The Southern Star crew had been looking forward to a nice long water trip all winter. We have gone on many little cruises, and have found that conditions in late May are usually favorable. I took the week after Memorial Day off from work with the following Monday for good measure. Judy did her annual archeological dig the week before Memorial Day, so she was not home until late on Friday. She had prepared almost everything for our cruise before we left, so we just had to do some laundry and packing before we could leave for the coast. We can do a lot of cruising in a week. Our first thought was to make the trip to Elizabeth City, NC but no matter how you look at it, a week is just not enough time to go that far. I wanted to relax and do as much sailing as possible. Traveling that far north would have required a lot of hurried motoring, which is not fun. Regular readers will remember that we went to Washington, NC (Little Washington) two years ago. I hurt my back on the trip and spent the week in bed on drugs. I remember very little about the trip. Judy did not have good time because she was afraid to leave me for any length of time. I do not do well on drugs. Little Washington was our destination with other stops before and hopefully after. This cruise would afford the maximum amount of sailing in a laid-back time frame.

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Saturday May 24, 2008
We were just too tired on Friday night to get completely ready to leave home. Judy had been on her dig all week and my week had been just a brutal. We finally left home about noon and had an uneventful trip to the coast, avoiding Raleigh's rush hour. We arrived in time to get settled in and meet our new neighbors Ed and Joyce on the catamaran "One Love". They usually cruise the Caribbean in summer but decided to stay in Carolina waters for a change. We had a nice visit aboard their boat and Ed gave me a nice trout that he caught. We spent the afternoon relaxing and getting ready for departure. Judy turned in early and I went to the cockpit, after a soup and sandwich dinner, to visit with Larry and our new neighbors Phil and Minerva who recently purchased "Loki", the Hunter 30 in the slip next to ours. I joined the Judy in the V berth before very late.

Sunday May 25, 2008
We had made tentative plans to join our friends John and Jerrie on Sunday to anchor out together on South River. John and Jerrie were traveling with friends Will and Betsy. They had been at Cape Lookout for several and were returning to New Bern on Sunday as we were leaving for points North. It seemed like a good time to meet since we were to be in the same general area, with time to spare. As it turned out, the timing was good. Judy had to do a grocery store run and I had several things that I needed to do before departure. I shipped a surprising amount of water. It didn't think we had used that much since the last filling. I also pumped the waste tank just to be on the safe side. I called John on the cell phone at about 11 am. He reported that he was entering the Beaufort channel after a nice ocean sail, and expected to be in the Pamlico Sound by 2 pm. This estimate proved to be wrong but it didn't matter. We left our slip at about 1 pm and set sail as soon as we cleared the Broad Creek channel. We sailed toward Oriental and the Adam's Creek entrance to meet John. We finally made contact via Marine VHF at almost 4 pm. John followed us to the South River anchorage and we arrived with time to spare before dark. John ferried us over to "Trinity" his 36-foot Allied Princess where we had a nice visit before dinner. Both crews were pretty wiped out after a long day on the water, so we parted company long before dark. We grilled Ed's trout for dinner and enjoyed a near perfect night at anchor. There were probably 20 boats in sight but South River is an excellent anchorage and many boats can fit comfortably.

Monday May 26, 2008 Memorial Day
I woke during the "wee hours of the morning" as usual and checked our relative anchor position. The scene outside was beautiful. The moon was about half full and the water was like glass. An abundance of anchor lights was very impressive. We had a good night's sleep and we were up at 7:30. This spring, we had gone to a giant yard sale near home with our friends (and cousins) Becky and Charles. One of our many purchases was a new coffee pot. It is a Revere Ware percolator type with a glass globe that let's you know how "done" the coffee has become. I'm sure it would be expensive if it were new but we paid a few bucks for a "gently used" pot. It took a while but Judy got the hang of it. She had ground some coffee especially for the percolator and it was really good. Coffee is important to us. We are not connoisseurs and we don't do the fancy stuff like latt�s, cappuccinos etc., but we do enjoy a good cup of coffee. Our old pot was huge and it did not have a glass globe. The new pot was a smashing success.

John and Will had taken Will and Betsy's "boat dog" for his morning constitutional. They stopped by for a visit while still in the dinghy. We said our goodbyes and they raised their anchor at about 9 am headed up the Neuse toward New Bern.

We were not in a hurry. Our destination for the day was Campbell Creek. We left South River at about 10 and had an easy sail for about an hour until the wind died completely. We motored for a while and noticed a square sail schooner behind us. A square-rigger is not something we encounter in the sound so we turned around to investigate. She carried a California state flag and her hailing port was San Francisco. We took pictures and traveled with her for a mile or so. She was following the Intracostal Waterway north and so were we, but she was going strictly by the ICW markers and we were cutting corners. About the time we entered the Bay River, the wind picked up and we had a really nice sail up the river until we came to the Hobucken cut. At this point the ICW gets narrow and we dropped our sails and cranked the diesel.

