in various states of disrepair. Getting through Norfolk requires passing through and under a string of bridges.The bridges have restricted opening times. We managed to show up at two different bridges 2 minutes late, just to have the bridge tender close the bridge on us and make us wait a full hour to get the next opening. Not sure these tenders like the pleasure crafters.

Next up was the Great Bridge Locks. It’s a simple, low stress lock to get through. This is about as far as we got the first day – spent the night at the free long dock just past the Great Bridge.

Next day we motored down past Coinjock and anchored just outside Broad Creek. We anchored outside the creek cause we couldn’t figure a way in with our 6.5ft draft. This is a picture of the sunrise at anchor.

The sunrise picture may look pretty, but check out the ICE on the decks. The water temperature when we left the Chesapeake was 50*F.

After doing some research with the local SeaTow operators (AAA of the Sea), we figured out that we could not make it under the last bridge on the Alligator River. This is the normal pass south on the ICW. Problem is the bridge was designed to have a 65 foot clearance like the other bridges on the Atlantic ICW – turns out it was built to 64 feet. Georgia’s mast is 64ft 3in- measuring to the tip of the last piece of hard stuff up there. I could take off some parts and get us a 1/2 foot or better. The SeaTow captain said he worries a lot with anything over 63ft 6in under that bridge. There’s no real tide in that area, but the water depth changes based on the direction of the winds.

The alternative pass is to go along he east side of Roanoke Island, just inside the Hatteras Outer Banks. This passage has one true 65ft bridge. It also has a dredged channel that is charted as very shallow. I talked to the local SeaTow operator in the area and he said its all fine except between marks 36 and 30. Here he said “there was a chance we could get our 6.5ft draft through, but if we get stuck, call him”. We carefully analyzed our choices and picked one randomly. The Outer Banks won. The trip was fairly uneventful except for the two times we grounded, in the channel. These were both past the ‘dangerous’ area in the ‘deep’ channel, but across from the Oregon Inlet. At least it’s all sand.

The Oregon Inlet Lighthouse from the inside. Looks like she is getting a dress fitted.

When we finally got out of all the narrow channels and into the open waters of Pamlico Sound we started to relax a bit. Of course the two ferries that cross this body of water decided to simultaneously point at us at the same time. I called up the east bound ferry (the lollipop on the right) on channel 13VHF and asked him if he was comfortable with our CPA (Closest Point of Approach). In a friendly southern accent he said “No, keep your course and speed and I’ll take your stern”. So did the other. Then we were back to empty waters. Tonight we are in a fairly open anchorage in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow, off to Oriental, NC.