We had invited our friends Benny and Bonnie to go sailing with us back in the dead of winter so this trip had been planned for a while. As the date approached we realized that other events would affect the weekend as well. First, we had not realized that the Oriental Boat Show was scheduled for Friday through Sunday. The boat show was a lot of fun last year so we had some interest in going. Our plans were to leave on Friday morning so we could go to the boat show on Friday afternoon and still have all day Saturday to take our friends sailing. Benny and Bonnie seemed to enjoy our previous sailing trip and we were hoping for another good experience. I realize that I almost always mention weather in these log entries, but if you spend any time at all around a boat dock, with sailors, you will find that weather is always close to the top of the list of conversation topics. The forecast had been for beautiful weekend weather all week until Thursday. Then it seemed that every weatherman in the country was conspiring against us. It all started with a phone call from Judy to me on Thursday at about noon.

Thursday April 15, 2010 Tax Day
Judy works for an accounting company during tax season, which as you probably know, ends on April 15th. The office staff's task this day was to make sure all the customers' paperwork was picked up or delivered and then close the office, lock the doors and leave for a long weekend. They were not sure what time that would be but it could have been as late as 5pm, which is why we had planned to leave on Friday morning. When Judy called at about noon she said that all the paperwork had been delivered, the office was closed and she was on the way home. She said she could be ready to leave for the coast by the time I finished work and wanted to know if I wanted to leave early. I am sure most readers would anticipate that I would answer in the affirmative, so a plan was laid.

I was completely unprepared for the early departure but Judy did most of the work to get us ready, and we actually left home at about 5pm. The weather was beautiful at home but the forecast had taken a turn for the worse. There was a small craft advisory for the Pamlico sound for Friday through Saturday, so we just hoped for the best and left for the coast. We had an uneventful trip and arrived in about 5 hours as usual. It was a pleasantly cool evening with no bugs, yet.

Friday April 16, 2010
We woke late (for us) on Friday and had our standard coffee and cereal breakfast. I took covers off the boat for Saturday's sail as a display of optimism that the weather would turn around. We took a nice long walk around down to Point Marina and down the road a ways, for some exercise. The boat show was to start at noon. Judy packed a lunch and we drove to downtown Oriental for a picnic at Lou Mac Park. We thought the river looked awfully calm for a small craft advisory but then what do we know? We are just sailors, not meteorologists. The boat show was fine, but I don't think it was quite as good as the first one, last year. There were some vendors and a dozen or so sailboats to look at but nothing too exciting. We poked around for a few hours and looked for our friends Joe and Jean's boat. We found the boat with her hatches open but we didn't see anyone around. We made a stop in Oriental at an art shop for Judy and The Provision Company for me. I had bought some fancy stainless steel cleaner at the boat show and needed a paint brush to apply it. We didn't have any firm plans for dinner until I noticed that the seafood market was still open. It's hard for me to pass up fresh seafood for dinner. We left town with a half pound of fresh flounder and stopped by the local grocery to buy something green to go with it.

Back at the boat we relaxed for a while and I tried my new stainless cleaner, which did not work, as well as I had hoped for 20 bucks. I gave Benny a call on his cell phone because I had understood they were going to arrive on Friday afternoon. I did not get an answer but I discovered later that his phone service does not work well in Pamlico County. This is a common complaint. We grilled the flounder and Judy prepared steamed broccoli, brown rice and cooked carrots. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't get any better than that.

By this time the weather forecasters were really confused. They knew they needed to issue a small craft advisory but they couldn't seem to decide how long it needed to last. The West to Southwest wind had managed to blow a lot of water out of Brown Creek due to the famous Pamlico sound wind tide. The wind was supposed to blow 20 to 25 knots all night but the advisory would be lifted sometime Saturday morning. The water was so low that I had real doubts about being able to get Southern Star out of her slip on Saturday morning. It would be a waiting and watching game and we would not be able to make a decision until after our guests arrived the next day. By 8:30 pm I was exhausted. After sitting on my rear nearly all winter I was not used to the non stop activity of a spring day at the boat. I went to bed and slept like a stone. Judy was not far behind.

Saturday April 17,2010
We woke to a cloud cover that was a bit disturbing. It's hard to tell just what the wind is doing out on the sound when we are in our very protected creek, but we could tell there was more than a gentle breeze. It has been my experience that strong West winds are a little easier to deal with than strong East winds because they don't tend to create quite so much wave action. I had decided that we would go sailing if we could get out of the slip. Our boat has an unusually deep keel for a vessel her size. In a strong wind or heavy sea, it works great because it tends to stabilize the boat and make her very sea-kindly for such a small boat. That same deep keel is not so great in the shallow creeks and channels in coastal Carolina. Every boat is a compromise so we just recognize it as a limitation and deal with it.

