We're home safe and sound and enjoying our time here! We've slept in our own motionless bed now for 6 nights. Our journey home didn't go exactly as planned, however. Instead of sailing from Norfolk with a stop at Cape Lookout, we sailed from Norfolk with no stop all the way to Brunswick where the good BOAT Nancy Lu is currently docked at Brunswick Landing Marina next to a railroad where TRAINS regularly rumble by. Instead of taking a PLANE as planned from Brunswick to Texas, we decided to rent an AUTOMOBILE and drive so that we could stop in El Dorado, AR for a couple of days to visit with my parents and the grandmothers. I don't know how we would have gotten all the stuff we brought home (including our old transmission that we want to send off to see if its problem-diagnosis was correct) if we had flown! Once again, Kenny Emerson helped us out by picking us up in our Suburban in Canton, TX where we dropped off the rental car.



We had quite a trip from Norfolk to Brunswick. We left from Norfolk, VA. Saturday, November 2 and arrived in Brunswick Tuesday, November 5. I've decided to make this blog mostly about what our passage was like; there's quite a bit to write about! Most of my readers are from back home, and I think they might be interested in details about an ocean passage so I've included a lot of detail and explanation. For our fellow cruisers, I'm sure you'll be aware of some of the mistakes we made as you read our story! Maybe you'll have some suggestions as to what we could have done better or differently. Maybe you'll even benefit from some of the ideas we got as we discussed our problems with others more experienced than we getting some great input that I'll share and [highlight by putting that info. in brackets]. Feel free to ignore those parts. Anyway, I hope this won't be too long and boring...there are some funny stories sprinkled in here and there...it is me, after all, and nature itself gave me some great experiences to share!

We had planned to leave the dock Tuesday afternoon, October 29, but the two mentors that we consult both advised us to hold off, each for a different reason.



This gave Timmy a chance to wear his Halloween costume for a walk on the docks in case there was anyone out to admire him on October 31. Following Peter's advice has always served us well, and we've recently started a kind of a mutual consultation with his friend, John. We met John and his wife Missy last winter in Brunswick. They still cruise for part of each year on the S/V Tenacious. We decided to take both their advice, so we waited until Saturday morning, November 2 to ride a cold front south.

We motored out of the marina at 0830 (8:30AM) expecting moderate winds to pick up later in the day.



I don't know if a dock full of seagulls all standing placidly facing the same direction is some kind of portent of weather, but that sight looked a little ominous as we motored out of Little Creek into the opening to The Chesapeake Bay and then into the Atlantic. We're always looking for winds in a favorable direction, which we had. We knew the winds were predicted to be strong for most of our passage, but we have confidence in Nancy Lu and thought we would rather endure the discomfort of that than wait the 2 weeks that we foresaw waiting before a better weather window would come along. The thing that we were a little worried about as we started out this journey was the fact that there had just been storms out there with strong south winds so that even though the wind driven waves from the south that we'd have to sail against would be gone, the ocean swells coming from the south might still cause us a rough ride especially when we got to the shallow waters around Cape Hatteras with the north wind having kicked up by then. We were hoping that the swells would have calmed by then (18 hours from when we set out). We were doing some pretty significant hobbyhorse action when we first started out (if Claire were with us she might have been seasick), but it wasn't bad for us. We had taken our "miracle-no-side-effects-seasick-remedy", Stugeron, the night before and continued to take it once every 12 hours for the next 2 days.


Also, the night before, I had made Mexican Caviar (kind of a salad good for dipping with corn chips) as an easy lunch for our passage and put together a meatloaf to be stuck in the oven and cooked for a dinner at some point on our passage. Dinner time that first night would have been a good time to go to the minimal trouble of sticking the meatloaf in the oven and preparing the fresh veggies I had to go with it, but I opted to make chicken enchiladas, which I thought would be easy to reheat for lunch the next day, as well--wrong decision! By the time lunch rolled around the next day, just warming up enchiladas in the microwave was too much maneuvering around for the rough ride we were having. I had peanut butter on a spoon with a banana, and Mark just ate a banana. We didn't have the meatloaf until 5 days later tied up to our dock in Brunswick! The north wind kicked in around 2100 (9:00PM) Saturday night. Luckily, we had already gone to the trouble of digging out our full cockpit-enclosure from underneath our bed and setting it up so we were nice and cozy in the cockpit, but any kind of movement or just staying seated where ever we happened to be, cockpit or below, was a challenge!

