11/24/13 Thanksgiving tales and on to Charleston, NC.

We were given the green light by Graham to tell the Thanksgiving tale! he has a great sense of humor and we are all learning this experience is a time of self reflection.

As we mentioned previously, due to weather considerations, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Wednesday at Lambs Marina.. Both Leela and Kuivato began to get excited and started making plans for a joint feast hosted by Leela in her expansive cabin. Tim and I cooked the turkey filled with stuffing and everyone contributed their favorite Thanksgiving dishes; squash, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green beans, tofu with mushrooms, pumpkin pie, etc. Graham, the gentleman that he is, came to our boat to help Tim transport the turkey and other food over to Leela. To secured the turkey for transport across the docks, Tim placed it in a large covered pot and handed it off to Graham. The next thing Tim hears is the pot top clanging across Leela's cockpit and his first thought was " hmmmmm, does a cooked stuffed turkey float?".  Tim then heard so much commotion  he thought Graham might have fallen into the water as maneuvering onto Leela from the finger pier was tricky. From within Leela's cabin Diane hears the pot lid clattering and the next thing she sees is the turkey tumbling through the companionway onto the top cabin step, followed by the stuffing, all without the pot it arrived on the boat in! Graham was so distraught that he went for a walk to cool off as Diane and Janaki piled the bird and stuffing back into the pot. No one missed a beat and in the end  we all had a good laugh, even Graham, eventually. What a great sport!

Overnight the temperature dropped from 60 degrees to 27 and we woke to frozen docking lines and ice wherever the previous days rain had left water. Otherwise the day was sunny and we departed in the icy morning traveling down the Alligator River to the Pungo Canal to the Pungo River into the Pamlico River. From there, we continued to Goose Creek to the Hobukon Canal and onto serenely of Bear Creek where Graham and Janiki further honed their anchoring skills. We rafted together and shared another delicious meal.

Up early and continued on to have a great sail down the Bay River to the Neuse River to Adams Creek and into Adams Creek Canal to Beaufort where we were greeted by several bottle nose dolphins and many pelicans. We anchored across the channel from the Beaufort waterfront.

The small coastal town of Beaufort caters to sailors and even had an olive oil specialty store that boasted more than 50 varieties of oil and vinegars. Yum yum! 

In the morning we took the dinghy to the Rachel Carson Preserve island that borders the south side of  anchorage and is inhabited by wild horses. We went for a run/ walk on the miles long white sandy beach, barefoot and in shorts. We are finally reaching warm weather! Wahoo!

Warm enough for the first time to run on the beach since leaving Portsmouth, NH!

 Kuivato at anchor in Beaufort, NC

On Monday December 2, we departed Beaufort, NC at 4am for an estimated 36 hour offshore passage to Charleston, SC in order to catch a favorable weather window. The channel out of the  harbor to the ocean was quite tricky a night with no moon, the strongest current we have seen since the Piscataqua, numerous very shallow shoals, and navigation lights for multiple channels. 

We would have had tremendous difficulty had it not been for the navigation apps on the Iphone and IPad to help guide us. At one point in the darkness Tim was looking for his cup of OJ which was eventually located exactly where it should be in the teak cup holder at the helm, except for the handheld VHF radio which had been placed in the cup. Fortunately the VHF was submersible and survived the dunking in OJ. At dawn we were again greeted by dolphins entertaining us at the bow. We had great sailing conditions for about 19 hours, then motorsailed another couple hours until dawn Tuesday when the wind died and we motored the rest of the way to Charleston on glassy waters.

The overnight sail was quite incredible for my first experience. Tim is a night owl so he let me nap until 0100 then I took the helm until 0500. I went back to sleep at 0500 until 0800 when I awoke and we shared a celebratory breakfast. We are lightly considering leaving from here to go off shore to the Bahamas directly? It has taken longer to get here than we expected, imagine traveling 800 miles at 6.5 knots in 6 weeks vs. driving the same distance in 16 hours.... Hummm

December 3 Sunrise off Cape Romaine Shoal, NC on the way to Charleston.

Leela rounding the entrance bouy into the Charleston entry jetties. Arrived at 1330. Celebrated our arrival with a Dark n Stormy with Graham and Janaki.