11/23/2010, Oriental NC

Turtle cuts open the rudder to see what is happening inside...

First, we have to tell you of all the turtles in our life. Turtles seem to show up everywhere. We have seen lots of turtles at sea, several of them before our transit of the Oregon Inlet. Isobel has a Turtle nightlight, which is quite cool. One of the early images of the tropics that has kept us inspired during the preparations for the trip... is a photo of a turtle. I can't think of all the turtles in our lives... so it was not a big surprise when the fiberglass guy here at Sailcraft Services introduced himself as "Turtle".

Turtle is clearly a wonderful fiberglass craftsman. He has already carefully removed the skin of the boat at the top of the skeg to determine what was damaged. It appears that the rudder did not contact the ground, but instead it appears that it may have been hit by a wave when we were broadside to the waves during the "incident". Although Pete worked hard to keep us stern to the waves. There was a moment when we tried to motor back out to sea, then realizing we would have no luck there, we turn back toward the inlet. So, twice we were taking breaking waves broadside... Our rudder post is bent and the core of the rudder is shattered. The skeg is bent to port.

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11/23/2010, Oriental NC

Our home... kind of...

You can see that we have unloaded all of our belongings out of the boat and into this truck box that we rented. Not too far from the boat and right next to our mast, the box has allowed us to make sure the work on the boat can be done efficiently and also that our stuff will not be covered with fiberglass dust.

Lara and Isobel have been in VA at Lara's Aunt's house and the SSCA found a house in Oriental where Bill is staying while the owners are in Texas for Thanksgiving.

From the initial guesses from the yard, it will take them about a month to complete the work. There are three major areas of work:

The rudder and rudder post
The bottom of the keel
The various bulkhead tabbing throughout the boats interior

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11/15/2010, Oriental NC

All of the mast wiring comes to this point, I set it up for this possibility. On the mast there are deck lights, navigation lights and the radar. The radar is connected by all the color coded wires at the bottom terminal strips.

We had a truck box delivered today... we will have to unload the "stuff" from the boat so that the repairs can be made. I will be working on a photo documentary to send to the insurance company to make clear where the problems are.

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11/15/2010, Oriental NC

Isobel helps fold up the dingy.

We prepped the boat for the haul out. The mast came off and the deck was cleared.

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11/12/2010, Oriental NC

Pete points the way. Yes, even here there are traps... must be crabs of fish traps...

We had an uneventful day completing the crossing of the Pamlico Sound. We are all very relieved to be tied up to Sailcrafts Boat Yard. There was some quiet stress today as we had to cross one of the big shoals in Pamlico Sound. We really did not want to come close to touching the bottom... and we didn't. There was one point when the wind and waves conspired to give us some flashbacks as the boat rolled in the big swell.

After a nice dinner out at Silo's everyone except for me is asleep... I will follow soon. tomorrow we will haul the boat, and start to unload what we need to so that the work can start. The mast will come down to work on the mast post, the rudder will come off and... who knows what else.

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bill
11/08/2010, Hampton Public Piers

Wanted you all to know that we will be departing Hampton at dusk today. This will have us arrive at a gulf stream entry point (34 15N 76W) early Wednesday morning. As Chris Parker, our weather guy said, this will be the least worst time to cross. We will have wind and waves behind us and we are expecting about 6 hours of pretty rough conditions. Nothing dangerous, but most likely unpleasant.

From there Chris has given us waypoints that have us use the Gulf Stream eddies to help us go south. Once we exit the GS we will be on a straight course to the BVIs. We will have plenty of wind and it will be behind us which will give us good speed. The waves will also be significant, although they will be behind us and spread out, so they will also help our speed as we will surf a little...

You will be able to check our progress on the http://www.carib1500.com/events/caribbean1500.html Click on the follow our progress link. Sunrise is in the Cruiser class 7.

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Bill
11/07/2010, Hampton, VA

Catherine returns home.

Catherine took advantage of being delayed in VA to visit her parents for her Dad's birthday. We celebrated her return with Pizza and green beans... Isobel wanted to make sure Catherine ate her beans...

Yesterday Pete and Bill completed the new wiring for the Solar, moved the cockpit radio location to make it easier for the person at the helm, more things we stowed. We discussed a watch schedule and emergency procedures, including Man Overboard (The Coast Guard has adopted the more PC "Person in the Water"

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Bill
11/05/2010

We now have the main cabin organized enough to be able to sit around and have a beer... a Vermont beer

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11/05/2010, Hampton Public Piers

What we are dreaming of...

Well, here we are, still waiting for good weather. We have friends who are leaving today in a 54' boat... thinking of staying west of the weather... hoping Tomas keeps heading east. I think we will hang in there and see how it develops.

Pete has been helping a lot: securing the floor boards and companionway ladder. We cleaned the water tank and replaced the seals on the access ports. We have rewired the solar to make for a cleaner installation. There are now lee cloths sewn and installed on all berths (this will allow Pete and Catherine to move out of the V-berth should we have rough weather. We have been stowing things and securing things.

The extra days have allowed us to talk through some of the emergency drills, location of items and watch schedule.

Bill has been doing some work on other boats to make a little extra cash.

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clear and very cold
11/02/2010, Hampton Public Piers

Isobel found some girls to play with. They investigate some mollusks on the pier.

We are still sitting here watching the hurricane Thomas in the Caribbean. The thought is that it will be sucked up the cold front by the low that will pass over us in the next couple days. in the mean time we do more project to get the boat even more ready! Pete and Catherine are great help.

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