Hurricane Sandy and on to Beaufort

Hurricane Sandy

Sorry about the delay in publishing, but since we have arrived in Beaufort, NC, we have been on the go.

On Thursday, after looking at weather until I ran the battery down on the computer, we decided that on Friday,  Oct 26th we should move to a safe anchorage.  Being tied to a dock in a major storm is not a place to be. So we picked up and headed to South River which is 5 miles southeast from Oriental.

10 miles from Oriental to anchorage in South River

We found another boat named Sassafras already anchored in Southwest Creek as we pulled in.  This corner of the creek looked the best for what we were about to receive.  The mud was great and the anchor set in real well, now all we have to do is wait.
 Things went real well Friday afternoon and through the night. About mid-morning on Saturday, wind started picking up from the east and north east, which is not a real good thing since we were open to swells from that direction.  By late afternoon, winds were topping out in the 28kt area with steady at 22-25 kts.  Around 6pm the winds had shifted more to the northeast and had picked up to 30kts. HERE IT COMES.  We were protected from the major winds at this point but the problem came from the waves coming down the South River and wrapping around the point and directly into us.  This made for a very LUMPY ride all night.

Swinging at anchor

At around 10pm I realized we were dragging anchor but not real fast.  The dragging was being caused by the waves rocking us not the winds.  The most wind we saw was 36kts which was not a problem.  We dragged about 80ft back from what you are seeing in the above pic... I stayed up all night worrying that we could REALLY start dragging at any time. This is called 'Anchor Watch', if you start dragging you start the motor and take the strain of the anchor by slowly moving forward.
Believe it or not, just while we were at anchor we traveled 18 miles just swinging back and forth on the anchor. Hell of a trip. 
Sunday morning with the winds still blowing and the waves still smacking us, I decided that we should up anchor and move over in the creek to what looked a lot calmer than what we where experiencing.  At this point Joan was having a fit that I was going up on the bow to retrieve the anchor.  Storm gear on, Life preserver,   harness and safety tether was the order of the day.  Got up on the bow and sat in the anchor well and she would power the boat forward as I raised the anchor.  Lots of mud on the anchor.  No problem Mon. We moved over to the spot that looked a lot calmer and dropped the hook.  It was... We spent Sunday and Monday in the spot swinging and swinging and swinging.  By Monday evening we realized it was time to vacate this place.
So Tuesday morning we upped anchor and motored out into the Neuse River right into 2 to 4 ft waves on our nose for about 8 miles until we could get into Adams Creek ICW where things smoothed out.  Then it was a milk run down to Beaufort and anchorage in Town Creek..

 

 

Meeting with friends Melissa (Twisty) and Bill (hearjr)

These are friends from 'Cruising Outpost' (Latitudes and Attitudes). Ever since we got here it has been party time on Java. Happy Hour every night.....

Halloween

This man has his John Deer

My sweet Pirate

 Its Friday afternoon, Nov 2. There will be a planning meeting on board this evening to discuss leaving on Saturday morning around 4am and head to Charleston, SC. This would be a 43 hr trip out in the ocean.  Much weather needs to be discussed with two other boats. Our bail-out port will be Wrightsville Beach, NC just above Wilmington.

Enough for now....