Benny and Bonnie arrived right on time at 10am. We told them about our low water issue and they took it in stride. We decided to relax and give it some time. The small craft advisory had been lifted and I figured the water would start to rise soon. I was watching a partially submerged crab pot under the dinghy dock. There was only about 4 to 5 inches of the pot sticking out of the water. I told Benny that if the water rose enough to sink the crab pot completely, we would probably be able to get out of the slip but we would be digging a little ditch as we went.

We put up the sunshade and had a nice visit. We really hadn't seen much of each other since our last sailing trip. As we talked the crab pot began to disappear. We had no idea what we would find out on the sound if we could get out of the creek. Judy suggested that we go ahead and have lunch at the dock and give the water a little more time. After lunch the crab pot was almost gone. Benny and I removed the sunscreen and he helped me reef the main sail. I was still concerned about the strength of the wind especially with guests aboard. By the time we actually got underway, about 1pm, we had no trouble getting out of the slip and we only bumped the bottom once getting out of Brown Creek. We had to dodge a lot of crab pots in the creek channel but getting to the sound was uneventful except for the captain's minor brain cramp at the mouth of the Broad Creek channel where he was talking when he should have been steering and ran aground when he got too close to the edge of the channel. According to my rule book a grounding doesn't count if you don't have to call the tow-boat. I was able to use the old "rudder wiggle" routine to get off the sandbar and we continued out into the sound.

I had explained to Benny that the first sailing trip aboard Southern Star guests were considered just that, guests. On the second trip they are considered crew and are fair game to help with sailing tasks. Benny helped me raise the main sail while the mate steered us into the wind. As we raised the main I released the reef we had taken earlier because the wind was almost calm. The conditions were a big surprise because we were expecting at least 15 knot winds that would have required a reef in the main and a reefed headsail, or perhaps no headsail at all. It was a beautiful afternoon. The expected wave action was simply not there. The wind was light and variable. At one point it piped up to maybe 8 knots but generally we were changing sail trim and direction continuously looking for wind. At one point I spotted a small rainstorm to the west, I am sure this was the 10% chance of rain the forecasters mentioned.

Bennie and Bonny had offered to take us to dinner on Saturday night at the M&M Restaurant in Oriental. Past experience told us that we needed to be there early if we didn't want to stand in line. When we got back to the dock at about 4pm, we did a near flawless (very unusual) landing when we had expected to have a low water wrestling match getting back into our slip. I felt good about the landing and it helped make up for the rookie mistake of running aground at the mouth of Broad Creek. We agreed to meet at the restaurant at 5:15. When the ship's chef is as good as Judy, it's hard to get excited about any restaurant, but the M&M is a good place to eat. The food is good and the service is generally good as well. Everybody had the flounder special except Judy who chose the house special hamburger. I'll have to say that if you want a really good hamburger, the M&M can't be beat.

Benny and Bonnie were staying at the Cartwright House, an elegant Bed and Breakfast in Oriental. They invited us back there to relax and sit a spell in the big rockers on the porch. By about 9pm the long day was beginning to catch up with us. We walked out to the pier a few blocks away to check out the river. It was a little cool to stay very long. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the boat. To add yet another twist to an already confused weather pattern, we saw a lightening flash and it rained all of five minutes shortly after we got aboard. It never rained again all night as far as I know.

Sunday April 18, 2010
Sunday morning's weather was spectacular. We had slept under two blankets and it was quite chilly outside. Our guests had planned an early departure so we did not try to meet them again. After all the worry about low water on Saturday, we had to step down onto the dock on Sunday morning. The water was up at least 12" from the night before. This was due to a wind shift to the northeast. Typically, the best sailing day is whichever day we need to travel home. We packed up and Judy gave the galley a good scrubbing with vinegar. She has found vinegar is a good cleaner to remove mildew and there is plenty of that on board a sailboat. I like the smell of the vinegar because it seems so fresh. Judy says the smell reminds her of dying Easter eggs when she was little.

We went for a nice long walk before the 5-hour trip home. We hoped that would make up for the planned stop at Wilber's on Goldsboro for some eastern North Carolina style barbeque.

We don't see Benny and Bonnie often but we always enjoy their company when we do. Hopefully they will be back soon for a return engagement and we hope they enjoyed their day aboard as much as we enjoyed having them.