This past weekend my 10 year old son and I set out on our first big cruise of the season. It was also the first trip since I finished all my restoration work. We have been doing a lot of sailing on the lake in some pretty big wind in preparation and were glad we did. We left on Thursday night during a big cold front that was passing through with tons of rain. It was raining pretty much the entire drive which would have taken about 2.5 hours, except we lost a tire off the trailer. Yes, you read that right, my left trailer tire just came off while on the interstate at about 60 mph. That sucked. I pulled over and tried to find the tire, but to no avail. After much cussing I drove into the adjacent town and found an auto parts store. I bought a new bearing buddy and some lug nuts since all 5 had come off somehow. Of course the lugnuts were the wrong size, but the bearing buddy fit, so I greased it up and mounted the spare by stealing 3 of the 5 lugnuts from the other tire. All this in heavy rain with 18 wheelers roaring by, lots of fun. I then very carefully limped into a nearby Tractor Supply and bought a new wheel and lugnuts. We ate dinner, crossed our fingers and continued our journey. Stopping every few miles to check the hub, I slowly gained confidence that it wasn't going to melt down. We limped into Bath at 9:20p, had a glass or two of whiskey to calm my nerves and fell asleep.
We stayed at the only place in Bath, the Bath Harbor Motel and Marina. Paul was really nice and we stayed in one of their 4 efficiencies which was clean and neat if not small, but for $65, it was a bargain. We awoke to more rain and strong winds which decreased through the morning. After breakfast at the local diner, we set the boat up and put in at the Quarterdeck gas station which is the only boat ramp in Bath. It is $5 to put in, but they will let you leave your car and trailer at an adjacent lot for several days. We motored into Bath Creek and put the sails up happily after all the drama to this point. The wind was fresh, blowing from about 10-15 mph with gusts in the twenties from the W/NW. We got sick of the jib flopping about and dropped it. I brought the spinnaker pole that came with my boat with intentions of using it on the jib, but the waves were rolling 1-3 ft and it didn't seem worth the effort since the boy hasn't got a lot of experience in those seas and we were making good time.
Above is our journey mapped but I just drew the lines. I need Jeff to tell me what app he uses to record his sail tracks as I haven't been able to find a good one that then syncs with google earth.
We ran down the Pamlico River jybing a few times to check markers and keep off the wind a bit. With the gusts, we had one uncontrolled jybe, so I decided to not run directly downwind. Once we rounded the point into Pungo Bay, we put the jib back up and had a nice sail. Paul at the Marina had told us there was a regatta at the town of Bellhaven on Saturday. We had ambitions to make it that far anyway, so that was our destination. However, once in the Pungo the wind died and I wasn't sure I had the energy to make it the whole way. However, we soldiered on and in the last leg the wind picked up and we had a spirited beat to our anchorage in Pungo Creek. Seven hours at the tiller and I was hungry. My son had his first Spam-which (I had three) and we jumped into the bay with our underwear on to bathe. All was well with the world.
Turning into the Pungo with rail in the water
Pungo Creek anchorage
The next morning we were up early and headed to Bellhaven. The wind was fierce, blowing 15-20 mph with gusts up to 30. We sailed past the breakwater and then dropped sails, motoring into a protected city harbor. I knew we would be welcome as we came upon another SJ21 and tied up behind him. We got to meet the owner and chat with my first real SJ21 owner in person, other than myself. He and his crew were going to sail in the regatta and invited us, but we declined being heavily laden for the cruise and on a schedule I was scared of missing. We got a bite to eat and walked around Bellhaven that morning. It is a neat little town, not much to see but still very much undiscovered by the heaving throngs. We got back on board and set up a reef in the main, then set out ahead of the first racers. We decided to sit at the downwind marker as it was on the way back to the Pamlico River. We had a great downwind run, then anchored just past the mark and ate lunch while riding the bunking bronco. I got some great pics of the boats coming around the mark as well as the SJ21 we had seen earlier.
Once all the racers were past, we pulled anchor and headed back to the Pamlico. The wind was coming straight down the river and still blowing extremely hard. Once past the point, we had to drop the jib to keep from being over powered. Sailing on just the reefed main for about 30 mins, I kept looking back at the shore and we were making no headway. Seas at 2-4 ft and the wind at 15-20 mph with gusts up to 30 combined with the river current meant we were making no progress and maybe losing some. So, I dropped the outboard in and power sailed for the next 3 hours just to get across the river. Once ashore, we were very happy to be off the water. We spent some time on a beach then motored up the creek to find an overnight anchorage. My son steered to the head of the creek where we came upon a ton of mullet jumping. I pulled out my cast net and caught two of them on the second throw. Smoked mullet is delicious, but they are a boney fish, so back they went.
We motored back to the best spot we had seen and dropped the anchor for the night.
The next morning we awoke to foggy water and thousands of blind mosquitoes. These don't bite, but completely covered the boat and were a pain to get rid of all day. We were up at 5:30 and pulled anchor at 6:30. I was worried that we might run out of gas given all the motoring we had done previously so I wanted to get a jump on the wind. I brought 5 gallons and estimated we had used 2 the day before. I was thinking that we would motor until we finished the 3 gallon tank currently being used, then use one more gallon and keep one in reserve. Expecting light winds, I was afraid we might run out of gas and have to tack upwind in light airs. I didn't want to get to the dock too late, because we had the questionable trailer hub waiting on us and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to limp home. All that came to nothing though as we made it back to the dock much faster than I expected, about 3 hours. Later, when I checked the gas can, I discovered we had only used 1.5 gallons for the whole trip (total hours roughly 7 at slightly higher than idle). Mine is a 4 HP Yamaha and is apparently exceptionally frugal with gas.
Like wise I was worried about running out of charge in my house battery. I had been running two speakers, a small amp, a bluetooth reciever and charging a phone/tablet for all three days. But on final inspection, the battery was reading 12.75 volts. So, basically I didn't even make a dent in the 50 Amp Gel cell. I will not even think twice about it in the future and will add a depth sounder which would have come in very handy. I generally do not pin the keel unless the wind is up, but had to most of the trip. This forced me to be ever alert of running aground. It would have been nice to have the depth sounder.
We passed the ferry on our morning motor in with my son as skipper the whole way. We talked real nice to the trailer and petted it and it delivered my boat back to the driveway. I intend to just replace the entire axle as mine is very pitted and sketchy. Tractor supply sells them for under $200. All in all, an awesome first trip where we learned a ton about the boat and cruising. I am sure we will return to race next year and my exposure to that race makes me less worried about looking like an ass. I think me an my son would actually give them a run for the money!
cheers,
kuriti