Our usual schedule when we're on an overnight passage is for Mark to stand watch as late as he can--around 1:30AM. I try to go to bed right after supper and then I stand watch from around 1:30AM to 5:00AM or 6:00AM. I go to sleep then for a few hours while Mark takes over. After that, we just kind of both watch all day. Mark usually takes a nap in the afternoon in preparation for staying up late. The whole cycle starts over after dinner.

For us, standing watch at night means that we stay awake up in the cockpit keeping an eye out 360 degrees around the boat and on the radar and the AIS, both of which show us any boats or obstructions out there. If we see that we're on a collision course with a ship or will come very near to it, we either change our course or radio the ship to ask them if they will change theirs. We let our autopilot "drive" Nancy Lu so instead of sitting behind the helm, I usually sit in one of two stadium-like seats that Claire encouraged us to buy at the 2011 Annapolis Boat Show. I turn mine to face forward on the cockpit bench. It is most comfortable to sit on the "low side" (the side opposite the side that the wind is coming from--the same side to which you have your sails set). Mark usually listens to a book on his iphone, and I read my paperwhite kindle (LOVE IT!!). We write information in a log every hour on the hour including our "Course Over Ground" (COG), our "Speed Over Ground" (SOG), the next waypoint we are heading to that we have programmed into the autopilot, the waypoint bearing (the compass direction we need to go to the next waypoint), the range to the next waypoint (how many nautical miles away the waypoint is from us), our position (latitude and longitude from the gps), the wind speed, and the wind direction. If we come to a waypoint during our watch, we push the "track" button to change to the next waypoint. If the wind changes direction or changes significantly in speed, we adjust the sails. If we're motor-sailing, we keep an eye on the rpms and the temperature of the engine. Of course, if something unexpected happens we have to deal with it. During this passage, I deviated from our norm at times, which I'll write about as I come to them.

The first deviation happened the first night. Mark felt that with the high winds (higher than we expected--up to 35 knots--gale force) that we were having that he wanted me to stay on watch with him especially going around Hatteras. So we both stayed in the cockpit; although, I occasionally laid down and closed my eyes holding on with one arm and bracing myself with one foot. [I don't know why we didn't think to take turns laying down in the saloon where we could be a better support for each other, making that our berth for the whole passage (we've done that before), but it was probably because the setee that we would need to use on the starboard side would definitely need a lee cloth and we hadn't hooked it up. We didn't realize that we would definitely need a lee cloth in our cabin, as well--duh! Besides, it's overwhelming to my desire for tidiness for me to have the saloon all discombobulated ☺.]



Before we left the dock, Mark had rigged up our staysail in a bag middeck on the starboard side to make it easier to use if we needed to. Well, we needed to use it or either our headsail (poled-out since the wind was behind us), but I was afraid for Mark to go out of the cockpit to hoist and rig up either one in the rough conditions we were experiencing. We were wearing our life jackets and we were using jacklines and tethers, but we decided that our method of using this safety equipment and some things about the safety equipment itself wasn't going to be effective in keeping us safe. For this reason, we were motor sailing with a reefed (rolled in to make smaller) mainsail alone, which we can control from the cockpit. Using the staysail would have given us a much better ride. [Before we go out again, we plan to dramatically shorten our tethers and have 2 for each of us. We also plan to change out the type of clips that we have on the end that clips us onto the boat. By having 2 tethers, we can use sort of a hand over hand motion to unclip and reclip as we walk our way around the deck. This way there is no moment that we're not clipped on. The shortened tether (I'm talking only around 2 or 3 feet) will ensure that if we fall we won't go over the edge into the water and be dragged! We can still use our long tethers when we're in the cockpit. Also, we're going to change the way we use jacklines, which will also keep us from going over the edge]. I finally went to bed around 5:00AM. We have never needed to use our lee cloths (canvas "walls" that are attached at the edge of our berths and held up by being hooked to the ceiling of the cabin; they keep you from rolling out of bed), but this time they were necessary! The problem was that we had not hooked them up by the time I went to bed. Since the port side was predominantly the low side, I quickly found out that sleeping in our big queen size berth on the starboard side was impossible without a lee cloth set up, which eventually we did. Since the wind was from behind us, we were surfing down waves, which made us rock from side to side (to put it mildly).