We covered 26 nm in about in about 6 hours and reached Campbell Creek in plenty of time for me to clean the nice Spanish mackerel I had caught on my clark spoon. I actually caught two Spanish but the first one wiggled off the hook before I could land him. I landed the second and Judy and I measured and identified him (or her) as a legal catch. I am not a sport fisherman. I fish because fish is my very favorite food. A legal Spanish mackerel is more than enough for dinner for the crew, so as soon as the fish was aboard and in the cooler, the lure was stowed for another day.

Campbell Creek is a beautiful anchorage and one of our favorites. It is however a bit tricky to enter. We learned from a dock mate, to enter from the extreme northern side of the unmarked entrance. If you follow the chart and keep a careful eye in the depth log it is not a problem and the creek holds 7 to 8 feet for about a mile upstream. Judy prepared lemon pepper chicken, for dinner, the only meat we brought from home. We knew the fresh fish would keep for a day on ice but the chicken would need to be eaten. As usual, the meal was excellent. We had a nice, but somewhat windy, night on the hook.

Tuesday May 27, 2008
We had done a really good job of setting the anchor. I thought we must have hooked something in China when I tried to pull it up. Our fortress (brand name) anchor works extremely well in the Pamlico mud. It has special attachments designed to hold well in mud and I can tell you, it works really well. I had to tie the anchor chain off and have Judy drive the boat over it to pull the anchor. It took a lot of effort and high RPMs to break the suction of the black mud. We carry a hand made canvas bucket for cleaning the deck after hauling the anchor. It works great and it is cheaper than a pressure water system. We motored North toward the Pamlico River and Washington NC. When we got to the river we found 20 knot winds right on our nose. The strong winds would not be a problem except they were from dead ahead. In order to sail we would have had to "beat" or zigzag across the river all the way to Washington. This can be done but it is not fun. To avoid a wet and extremely long tiring trip we just set a course head to wind and let the diesel run. Unfortunately, this is a common problem. Even if you elect to battle the elements and tack back and fourth, you don't have enough time in the day to reach the destination. We go to a lot of trouble and effort to maintain the auxiliary power plant and in times like this we are glad to take advantage of it. We motored all the way to Washington. About two hours out, we called the city dock and made reservations. We had called on Monday and left a message, so they were expecting us. We landed and I got the boat squared away while Judy went to the dock master's office to settle up for two nights stay. The Washington city docks are great. The facilities are not fancy but they are clean and relatively inexpensive. We did a walking tour of downtown Washington. There are several nice restaurants in town but we had fresh Spanish mackerel in the cooler. I grilled the fish while Judy prepared brown rice and vegetables. The price was right and the dinner was delightful. We turned in after a nice hot shore-side shower.

Wednesday May 28, 2008
We woke to a dirty cold rainy day. The forecast was for general gloom with scattered nastiness. The good news is that we had planned to be in port all day anyway. Judy had called ahead and made reservations at the North Carolina Estuarium, for the river tour. The Estuarium is a state museum dedicated to education the public about the North Carolina estuary system. Our sailing grounds are all considered an estuary and they are very important to the eco-system. The river tour was on a pontoon boat. It was very educational and lasted about 1 � hours. The weather turned ugly while we were out and we were both thankful we had foul weather gear. We returned to the boat for lunch and spend most of the afternoon going through the exhibits. It takes us a lot longer to get through a museum so it worked out just fine. When we finished we stopped by a Mexican bakery and picked up fresh sweet bread. When we got back to the boat and sampled the bread we decided to have fresh bread and cheese for dinner and not fight the weather and the restaurant scene. The forecast for Thursday is for much better weather. We turned early.

Thursday May 29, 2008
The forecast was correct, at least for the first part of the day. It was very cool and the wind was forecast to be light all day. We were up early. Judy went for one last stroll on the boardwalk and stopped the bakery for more of their delicious bread. The plan was to travel to the Belhaven Waterway Marina. We were not ready to head home and we really wanted to get some sailing in at some point. Belhaven is not as far as going all the way home so we called the marina and got a reservation. I got the boat ready to go and topped off the water tanks. We moved to "A" dock and, with the dock master's assistance, we pumped the head. This was my first experience with pumping the head in a foreign port. Using the powered pump is much easier than the hand pump I am used to at our dock. The charge was only 2 dollars and well worth it. We left Washington about 9 am and headed down the Pamlico River. The Pamlico lies WNW to ESE and the prevailing winds typically blow across the channel and provide sailboats a nice broad reach for miles and miles. But, as luck would have it, the wind was light and from the east. We motored nearly to Bath, NC where the channel was wide enough for tacking then set the sails hoping we would get a break on the wind direction. No luck. We had a lackluster sail for a couple of hours and made very little progress down the Pamlico. We had a over 30 nautical miles to go and limited time before dark. For the uninitiated, a nautical mile can be thought of as a long country mile. It takes about 8 statute miles to equal 7 nautical miles. We started the diesel and headed down river in light winds on our nose. But wait, it gets worse.

