The day was finally here! We got up early on Sunday April 21st to get all the last minute stowage done before departure. This involved making sure nothing could fly around and cause damage, as well as some things we have learned to do through bitter experience in the past. For example, when we are heeled to starboard, water can flow into our forward head sink. To avoid that, we now close the thru-hull to that sink when we are underway.
At about 8:30am, we said our goodbyes to Bob and Clare, Lisa and Gary, Dave, Beth and Lilly, before leaving New Bern and heading off down the Neuse river. After a few hours we turned into the ICW and headed to Jarrats Fuel Dock to top off the tanks before continuing on through Morehead City and out to Cape Hatteras. While the timing was great for getting the current to help us down the ICW, it was not ideal for getting out through the inlet and we faced some huge waves. First casualty was the dinghy. We had strapped it down on to the foredeck, and when one particularly big wave hit, one of the straps broke. So before even getting out very far, Moray was wearing his lifejacket and harness, trying to lash down the dinghy before it went overboard! Soon everything was secure and we plowed forward until we were clear of the inlet and the waves were a reasonable size.
We were soon to find that this was not the only casualty of the waves – I had carefully stowed everything away, but left a multipack of toilet paper on the shelf in the forward head, thinking that as they were soft, no damage would be done if they fell. I was wrong 😦 . The pack of rolls fell and landed on the tap. The pack had just enough weight to tilt the tap open. The whole 70 gallon tank of water was empty before we discovered what was happening. But to compound the problem, remember we had closed the sink drain off. That meant that there was nowhere for the water to go, other than the bathroom floor. There was water everywhere, which the bilge pump was doing its best to remove! Oh well, it was clean water so no harm done to the boat, though some of the toilet rolls didn’t make it! And thank goodness for the watermaker!
Once the mess was all cleaned up, we turned on the watermaker, set the genoa, switched off the motor and settled in for the trip. Over the past few years we have installed various items to help with ocean crossings. The first was a DuoGen generator. We have sometimes been a little disappointed with the performance of the wind part, but we cannot say the same of the hydro part. It produces more electricity than we need, so running the watermaker was no problem at all. The windvane that Moray installed over the winter is going to take some getting used to though. It sometimes works great, but at others, the windvane doesn’t seem able to hold a course. I’m sure it is a combination of needing to tweak it, and learning how to get the best out of it. I hope so, anyway!
Monday saw casualty number 3. I was in the galley making a cup of coffee. While in New Bern, I had made a galley strap so that I could be a bit more secure in there and I was trying to clip it in place when we heeled over.
I didn’t have a hand to grab onto anything and fell backwards into the doorway of the aft head, hitting my left side on the door frame and banging my head. No major damage was done, either to me or the boat, though I had some pretty impressive bruises! I can confirm, however, that once the strap is clipped in properly, it works great!
Around 7pm on Monday, the wind died so we decided to start the motor to keep our speed up. The other benefit was that it would give us some hot water for showers the next day.
On Tuesday morning, Moray was to send the first of our promised blog updates so that friends and family could track our progress. It turns out that the SSB does not like to transmit when the motor is running, so it seemed like a good time to turn it off and go back to sailing. We put up the Code 0 and were instantly speeding along at 6 knots! This is when we discovered that the windvane cannot always handle our situation, so we switched over to the autopilot which worked beautifully. So with the boat sailing herself, we were able to take showers! Such a treat! So the trip settled in to the usual routine of watches, sleeping, reading, sleeping ….
Interesting event of the day was that when Moray flushed the toilet in the dark, using the seawater flush, he got quite a shock when the bowl turned green. It was phosphorescence in the bowl 🙂
The next couple of days continued much the same, though we did put out the genoa rather than the Code 0. We had a visitor as we always seem to do on longer crossings. A small bird used our boa as a rest stop on their journey. They stayed with us for about 2 hours before flying off.
On Thursday, when we got the updated weather forecast, we saw that the winds were going to die and then on Saturday, storms could roll in. We decided to sail as long as the winds let us, but keeping an eye on our progress to ensure that we could get in on Friday, before dark. At 8pm we made the decision to motor the rest of the way.
On Friday morning, Moray threw out a fishing line to see if anything would bite, but no luck.
We both took showers so that we would be presentable for the Customs Officers! I was sitting in the cockpit while Moray finished his shower. Suddenly, I was screaming to Moray to get above deck! A humpback whale breached about half a mile in front of the boat! It was the most incredible sight. Unfortunately Moray didn’t see the whole thing but he did see the spout and the whale’s back arching as he dived back down. Amazing!
When we were about 30 miles from Bermuda, Moray radioed in and was given instructions on what to do on closer approach. As we were getting ready to approach St. George’s, a huge cruise ship, the Norwegian Escape, came out of Hamilton, but was out well before we needed to enter. Following the Bermuda Radio instructions, we came into St. George’s Harbour and tied off at the Customs dock. The Officer greeted us and asked a few questions. It turns out that the information we had been given about Moray’s pole-spears was incorrect and they are illegal here in Bermuda. It wasn’t a problem. We handed them in to the Customs Officer, who gave us a receipt. We will just pick them up when we clear out of the country. Entry fees paid, customs declarations made, passports stamped and we were done. We left the Customs Dock and headed over to the anchorage in Convicts Bay. It took a couple of attempts to set the anchor, but soon we were done. We dropped the dinghy in the water, cleared everything that was stowed on the bed, and then sat down in the cockpit to enjoy our first Bermudian sunset.
All in all, it was a great trip. There are things we need to sort out with the boat, but for the most part, everything worked great. We are glad to spend a few days relaxing in Bermuda, seeing what this beautiful island has to offer before heading off on the next leg of our trip.
We will post another blog before we leave in about a week so stay tuned. We promise lots of pictures next time 🙂
Sol Purpose 