Return Voyage - Days 5-8 (Savannah to Cape Lookout)

8-8-2015 and 8-9-2015

At midnight, as if on queue for the witching hour, I was adjusting the jib and suddenly heard a huge crash behind me. I turned around and didn't see anything. Robert Redford flashed through my mind, but then I saw the mainsail was way out. The traveller, a piece of hardware used to help control the boom, had crashed through it's end-stop. I dropped the mainsail. We still had the 8-10 foot rollers and without the mainsail up, the boat was really rolling side-to-side. For the next couple hours I tried to fix and finally had to replace the traveller car.

While doing this, I noticed the tender, which is stored on deck right in front of the traveller, was rocking back and forth. One of the fenders that it rests upon was gone. While I tried to secure the tender, the other fender washed overboard too. With the boat rolling 25 degrees one way and then 25 degrees the other, even holding on to the boat was a bit of a challenge. The old saying, "One hand for the boat, and one hand for yourself" came to mind.

It was 3am, the traveller was fixed and fully functional; the tender was secured. I was completely drained. While getting Distant Horizon going again, I noticed the magnetic compass and GPS did not agree. They never agree exactly, but are usually close. I worried that I may have come too close to a thunderstorm, which could temporarily throw the magnetic compass off, but why the GPS? I couldn't figure it out. So... I heaved to and got some well deserved sleep.

When I woke up at 6am, the compass and GPS were fine. The only thing that was wrong last night, was probably my thought process due to exhaustion. I had Distant Horizon sailing hard; trying to make up some time. Then, I went below to make breakfast.

When I came back up to the cockpit, I noticed we were sailing real hard, but only going 2.5 knots and what was worst... we were going -2.1 knots towards our destination... We were going backwards in the gulf stream! With the wind from the west, I could head back towards Jacksonville, or head out to sea. I tacked and headed out to sea.

With the lost time last night repairing the traveller and then stopping to sleep, I was astonished to see my noon-to-noon distance was 94.2 nautical miles. Not great, but I sailed less than 18 of the 24 hours. So, not bad either.

It seemed like that afternoon, I had finally settled into a rhythm of sleep and sailing. The next couple of days had little excitement. The wind was from the northwest, and then north. So, progress was slow.

I was happy to finally have my daily activities all fall into place. No emergencies. No surprises.

We made slow, but steady progress; slipping past Charleston, SC and Myrtle Beach. We were headed towards Oak Island (Cape Fear). In fact, the most exciting thing that happened was being passed by a cruise ship. They hailed me on the radio. We had a nice talk for about 10 minutes.

Norwegian Gem

8-10-2015 and 8-11-2015

Early in the morning, there was an increase in shipping traffic. Most of which was headed to Cape Fear, which provides access to Southport, NC and Wilmington, NC.

I talked with several ships. All could see me well with AIS and radar. One particular ship's crew was quite chatty and very nice. He told me he had engines and rudders. So I need not worry, they would stay clear of me.

The winds had died down again. We now had 8-11knot winds. Still from the north. The seas settled down fast. We had very comfortable 3 foot rollers.

Around noon on the 10th, I was slowly passing Cape Fear. The weather radio had east winds forecasted for close to shore. I contemplated moving in close. East winds would have been great, especially compared to the north winds I currently had. I chose not to sail close to land. The risk of running into a thunderstorm was too great. Plus, the shore around these capes have lots of shoals. I much preferred the deep water.

In the afternoon, I was visited by the fastest pod of Dolphins I had ever seen. They did not like to play with the bow wake as dolphins usually do. Instead, they played with waves that were affected by the boat's wake. They were too fast to get a good picture. I took a bunch. This one will have to do.

These dolphins wouldn't get any closer to the boat and always skimmed the surface to cause the splashing

I kept fighting the north winds. The winds were light and from the wrong direction. They were preventing me from going directly towards Cape Hatteras; a huge milestone for this trip. However, two days of light winds meant the large seas from a couple days ago were all gone. The sailing was very pleasant and relaxing. I was still approaching Cape Lookout.

Sunrise sail on a relatively calm Atlantic Ocean

I mentioned in a previous post how the moon rises about an hour later each day. Around 6am on the 11th, the sun started to rise and the moon was still in the eastern sky; meaning it has just risen.

Sunrise Crescent Moon

Last night, it was clear starry skies and a gentle sail. It was dark most of the night since there was no moon until almost dawn, and then it was just a small crescent. When there was enough light to see, it looked like it was raining over land.

NOAA Weather Radio was forecasting sever thunderstorms in the area. I thought I might duck into Cape Lookout and anchor for a good night's rest and let the thunderstorms pass by. As I got closer to Cape Lookout, it became apparent, that I could not make the anchorage before sunset. It was just a thought anyway. So, I carried on towards Hatteras.