We've Had Enough
27 September 2015 | At Sea off Savannah, Georgia
Vicki – Weather 23 F/73 F, Sea 25 C/77 F, Cloud 8/8, Wind 15 kn NE
Picture this. You’re lying in bed listening to wind hitting the boat in wave after wave of rain squalls when something changes outside. The boat just ‘feels’ different. It’s 5 a.m. on Friday and pitch dark outside except for the lightning. I race up to the bridge where horizontal rain is drenching the carpet through the open aft door while Maynard checks our position. He discovers that the wind has changed to a westerly and we are now in 3 meters of water on high tide being blown onto a bank. Just because we’ve had 7 days of consistent north-easterly winds, doesn’t mean the Gods can’t mix it up a bit. We should have anchored another 100 meters away and are now paying the price. No matter how long you’ve been cruising, these things can and do happen. Mike, vigilant as ever, had been awake for hours and came up immediately to help raise the anchor in the dark to move Vanish back out to the middle of the more exposed anchorage. It was safer out there but we endured another 24 hours in 30 knots of once again north-easterly wind.
By now, after 7 days of terrible weather sitting under this east coast low, we’re getting worn down. Yesterday’s near beaching was scary. We could have spent our time at the marina in Beaufort, NC but we’d pictured kayaking, swimming, and beach walks while waiting for this event to dissipate. It didn’t happen. So now it’s 24 hours later on Saturday morning at 5 a.m. We’ve had very little sleep again listening to the maelstrom outside. With 40 knot gusts, Maynard’s anchor alarm app on his tablet goes off. The app is called Anchor Watch Pro by Pro Medial for Android. It sounds like 100 New York cop cars racing to an emergency with all sirens blaring. This is the sound we woke to. What now! Oh great. The anchor is dragging and we are heading for the opposite beach…..rather quickly. The adrenaline is pumping. Raising the anchor in high wind is hard. So much can go wrong.
When the anchor was finally raised, we knew immediately why it had let go. The ground tackle closest to the anchor had fouled and become kinked holding the anchor at an angle to the proper direction of pull. This rarely happens and we were unfortunate that it happened here. We’d set it correctly and backed down on it with both engines to the equivalent of 40 knots of wind. However, we’d had two windshifts in the past 24 hours and this had caused the anchor to roll over and for the chain to become kinked.
Finally, Maynard and Mike had the anchor on deck. It was still dark and blowing like stink. Maynard decided to motor out of the anchorage slowly and take stock of our situation. He looked at the weather reports which called for 30 – 35 kn winds with higher gusts and thunderstorms. We looked at the weather South of our position which showed 2 – 3 meter seas with wind of 30 knots but abating once south of Cape Fear to 20 – 25 knots. Every mile south was better. With the wind and swell behind us, even though it was sizeable, Vanish rides with extreme stability and smoothness in those conditions. In fact, it seldom rolled more than 2 – 3 degrees. Maximum roll was 5 degrees on one occasion. It was remarkably more comfortable than at the Cape Lookout anchorage and we all felt much safer. We knew we’d get more rest and sleep at sea than where we were.
As you can see above, we experienced waves breaking down both sides of Vanish as we rode the swells south. There were no other pleasure vessels on Marine Traffic at sea from Sandy Hook, New York all the way to Florida. It looks like most cruisers are either stuck in New York or the Chesapeake Bay or are waiting in marinas for this low to abate. As it turned out, it was a brilliant move to leave when we did. The boat was comfortable, we were able to watch the College football games on TV, and eat and do our watches with no trouble while constantly observing less wind and smaller seas. Oh, what a feeling.
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