Finally the new headboard car for the mainsail track arrived but we were still waiting on the Torlon ball bearings. I had ordered 300 of those because we were not sure the new car would come with the ball bearings (it did) and to cater for a situation where we dropped a car and lost more bearings all over the deck (we didn’t). We knew it was going to be a very tricky job installing all the bearings and it was. We had to take all the cars off (x12) by sliding them 3 at a time onto the short piece of removable track at the bottom of the mast, taking extreme care that the ones above did not slide off the bottom and scatter all their bearings over the deck. We then took them inside and lay them on a blanket where, after removing the track to reuse for the next lot, most of the bearings would fall out on the blanket. Anyway, it was a laborious process, and the top tip was to use shaving cream when we reloaded the cars with between 26 and 34 balls each, putting each ball bearing in one by one. I am pleased to say that we managed to get it all done without incident. It is not often that a job on a boat goes to plan, even if it is laborious.

We stayed 3 nights during this period with Aidan and Michelle at their house, which was luxury, especially during the massive electric storm that occurred while we were there. Luckily all the electronics on the boat survived that. The rain was torrential, so I was worried about the dinghy on the davits as although the bung was out, I am sure that at the height of the torrential downpour the drain was not keeping up with the weighty water accumulating inside.

As luck would have it, the Dockside Restaurant manager gave us a free night’s mooring which was generous. We headed out to the anchorage again and spent a night there and prepared for a very early departure up to Beaufort, 70Nm away. The wind was lighter than predicted again and we probably motored or motor sailed 80% of the way. This has been the story of the East Coast of the US!

The highlight of the day was passing through an area demarcated for naval exercises. We were amongst 5 other boats that had left at the same time as us so we were roughly travelling in convoy. The area was demarcated with 4 yellow buoys and on the chart it stated that it was restricted. I called up our nearest boat Elice and asked them what their plan was. This was after I saw what looked like (and turned out to be) a warship in the distance. There was then a conversation with crew from another boat. They had looked on the web and found that no exercises were planned for that day (Mothers Day Sunday), and that if there were no red flags flying on the buoys, we could pass through the area. As we got closer it became evident that something was going on but there were no red flags on the buoys. We heard a French guy in a yacht ahead and closer to shore than the rest of us, call the closest warship and ask if they should go around the buoys. We were all listening in and the mini aircraft carrier said no, we could go through but just stay 3 NM away from their vessels. This was a relief because going around the buoys would have added about 7-10Nm to our trip.

The next few hours were a spectacle of tilt wing Osprey vertical landing and take-off aircraft going backwards and forwards like bees to and from a hive. In the mix were some conventional helicopters as well as hovercraft coming and going from the giant garage at the back of the vessels. They were sailing back and forth and at one stage coming quite close. Close enough, that I thought it prudent to call them. At first the Captain said no you are good, just maintain your course but 5 minutes later he asked me to steer to the starboard and said he would increase speed to 10 knots, at which point a hovercraft emerged from the garage with much spray and splendour.

We arrived at the Beaufort inlet at about 18h00 and had to stem the tide all the way in, navigating our way up the winding buoyed channel between the barrier islands to Taylor’s Creek and Beaufort Dock. The anchorage was crowded but we managed to squeeze in. It is a tricky anchorage because the combination of bidirectional tidal current, wind and the narrow strip outside the channel buoys make for interesting tracks on the anchor alarm App, as you waft all around your anchor position. Up until now we thankfully have seen no bumping of boats.

We did not know it then but this was going to be our home for a while. We now needed to stage ourselves to get around Hatteras, which is a tricky business as there is 240NM without a place to stop, currents and eddies from the gulf stream and some shallow water. The map of historical wrecks in the Maritime Museum here is scary enough to make one nervous and sit up and pay attention.

The weather was changeable and all over the place. There was a big diversion between all the weather models and every morning we frustratingly could not see any weather window where there wasn’t diametrically opposed wind directions from one model to the next, warnings for rain squalls, gusts, thunder and lightning, fog (we haven’t seen that since 2016 in Portugal), or just long enough consistency of wind direction. You need good weather with the right wind for between 36 and 40 hours to do this rounding. Again, we were surrounded by boats that could fit under the bridges and take the ICW inland route so it was frustrating to see all those boats leave. Of course, there were also other boats like us that make us feel not alone as we compare notes with other crews, as to their opinions and interpretations of the weather models. Most sailors in this area are US or Canada registered and have done this Beaufort via Hatteras to Chesapeake passage many times. They all concured with our interpretation of the weather which provided a level of comfort. However, of course we were now keen to get to Cape Charles, pack up the boat and go home to Pommieland. Veronica also wanted to see her cousin in Maryland, enroute. Into the mix was the local weather so we took the precaution of going into a marina for 3 expensive days. This turned out to be wise as not only did it give us the freedom to roam town but we could also use their loan car for an hour at a time to go to marine stores and shops. Mostly it allowed us to sit through some 30 knot winds and a pretty wild thunderstorm and torrential rain. Iffy weather that spread over the 3 days. There was some very close lightning on Wednesday night so we were took refuge in a bar over the road. The boat electronics survived again thankfully.

During this time we did a few walks, visited the nature reserve island with its wild horses, egrets and crabs and enjoyed town including the free and pretty impressive Maritime Museum. One of its main themes was Blackbeard who, it seems, hung out in the area. He died close by whilst tackling another ship just up the Hatteras coast. Also, Martyn had had 6 days of floaters in my left eye, necessitating a trip to an optician who thankfully confirmed it was nothing serious like a retinal detachment and that it would not affect his eyesight. This was the eye that took a big smack when Martyn came off his mountain bike and broke his arm in the French Alps last August.

So here we are still WOW (waiting on weather) trying to make the most of a frustrating time. I had hoped to be writing this blog from Cape Charles in the Chesapeake but alas, today is Friday, we have been here 5 days since last Sunday evening and it doesn’t look like we will be out of here before next Wednesday if we are lucky. We are going back into another marina on Saturday and Sunday night as some more thundery weather is predicted. More in the next blog.