The next morning dawned with not much wind but with a forecast to pick up into the low teens by midday so I raised anchor and headed out into the Neuse River as soon as I could see where I was going. The Neuse (pronounced noose) River can get pretty snotty if you have a strong wind and I really didn’t want to have another sloppy day of travel. I wasn’t at all disappointed when I got out to the river and it was pretty calm…yay for me!!
I had to go about 16 miles before I turned to the north up the Bay River to go about 5 miles into the narrower cut that would take me to the Pamlico River. I had the headsail out and was enjoying a great motorsail for once so life was good…until I turned up the Bay River. It took me about 5 seconds to realize that the land that was to my port side had been blocking the majority of the wind and when I turned, the land went away and the wind replaced it.
With that turn, the winds went from about 6 knots up the 23 knots and the waves built up pretty quick…😖…gonna be another day of this crap I thought to myself. Luckily, I only had to go about 5 miles before I got off the Bay River and motored up the cut that connects it to the Pamlico River. FYI, there’s 3 sections between Beaufort NC and Norfolk VA that people keep an eye on for good weather to travel in. I was doing 2 of the 3 in one day so I might have been pressing my luck a bit…🤷.
I entered the cut and the winds were blocked by the land so they dropped down to about 10 knots and the water was smooth. I motored along enjoying the reprieve but I knew things were going to change once I got out into the Pamlico River. My goal for the day was to get to Belhaven NC to ride out some weather that was coming in and so far, I was making good time!! I pulled out into the Pamlico River and the winds, once again, built up but this time I was going with them so the ride was a lot better…😁…until I turned back to the northwest to head up the Pungo River towards Belhaven…😖. Yup, the winds were now blowing at 25 knots apparent and the waves started to build up…ugh. I decided to put a reef into the headsail and haul butt up the river. I had picked up some great info about a marina called Dowry Creek that would be a good place to ride out the weather and I was looking forward to tying up into a slip, taking a hot shower, and getting a good night sleep.
I sailed past Belhaven for about 3 miles and hailed Dowry Creek on the VHF. They gave me directions to my slip and were there to grab my lines as I backed in. Once I got settled in, I put together my list of things I wanted to get from the local hardware store to fix the leaks in the stern of Infinity. The guy across the dock from me walked over, introduced himself, and offered me a ride into Belhaven to get my supplies whenever I was ready. Gotta love the south!!
I took a stroll around the marina and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a restaurant on site so I planned on going there after I was showered. They also had an excellent boaters lounge with a big screen TV so I could catch up on “The Curse of Oak Island” episodes I had missed since I left Lady’s Island Marina ( they still hadn’t found anything…😢).
Another thing I saw was a pirate ship that was tied up in the marina. The story was that it had been used for many years around the area as a tourist attraction, was a huge hit in local boat parades, and the owner took people out for evening cruises. I was told it even had working cannons on it. The original owner sold the boat after many years to a local guy that in turn sold it to the current owner. The boat has fallen on hard times but the current owner was trying to bring it back to its former glory!! Unfortunately, the boat had other ideas…😖
As you can see in the pirate ship picture, the marina is quite exposed to weather and waves coming in from the south. This would become a major issue in the coming days…😳.
After a great meal, a hot shower, and a glass of celebratory bourbon, I went to bed for a great night’s sleep. My plan was to get the leaks in the stern fixed the next day and do some other boat chores I had been putting off. It was looking like I’d be at the marina for about 5 days as the weather improved so I wasn’t in any rush. The next day I took the dock neighbors offer to get a ride into town to do some shopping for the supplies I needed to fix the boat, do some provisioning, and go to the post office so he could get his mail. Once the shopping was done, it was back to Infinity to get to work. My first order of business was to tackle the leaks. My thought was that I had broken a plastic “T” fitting used to connect the scupper drains to the drain so I slid down into the rear storage locker to get to work. Now, getting into this locker (called a lazerette) would be easy if I were about 12 years old and skinny, but I’m not so it’s a huge struggle. It’s also such a confined space that I have to slide in, lay on my back, and twist up like a pretzel just to get at what I’m working on. Boat yoga at it’s best!!
I found the t-fitting had a crack in it so I was really happy about that!! I changed it the fitting, replaced all of the old drain hose, and cleaned the area up just for good measure. I was pretty confident that I had fixed the issue but I wouldn’t know for sure until after I was under way again.
As the day wore on, the weather started to change as the front approached the area. The word going around the marina was that the high winds would only be coming out of the south for a few hours on the afternoon of the next day and then clock around to where the land would block most of the wave action. People were adding more dock lines to their boats to make sure things stayed secure and I was definitely one of them. I had never ridden out a storm on a fixed dock as the docks at Shennecossett (our home port) are floating docks so they move up and down with the boat. A fixed dock doesn’t move so you have to adjust your dock lines for the tide changes. This, too, proved to be quite interesting…🤔.
