I woke up from a great night at anchor in Wrightsville Beach excited to head out the Masonboro Inlet and towards Beaufort NC without having to deal with bridges or traffic!! Yes, I was heading offshore for the day and if it was anything like the day we had heading south, it would be relaxing and very enjoyable. Of course, it was just me and I was heading north so…yeah…😖.
I was up at 4:00 so I could get a jump on the day as it was going to be 80+ miles and 14+ hours. I went out the inlet and turned northish once I cleared the jetty. Otto (the autopilot…😁) was directed to head straight towards the Beaufort inlet about 12 hours later…nothing in the way, no rain, no wind to speak of, and not another boat around.
I spent the next few hours cleaning the boat, making breakfast, and keeping Denise up to date on how things were going. I did my boat checks and all was good!! I figured that this was going to be a great day and so far it wasn’t disappointing me in the least!!
And then….
Infinity, Infinity…this is aircraft carrier 1 on 18, over. My head snapped towards the VHF radio in disbelief that someone was actually calling me. Infinity, Infinity…this is aircraft carrier 1 on 18, over. I grabbed the mike and replied… aircraft carrier 1, this is Infinity, over. A very military type voice replied back…Infinity, aircraft carrier 1 is participating in a military exercise and you are required to maintain a 3 mile separation from the vessel at all times. I looked at my chartplotter and saw that there was an AIS marker for a “military vessel” about 5 miles away and moving slowly at 2.5 knots away from me. I replied back that I would maintain the required separation and to have a great day. I adjusted course and it showed that I would pass behind them at about 3.5 miles. Cool, I thought, this won’t be that hard!! Then they changed course more towards me and that dropped the closest point of approach to about 1.8 miles. Lovely, I changed course again to get their required separation and they changed again…😖. Let the games begin…
So this game played out for about the next 3 hours as I made my way past Camp Lejeune and the war games they were playing. I saw a Marine hovercraft go by about 300 yards off my stern (cool and very loud), an Osprey fly over, and a helicopter swing by to check me out. I had to go way off my track to finally get around everything so it added a bit of time to the day.
As I made my way towards Beaufort Inlet, the winds that were forecast to pick up to about 15-20 knots started to fill in from my stern. I was expecting it to do this but I was also planning to be at the inlet when it did. I was still about 15 miles south of the inlet so I knew I was going to experience some building seas from behind and it didn’t disappoint me. I was soon taking water into the cockpit thru the open back of the boat but the boat was made for this so it wasn’t a big deal. Well, it wasn’t until I did my afternoon checks below and found the bilge was half full of salt water and still filling up…😳. It might be normal on some boats but on Infinity, the bilge is usually dry. My heart beat rate went from calm to OMG on about 2 seconds!! I immediately kicked on the bilge pump and start pumping the water overboard and I ran around looking at the thru hulls and any other openings that the sea could be coming in at. After about 10 minutes, I determined that the water was coming in from the back of the boat so I tore into the lazerettes looking for the leak. Nothing jumped out at me but I figured the only things back there to let in that much water were the scupper drains (drains from the cockpit to the stern thru hoses) and it must be a broken hose or fitting. I have plugs that are made from Nerf material just for this issue so I grabbed them, crawled out to the stern, and plugged up both drain fittings.
Once I had the drains plugged, I set about getting all of the water out of the bilge, in the area where the prop shaft exits the boat, and in the lazerettes as well as keeping an eye for any more incoming water. While all this was happening, the seas were getting bigger and I was approaching the inlet for Beaufort so I was a busy guy!!
I roared into the inlet being pushed by the waves and the current running towards Beaufort while still keeping an eye on the water coming into the boat. Once I got around the breakwater, the waves dropped away completely and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Now that the back of the boat wasn’t getting swamped from waves, the water seemed to stop coming in. I turned my attention to seeing how far past Beaufort I could get as I wanted to make it to Belhaven NC the next day so I could hide away from a big blow that was coming in a couple of days. I wanted to go about 12 more miles to an anchorage that had really good reviews and I almost made it but I had to pee so bad that I found a spot about a half mile before the anchorage, dropped the anchor to stop the boat, and then proceeded to pee over the side of the boat (it’s sterile and it was much better than peeing my pants…🤣🤣🤣). I then finished anchoring the boat and did that Benny Hill walk (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it…😉) back to the cockpit for what turned out to be a really great evening!!
If I had known what the next 5-6 days would bring, I probably would have gone back to Beaufort and sold the boat…
Next up…the Neuse River, Belhaven, boat maintenance, and what a 57 knot wind will do to a boat…
❤️❤️❤️
Sailing Infinity 