Wind and Small Vessel Advisory.

by Riley

So this weekend, as planned, we took our first overnight cruise over to New Bern some 70ish miles away from our marina in Washington. It started with a nice sail down the Pamlico, to where we entered the Intracoastal Waterway, over to the Neuse part of the Pamlico Sound. 

When we entered the Neuse, it was clear the wind was stronger than it had been earlier, but still manageable. Then the wind started to build, and the waves. Before too long it got rough. The wind was right on our nose and making headway against it and the building waves was difficult. 

Originally, we had planned on Oriental, NC as a halfway point to stop at for the night, but after realizing that getting there at a reasonable time would not be possible, we found a small hole in South River to anchor after 13 hours of sailing. 

We didn't get much sleep. I was worried all night about the anchor not holding, hopefully something I will get over in the future. The next morning, I tuned in to the NOAA weather to listen. High winds, waves and a small vessel advisory for our location. The forecast had a way of making me nervous. After evaluating my options and saying some prayers, we pulled up the anchor and set sail to pound our way against the weather, with a few contingency plans in case it got to be more than we could handle. After 3 more hours of the weather getting the better of us and making little headway, the channel turned a bit, putting the wind off our port side and allowing us to ease the sail a bit and sail straight for New Bern.

What did we learn?

Never leave with advisories in effect.

Allison and I can trust each other to stay cool and not quit in hard circumstances.

Pray before, during and after.

We have a far sounder vessel than I thought.

You can read Allison's account of the trip at The Bauble Dept.