Kaimusailing

The afternoon started day three as Kaimu was changing from sailing to motoring on its way to the end of the reef off Point Lookout. The roller furler had failed and the genoa was trussed up to keep it from flapping itself to death. With the motor running full time, the engine battery was jumpered to the batteries that power the pilothouse. The Toughbook nav computer could run full time and I got one of the GPS usb bugs to work with it, but it wouldn’t automatically update the position on the OpenCPN nav program. A separate GPS panel was opened up and data was taken off that to find our position on the digital chart, mark our intended course, and monitor our progress.
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I was looking for buoy R4, which should be a red flasher. It wasn’t exactly at the end of the reef, but it was probably deep enough there for Kaimu to slink through in the lower wind and wave conditions. We never saw that buoy. I began to disregard looking for them and made a course directly for the beginning of the markers for the approach to Beaufort Inlet. We ran for quite a while and it was eerie trying to make heads or tails of the navigation lights. I found out later this is a typical problem, advice is to stay out till daybreak and follow the markers in during daytime.
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This course to the inlet was taking a long time and we were burning fuel maybe at 2 gallons an hour, up from our usual rate. As we began the run down the inlet markers, it didn’t look as simple as the chart indicated. There were many more lights, very confusing. At one point I throttled down and turned around in the channel. Then I continued marveling at the view astern, where the nav markers were all lined up and simple, compared with the view ahead, a milky way of lights. It seemed like we were traveling in endless circles, but a quick view astern assured that it was a simple, almost straight, approach to Beaufort. I had the depth sounder on to confirm we were in channel.
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At some point I became confused as to where the channel went next. It was 1:30 AM and I thought it best to anchor, get some sleep, and continue on day 3. I anchored just to the side of the channel and slept fitfully, getting up to check that we weren’t dragging anchor.
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In the morning I found we were in 7 feet of water off to the side of a channel. I thought it would be OK to stay right there and take a day’s rest. There was a nice breakfast and some double checking of chart position and an idea to get underway, we were only a mile or so from Beaufort.
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The anchors were retrieved, I had set two. The idea is if the first anchor starts to drag, the second anchor will then take a strain and you will then see that the first has dragged and it’s time to either reset the anchors or let out more scope on the second anchor.
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I wasn’t sure which was the best course out of our little slough off the channel, so I followed the depth sounder, gingerly trying one side of the slough and heading to the other side till it shallowed, back and forth, mapping the channel. The chart said 25 feet, but we were coming up on either side at 4 feet, and finally we were resetting the anchors, we were trapped in a cul-de-sac with no way out.
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I used the smart phone quite a bit, found a map of the inlet and indications it was not at all like our nav chart depicted. We had .6 fathoms at mean low water, which is about the draft of the boat. High tide would be in 2 hours, so out came the crossword puzzles, and other diversions.
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There was a strong current coming in through the slough and when I became impatient and tried to pull up the small anchor, it was bar taut, I was forced to wait. At about 45 minutes to slack water I was able to retrieve the anchor and motor into the current, exactly matching its speed. I carefully monitored the depth sounder and sidled my way toward the real channel. When the depths started increasing I couldn’t feel relief, not until they went way deeper, 10, 15, 20 feet.
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The quick journey into Beaufort was a snap. The anchorage was quite full of boats, however. The advantage of a shallow draft catamaran is we can use the edge of the anchorage that most cruising boats have to avoid. We anchored right across from the town dock. Here is a picture of one of our neighbors.