Offshore to Beaufort
07 May 2011 | Coast Guard Station
Nancy
Pulled anchor and got underway at 6:15 am. Dense fog in Wrightsville Beach. Very wet. Put up the mainsail before negotiating the Masonboro Inlet. Once we got thru the inlet the fog wasn't as bad: colder water in the ocean took care of that. Pulled out the jib sail and motored with two sails up. NW winds and 3-4 foot swells. Fishermen galore also out there; fog doesn't seem to bother them at all.
At 0800 all sails were up and the engine off. Doing 6 to 7 knots with the sails doing nicely on a beam reach. Cold and damp so far.
Nancy got a little seasick from the wave motion; crackers and ginger tea did the trick. Getting up in the cockpit was good too. So far the sun isn't warming up Troubadour very well.. The easterly swells are conflicting with the NW wind chop, making for and interesting and complicated sea.
The wind kind of fizzled out around noon--down to 6 knots true. We took the stay sail down and started the engine. Jib came down shortly after. Gave up the ghost on the main sail and it came down at 2 pm. The wind had shifted to the SW and is around 3 knots true. Oh well.
The Beaufort inlet was a little rough with the current against us. We'd wrapped up our headsail instead of struggling to do a jibe in such big squirrely waves. Halfway in we pulled it out a little just to steady the boat. Lots of big fishermen boats coming in producing amazing wakes; which added to the already big waves.
Made it to the Ft. Macon anchorage near the Coast Guard station around the corner and dropped the hook at 5 pm. This is a new anchorage for Troubadour.