Because of this, even after we did hook the lee cloth up, I still had to pack pillows along my other side to keep me from rolling over the other way. Between that set up, the fact that our aft cabin experienced the fishtailing action of surfing down waves more than anywhere on the boat, and all the crashing and groaning sounds that the good ship Nancy Lu was making, I didn't really sleep much. It was miserable! Later that morning after the feat of trying to wash my face and brush my teeth (one second I would be jammed against the sink and the next I would be holding on as if I were hanging over the edge of a cliff), I took over for Mark.

Sunday was a pretty day, as were all the days of our passage except the morning we sailed into our marina, but the wind was still just as high.



I arranged Timmy, who HAS to be with me at ALL times on the floor in the second cockpit chair with his blankie on top turned sideways wedged between the starboard and port benches. This way he was able to stay in place pretty well, and I was free to hang on for dear life as needed. We were visited by dolphins on and off all day long! It's as if they said to each other in their best surfer voices, "Hey dudes, surfs up, and there's a sailboat out there; lets go PLAY!!" They put on quite a show doing tricks I had never seen them do anywhere but SeaWorld! Usually, when dolphins are swimming with us, I go up to the bow of the boat to watch. Of course, I couldn't this time, but that didn't matter. They would rocket up through a steep wave and then shoot up out of the water at least 7 feet. Then they would swim around Nancy Lu and do it some more! One time two dolphins shot up arching over our bow at the same time from opposite directions. It looked like a stunt that a trainer had taught them to do.



I tried to get pictures, but I didn't have much luck.



Most of the time I just got a splash through a windshield spotted with salt water. The state of the seas doesn't really even show up on a still photo. After about 15 minutes of play, the dolphins would leave only to be replaced with another group (I guess it was another group) later on. After a day full of not much else other than holding on, writing in the log, reading my kindle some, and watching dolphins I went to lay down in my berth around 1815 (6:15PM) after a dinner of left over taco soup from a few nights before.



It was necessary for Mark to venture out on to the bow of the boat to repair our starboard running light before the sun went down.



That was the end of day 2.

I woke for my night watch around 12:30AM. By this time in our passage, both Mark and I were very used to holding on and bracing ourselves so I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden, I went sliding, chair and all, right down onto the floor where Timmy was peacefully sleeping. In a split second, I was on top of him. He didn't yelp so I guess I didn't hurt him, but he did NOT feel comfortable in the cockpit anymore. He wouldn't settle back down the whole rest of the night. Mark came up around 5:00AM just as I was leaning over the cockpit coaming holding onto the tether I had attached to Timmy's harness and was using like a leash to allow Timmy limited range to go out on the deck to do his business. After he finished and I pulled him back in the cockpit, Timmy let Mark take him back down to sleep with him for a little while. This is where I deviated from the usual night watch method again. Instead of sitting back in my chair facing front on the port side (sort of low side) as I had been doing, I put my chair down sideways on the floor on top of Timmy's chair and leaned my head back with the calves of my legs resting on the portside bench in front of me. I still had a clear view of the radar if not outside the boat, but since there was no moon and the windshield was a little fogged up, I couldn't see much of anything out there anyway. I was pretty comfy wrapped in a fleece blanket, and I admit I dosed off some. At the time, we were about 30 or 40 miles off shore, far from any shipping lanes, and there hadn't been anything on the radar all night. I just dosed in 15min. snatches and didn't miss my hourly log entry! Mark came up to relieve me around 6:30AM, but he noticed that the end of a line was dangling overboard which could be really bad if it got caught in our propeller.



He had no choice but to go out and take care of it so I waited for him to do that. Before he got back in the cockpit, an alarm went off that we'd never heard before. Our engine was over heating!!! We quickly killed the engine, and Mark started the process of trying to figure out what was wrong. Right away, he discovered that a belt was broken. To our surprise, we continued making great speed (around 8.5 knots) under power of just the mainsail. The engine needed time to cool so he let me go down and sleep a couple of hours before he worked on fixing the belt in the engine room.

Later that morning, after Mark successfully replaced the engine belt, we started the engine up again. I do NOT know how he did that down in the engine room where he had to balance himself draped over the top of the engine on his stomach with the boat pitching like crazy; he did it 'cause he HAD to, I guess. Much to our disappointment, the engine was still overheating! Mark quickly discovered that our new water pump was not pumping seawater through the engine to cool it. Off went the engine again! Mark spent all afternoon working on the problem, testing out solutions, and getting input via satellite phone from Peter and John. One of the many things that he tried involved yet another creative use of our wetvac! We thought there might be an obstruction in the water intake hose so we pressed the wetvac hose into the top of the strainer that attaches to the intake hose. We turned it on to see if it would suck seawater. It did, so we knew there was no obstruction. Bits of information like this helped in diagnosing the problem.