Not long after we doused the sails, Judy went below and shouted the very last thing a Captain of any vessel wants to hear. "There's water in the cabin sole!!!" This is a dire situation under any circumstance. I dashed below and opened the bilge cover. To my horror it was nearly full of water. Not good. I grabbed the handle to the manual pump and pumped it dry surprisingly quickly. I did not ask Judy to stop the engine but allowed it to run. The raw water intake can be used as a bilge pump in an emergency. After I pumped the bilge, I tried the float switch on the electric pump and found the bilge pump was not working because the panel switch was off. This was actually a bit of a relief because if the pump was not working, that would explain the excess water in the bilge. There was no way to know how long the pump had been off. There are many ways that water can get to the bilge. The stuffing box always leaks when it is running because the water lubricates the shaft. Ice melting in the cooler also ends up in the bilge. It had rained the day before and any little deck leak would put water in the bilge as well. I performed a through examination of the vessel, checking everything that I could think of where water could enter. All the thru-hull fittings were dry. The engine's water pump was dry. There was a tiny water leak associated with the wet exhaust but I think it has been leaking for years and did not account for that much water. Now that I had determined we were not sinking, my mind had time to settle and analyze the situation. The water was indeed high in the bilge but not nearly high enough to explain water in the cabin sole aft the galley near the companionway. After a while my memory kicked in. The very first time I sailed this boat was her sea trial on Lake Lanier. We saw the exact same thing. Suddenly there was water in on the sole in the galley. We determined she was not leaking then as I had determined she was not leaking now. I have never been able to explain why this happens but my supposition is that after a rain, like on Wednesday, water collects somewhere high in the structure of the boat. When the boat is healed to a certain angle, the water dumps into the floor. The fact that the water was suddenly found on the floor and the bilge pump was not operating was actually two unrelated problems that converged to create one of those panic situations that later becomes an adventure to the sailor.

Our day was not over. We had a long way to go and the forecast light winds were becoming very strong. A quick check of the weather radio told us that the 18 knots we were experiencing must be only in our imagination. The forecast was still for light winds of 5 to 10 knots. The wind was still on our nose as we headed South of East down the Pamlico. It was a bumpy ride but it was predictable. Belhaven is located on the Pungo River. When we reached the confluence of the two rivers, we turned due north. This put the alleged "light" wind on our starboard quarter. The short steep chop that we so often experience in the shallow waters of the Carolina coast was now causing the little ship to roll violently from one side to the other. We deployed our large headsail. It really helped to keep the boat on her "feet". In this kind of sea, Judy always takes the helm. Although she was not seasick, it seems prevent problems if she steers and has something to do other than thinking about the motion. It was difficult to sight navigational markers. I guess it was the combination of rough water and the fact that all the marks had land in the background. We worked together using charts binoculars and the ever-popular GPS chart plotter and found Belhaven, exactly where the chart said it was.

Judy called the marina on marine VHF as soon as we cleared the breakwater. We were given docking instructions and received assistance from both Les and Brenda, the proprietors of Belhaven Waterway Marina. We had stayed with them before back in 2005. Theirs is a small strictly transient marina and one of the nicest places we have stayed. The entire facility including the grounds is immaculate and the proprietors are friendly and personable. The men's bathroom is a mini World War II navy museum. There are artifacts and photographs complete with a "Dear John" letter. We splurged on dinner at "Fish Hooks" restaurant. The food was good and the prices reasonable.

Friday May 30, 2008
We were planning to leave early and head for home. The forecast for Friday was good and we would have stayed out another day but the forecast for Saturday was for small craft advisory in the afternoon. We were still hoping to do some sailing and this would be our last chance. We left Belhaven with Les and Brenda's expert assistance and motored in almost no wind, down the Pungo and across the Pamlico rivers. We continued to motor down the Hobucken cut. When we reached the Bay River a very nice breeze greeted us. It was generally from the east at about 8 knots. Since the Bay River flows generally east, we were faced with tacking out to the Pamlico Sound. Tacking is fun when the wind is right, and you are not in a hurry. We zigzagged across the river, tacking when the water depth became less than comfortable. Our speed was about 4 knots as we tacked out of the river into the sound. When we turned south, toward home, the wind was on our port beam giving is an excellent broad reach all the way home. We delayed entering our home channel for an hour or so because of the excellent conditions. After we had been on the water for almost 7 hours, we headed for our dock.

Saturday May 31, 2008
The weather was much better than forecast. We eased into the morning and decided to go into New Bern to attend the Neuse River Festival, a typical small town street fair. The raft races were very entertaining. We stopped by for a short visit with our friends Richard and Francis. Their remodeling project is going well. We returned to the dock and had a simple dinner. Later, dock mates Dan and Harriet stopped by for a visit. We had not seen them in a long time and it was nice to catch up. The rain we were expecting never came and we enjoyed another pleasant night aboard.

Sunday June 1, 2008
We were in no hurry to leave, but it was time to return to the real world. After a week we were just getting the hang of relaxing and enjoying just floating. I would not have objected to untying the boat and taking off for another week or two but for now, it was back to work. There was a lot of car packing to do and we did a lot of visiting. Joey was having a little running light issue and I was able to help him fix it. We left at about 2 pm and the drive home was uneventful.

It is amazing how short a week can seem when you are having a good time. At some point we may be able to take longer voyages but for now we plan to enjoy every minute we have on the water. This was a very successful trip and best of all, there was no damage to the vessel or her crew.

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