It's now Wednesday, May 13, and here are the latest daily posts. I will add more photos later, but right now the signal is too weak and I don't have the patience to wait for uploads.
Saturday, May 9
We hadn’t seen dolphins for a while, but they were busy near our boat today, working cooperatively and with vigor, circling and corralling some fish for their afternoon meal. We occasionally see solitary loggerhead turtles briefly poking their heads above the surface of the mud-colored water.
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| Bald Eagle |
At 3 p.m., we raised anchor and went back through the ditch, spotting bald eagles again as well as snowy egrets and other birds. At 4:30, we anchored east of Cat Island to be ready to set sail in the morning for Cape Lookout. There were light winds from the north and the water was calm. Before dinner, we launched our ever-ready orange kayak at slack tide and paddled to the sandy beach. On board Mantra, we usually have on wool socks and sweaters. (I have been wearing mine over my nightgown for the last couple of days because it is just easier and more comfortable.) But the warm clothes are discarded for swimsuit and t-shirts for exploration. On the beach, we walked between the high and low tide line. The receding tide had deposited not only shells but numerous large brown-hued jellies. Their translucent bells revealed the internal structures. Some were larger than Peter’s hand. In places, there were patches of oozy brown-black mud on the sand. I tested the consistency with my foot, which slowly sank into the muck and stuck to my toes and the sole.
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| 8-inch jelly on the beach |
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| Wind-swept beach on Cat Island in Winyah Bay |
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| Leaving my prints with the birds |
Sunday, May 10 (Mother’s Day)
Peter, the captain, somehow manages to arrange celebrations of special days such as Mother’s Day, my birthday and our anniversary with true loving care and attention to what I most enjoy—not! Otherwise a perfect husband, he seems to forget that I really, really do not like night passages because they are so damn boring, but on this Mother’s Day, we raised anchor as the sun rose on the eastern horizon. It was flat calm; the north wind hardly registered on the gauge.
All day, we kept waiting for the predicted wind in vain. We tried various configurations of main and genoa, but they only pulled in the intermittent gusts. The headsail snapped like a whip when these occurred. We had to resign ourselves to motoring, with canvas only up for stability in the small waves. Peter should have taken a nap or two in order to be ready to do most of the watch time at night, but he kept hoping that at any moment the wind would fill in and we would need to turn of the droning engine and set sail.
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| Sunrise, Winyah Bay |
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| Dragonfly along for the ride |
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| Sunset at sea |
At 9 p.m., after I had taken numerous rests in our warm bed to relieve the boredom, not because I was tired, Peter finally decided to lie down at 9 p.m. after the wind picked up to 10 knots and we were sailing at nearly 6 knots of speed on a broad reach, starboard tack. Only an hour later, I had to wake him up, because the wind was fitful and I couldn’t keep the sails full. (Yes, I could have made an executive decision, but that is not the way we do things!)
The fickle wind forced us to restart the engine and take in the genoa. We put three reefs in the main because it was only for stability. The ride was not the most comfortable. The waves were small, but they were coming at us from two directions with only three second intervals. I did one more short watch, and then I was done for the night.
Here is how I try to approach night watches at the beginning:
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| Sherri trying to look happy and alert |
Without the sails to monitor, it is beyond tedious. There were no other boats to be seen. I sat at the top of the companionway with earbuds and my iTunes, singing along to some favorite old songs. My attempts to amuse myself are ultimately futile. This photo expresses my true joy after an agonizing, mind-numbing long time—not hours but actually only 45 minutes—of night watch:
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| Please let me go to bed!!! |
Peter took the rest of the night. By daybreak on Monday, the wind had picked up to 18 knots and we were able to sail again, alternating between wing-in-wing and deep broad reach, averaging 7.5 knots of speed. Still, the seas, although only four to five feet, were uncomfortable. Finally, after tacking and struggling, we made it to Cape Lookout Bight in North Carolina, one of our favorite anchoring spots on the east coast. We anchored in seven meters of water behind the western sand dunes south of another dozen boats seeking shelter in this scenic place. The sunlight brightened the windswept dunes, but Peter needed to rest, so we put off exploration.
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| Dunes at Cape Lookout National Seashore |
While Peter slept, I cleaned. We expect to be leaving the boat in a couple of weeks, and I always like to leave it clean and then clean it when I return! I cleaned the cabinet doors in the galley and then moved on to the saloon, where I took everything off shelves and thoroughly cleaned all the horizontal surfaces as well as the head liner. Then I pulled off all the seat cushions and backs and wiped down under them. Three hours later, I had a feeling of accomplishment, and Peter woke up.
