Two-Up
26 May 2016 | Cape Lookout, near Beaufort, North Carolina, USA
Vicki - 25 c (77f), 1/8 Cloud. Wind SW 8 knots
Well we're back folks for another season on Vanish in the USA. This time there is only the two of us, Maynard and myself as Mike left in January to pursue his yachting career down in Florida. As Vanish is located overseas from our home in Australia, we have felt that it was prudent to have crew to look after her full-time. However, we've done a 180 deg on that idea as we've found we can simply get on the phone and find professional help whenever we need it no matter where we are in the US or overseas. In fact, Mike helped prepare Vanish for our departure from Brunswick, Georgia by testing systems, cleaning the boat inside and out, changing the oil, stocking the fridge and doing dozens of other jobs. The last time we were on Vanish was in October last year so it had been a long time since we had seen her. She still looks brand new with her polished stainless, polished hull, antifouling, and new carpet and blinds and new bedding. Whenever we step onboard after a long time, we just look at each other and say, "Wow."
We have actually been in the US for three months while Maynard attended to work in Louisiana so we were both more than ready for a break. We departed Brunswick with a great forecast of a week of relatively calm weather and flat seas where we could spend the time at Cape Lookout swimming and walking and getting used to operating Vanish by ourselves. We could have stopped for the first night at Beaufort, South Carolina but decided that things were going so smoothly that we would continue so we ticked off our first overnight passage on Vanish. Done. Easy. The seas were less than ½ meter and a number of other vessels were making their way north at the same time. Luckily the moon was at 90% so the night passage had good visibility which is something I prefer. During the day, I saw an F-18 drop 6 white flares about 5 miles in front of Vanish for some reason. Later in the day we had to avoid a warship exclusion zone. After 333 miles we anchored on the evening of the second day pretty pleased with ourselves at our first two-up passage. However, this morning a storm called Invest 91L has shown up and is making a beeline straight for our holiday anchorage. Last year we endured 7 days on the anchor at Cape Lookout while a low spun offshore bringing 40 knots of wind, rain and noise. Not again!
(Two-Up: Aussie term for a gambling game involving a designated spinner throwing two coins of pennies into the air. Players gamble on how the coins will fall.)