The night was pretty uneventful but the winds had started to pick up early in the morning to about 15 knots from the southwest. The waves coming into the marina were still less than a foot so no issues there…yet. I started a couple of loads of laundry and set about cleaning the interior of the boat as the winds continued to blow harder into the afternoon. They had also started coming out the south-southeast so they were blowing over about 4 miles of water before coming into the marina. Needless to say, the waves were starting to get much bigger and the proof between them was getting much smaller. Also, the talk on the dock was that the storm was supposedly going to get much stronger than predicted and a change in course would have it effecting the marina worse than expected.
So by 1 pm, the winds were blowing a steady 20-25 knots into the marina from the south and the waves had grown to about 3′ so everyone was rocking pretty good. We started doing dock walks with the dockmaster to check dock lines on all the boats of people not there. It was about this time that the wind has started hurting into the low 30’s and the boats were really starting to dance around in their slips. One couple on a larger powerboat were starting to notice that the slip they were in wasn’t going to work for them as the boat was bending the pilings and causing them to run on the fixed dock. The solution was to move them to a better slip so they fired up their engines, about 10 people worked their dock lines, and once they got clear of the slip they motored around to their new slip. The wind was really moving their boat around as they approached the slip so as many dock lines were thrown to the people waiting on the dock and we literally pulled them into their new slip. It was a battle but many hands won that war!!
At this point, it was starting to get dark and the winds were now steady in the mid 30 knot range with gusts into the 40’s. That much wind will not only create pretty big waves but it will start moving the water in the bay and this is exactly what it did. As the storm worsened, it started raising the water level in the marina a lot more than the normal tide amount (you’ve probably heard it referred to as storm surge during hurricanes) so all of Infinity’s dock lines needed to be adjusted tighter. This went one into the wee hours of the night as the storm course has changed and was going to continue blowing from the south.
I have videos of Infinity riding out the storm but I can’t upload them in the blog but believe me, things were starting to get pretty rough. I decided to stay in the boat in case I needed to fix lines or help with other boats(of which I did both) but most people went to the boaters lounge for the night. At some point in the night, a very loud popping noise started somewhere outside so I went to see what it was and going a sailboat that was a few slips away from me had the headsail start to unfurl and the wind was just destroying it in a very loud fashion. I also noticed that the powerboat next to me was tearing itself apart on the pilings. I told the dockmaster about it but he said he couldn’t do anything about it cos the boat was pulling the opposite pilings over so far that the lines weren’t going to be able to keep it off the dock pilings. Here’s pics of the results seen on the next day of both issues…
As the night dragged on, the winds picked up into the 40’s with gusts more into the 50’s ( the highest gust recorded in the marina was 57 knots and a 70 knot gust was recorded in Belhaven). For the record, a Class 1 hurricane starts at 74 knot winds so things were getting serious. The waves coming into the marina were about 4′ now and the water levels has gone up another foot or so and that meant I was out tightening my dock lines even more. I was quite amused that Infinity was strapped hard to the dock and still the bow went underwater maybe times during the night. It looked like the bow was moving at least 6′ or more as I could see under the boat as she was thrown to the highest point of the waves. Was I nervous that she wouldn’t make it thru the night without damage? Damn right I was…😬.
Around 3am, the storm finally decided that it has done enough damage in the area and began to move on. By sunrise, the winds were still blowing in the 20’s but were now coming out of the north so the waves basically dropped down to nothing. People started coming out on the dock and the stories started to be told of how things had gone for them. Most of the damage was, thankfully, minor overall on most boats!! Infinity had made it thru the night with basically a dock line being chafed so bad that I ended up throwing it away. I also noticed that my dock lines has cut groves into the wooden pilings…yikes. Another funny thing was that I had tightened up the dock lines so much that when the water finally receded back into the bay, Infinity was literally hanging from the pilings…lollol. I fixed that very quickly!! As I was doing my inspection of the boat, I noticed a lot of water was again in the back of the boat…🤔. Guess my fix didn’t completely solve the leak issue (it would come back to haunt me again but that’s going to be another tale in a future post) but overall, my floating home survived to fight another day!!
With the passing of the storm, the weather was forecasted to be pretty settled for a few days so I set about getting things ready to start moving north again. I was planning a long day to get up to Elizabeth City NC that included tackling the final hurdle in North Carolina. The Albemarle Sound was patiently waiting for me and this lovely 12 mile stretch of water was going to disappoint me…😞. Can you say enough already? Oh, quite the contrary as it had only just begun…😳.
Next up…crossing the Albemarle, Lambs Marina, and into the Dismal Swamp for a second time!!
❤️❤️❤️
Sailing Infinity 