We gave some thought to kayaking to shore, but the wind was increasing and waves were developing and the temperature was dropping, so we postponed until tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent in usual ways: having an afternoon snack, playing a game of cards on deck, watching the sun set in shades of yellow and orange, playing a fierce game of Scrabble (in which I made two bingos and we had a combined score of 800), and having a light supper of soup before bed. The northwest, cold wind was howling by then, sustained at 25 knots with gusts to 30. With confidence in our ground tackle, we settled into bed, a hot water bottle at our feet.
Tuesday, May 12
My feet, in wool socks, are on top of the hot water bottle. The temperature is only in the mid-fifties, but that’s rather cold for indoor space. This hot water bottle is very useful. I hugged it to my chest last night as I stood on deck in my nightgown and sweatshirt, the cold wind flying and small waves slapping against the hull as we watched another boat dragging anchor and getting closer and closer to us.
Just before we dropped off to sleep, around midnight, Peter asked me if I thought our anchor would hold. I said I was sure it would, and he agreed, but he decided it would be prudent to make sure all the other boats were holding. To his horror, when he went up on deck, he saw another sailboat drifting toward us. He tried to hail them on the VHF radio, but they did not respond. He took our 800,000 candle-power light up and flashed it all around their boat, which must have gotten their attention, because a couple was soon up on deck with their running lights and their engine turned on as well as their foredeck lights. Staying low in the wind, the woman scrambled to the bow (without a life jacket!). Meanwhile, Peter had turned on our engine to be able to maneuver if necessary. Then he got a fender out of the forepeak to use to cushion the blow if they did hit us, although with the high winds it would have done little. Pitching and yawing on the waves, they came alongside our port bow, probably only about 50 feet away, before they turned away toward the lee shore. We watched as they struggled in the wind and waves and then became grounded, their mast at a 15-20 degree angle. Fortunately, they were able to get into deeper water again; the tide was high, and they would have been in serious trouble had they been stuck as the tide went down four or five feet in the night. They motored away safely and anchored much closer to the entrance to the bight, far away from us. That was certainly a bit of excitement! It occurred to me that we should refer to this anchorage as Cape LOOOOK-OUT!
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| Boats at anchor in Cape Lookout Bight |
The wind has been calm today although the temperature is lower than yesterday. I slept late after the previous night’s drama. I am now at the stage where I am trying to use up the fresh food and work toward emptying the refrigerator before we put the boat on the hard, so I used up some onions, yellow peppers, tomatoes and carrots to make a lentil and rice dish for lunch. Afterwards, we exchanged our warm clothes for our swimsuits. Brrrrr! I decided to wear a sweatshirt; Peter wore his polar fleece and we packed jackets and Peter’s beanie in the drybag.
It was actually warmer at the surface level of the water, and paddling warmed us up. It was a short trip to the beach. Once there, we were protected from the breeze by the large grass covered and partially exposed dunes rising to the west. We walked for about two or three hours along the beach. Cape Lookout National Seashore is a treasure. The tides leave behind a vast array of shells in addition to jellies. The ones that are not brightly colored range from coal black to lunar white, with a multitude of shades on the black to white spectrum, with finishes from matte to pearly. And then there are ones that are rust red, lemon yellow, ochre, salmon pink, burnt orange and dozens of shades of brown. The surface patterns and shell shapes are fascinating. On the surfaces, there may be raised ridges, knobs like knuckles, or spikes. Colors may be arranged in stripes, speckles, spirals or gradations. The shells may be almost flat or splayed or spiral. In size, some shells are tiny while we also found some as big as our hands. We started picking up lovely specimens to keep but we soon realized that we could easily fill a couple of buckets with beauties so we limited ourselves to one or two of each type. There were intact oysters, mussels, clams, scallops, cockles, angel wings, dosinia, lion’s paws, and lettered olives but our prize is a lightning whelk in amazingly good shape. (There were many that were old or broken.)
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| Shells in the shallow water by the beach |
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| Jelly on the beach |
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| Colorful shells on the beach |
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| Weathered remains of the carapace of a loggerhead turtle |
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| White ibises |
Around 5 p.m., we returned to Mantra and put on warm clothing again. We played a game of chess as we enjoyed afternoon beverages and chips and queso. I lost, of course, even though Peter let me take back imprudent moves. I am sure I am smart enough to actually be competitive in chess but the game just does not excite my interest. Peter really enjoys it. Perhaps he can get Katya to play with him when we get home.
The sunset was pastel this evening, compared to the flashy display of bright warm colors yesterday evening. The snapping (or pistol) shrimp are busy in the water, tap-tap-tapping. These crustaceans are about an inch long. One of their claws is much bigger than the other. By forcefully and quickly closing their claws, they produce a short burst of sound (measured as high as 210 decibels) which stuns their prey, making them easy pickings. They are nocturnal feeders and must fill up in a few hours because the noise always ceases sometime in the middle of the night.
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