Finally, close to sunset, Peter threw out the possibility that the water pump had lost its prime. We thought this could have happened due to heeling over so much that the hole under the boat through which seawater is pumped (thru-hull) came out of the water causing it to lose suction. If this were the problem the solution would be easy. At the kitchen sink, I filled up a bottle of water and passed it to Mark in the engine room. He poured it in the strainer. We repeated this until it was full and then started the engine. IT WORKED!!!!! Since we were sailing along so well and making such good time, we continued on with the rest of our passage under the power of the reefed mainsail alone! The whole afternoon while Mark was troubleshooting and consulting, I was treated to more GREAT dolphin shows.




This time I remembered our tiny video camera so I was able to get some footage. It's nice and quiet in the cockpit because we are under sail power alone.



You can hear Mark talking on the sat. phone with Peter or John in the second video along with our Sirius XM Radio tunes. Click on the arrow to view each video.



This video doesn't have dolphins, but it shows the sea state, and you can hear that we've got the engine back on after we fixed it checking to see if everything's OK. After we determined that it was, we turned it off.

After a dinner of a few strawberries for me and a granola bar for Mark, I hit the hay, but didn't really sleep much because of conditions that I've already described! I came on watch at 1230 as usual, and Mark decided to try out the V-berth to see if that offered a better place to sleep. It did, so when he relieved me (and Timmy) at around 0400, I went up there to sleep with "a million" pillows. It was LUXURIOUS!!! It was sooo much quieter up there, the rolling and pitching wasn't near as bad, and I slept like a log....until Mark had to awaken me around 0630 because we were almost to Brunswick! I had been dreaming that I was a bridesmaid in a celebrity wedding (Jennifer Lopez was another bridesmaid), and all the pews in the church were big fluffy beds along with the alter. Everyone in the wedding was wearing pajamas...I wonder why I would dream such a thing???

That morning I came on watch with Mark to the same high winds, but added to that was light rain. It was also cold.



We were almost to the waypoint where we would turn up into the wind, which was in the middle of a 5 mile long shipping channel. We would need to start our engine for the rest of our trip. Our AIS showed that there were 2 large container ships leaving the harbor that could potentially meet us in the narrow shipping channel. Mark decided to start the engine about 30 minutes before it was necessary, and this was a good idea because the problem with overheating happened again! This time we had to try the solution 2 times before it worked---a tense situation! It started working just as we reached the shipping channel entrance to Brunswick. We could not have made it in against the wind without the engine. Once it was working, we knew we were out of danger! We entered the MUCH calmer waters of the river that leads to our marina. I actually fell asleep sitting up. Mark was up on deck putting out fenders when the beeping signal alerting us that we'd reached another waypoint went off, but it didn't register in my tired brain! Mark poked his head in the cockpit and asked why I wasn't changing track! After that, I was awake and helped with lines and fenders. We docked at the fuel pump, got fuel, checked into the marina, and then motored on towards our slip. We actually saw a couple of boats docked at the marina as we made our way to our slip that we've met during our travels. We enjoyed catching up with them at different times during our week-long stay in Brunswick. It was GOOD to be "home"!! A happy moment that I don't think I'll ever forget was when I looked ahead about 40 yards, as we motored in, and saw Geoff who was out on the dock working on his boat. I waved like crazy. The last time we'd seen our Scottish friends, Geoff and Linda, was last May! They came running to help us tie up to the dock where Nancy Lu is now waiting for us to return in January!

We enjoyed our stay in Brunswick. We got some boat projects done and readied Nancy Lu for us being away for a couple of months.



Mark needed to check our propeller so Geoff let him borrow his dry suit and helped him get the thing on. That was quite a sight,





but not near as funny as watching Mark struggle to get underwater!! We treated ourselves to a trip back to The Confederate Station for some bluegrass music and a little Scottish tune performed by Linda. We had Geoff, Linda and Nelly over a couple of times for meals so they could help us eat up all our food, and we enjoyed attending Sunday School and church with them at their church, College Place Methodist Church.



We had a wonderful visit with my parents and grandmothers on the way home!



Since we've been home, we've enjoyed a visit to Waco to see our Claire, and we've loved being back in our home church!



The land lubbin' life ain't so bad! I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things here before we head out again in January!

There are MANY more pics in the gallery tab at the top right of the blog. You can leave us a comment by clicking on the word "comments" just below and to the right of this sentence.