Cape Lookout

Two posts in one!  Hello spotty internet!


10/29/16
Cape Lookout, NC

Just again saw our shy friend Mr. Freidrich-the-Sea-Turtle pop his head up, and after taking his breath quickly dunk down again.   But hold on- let me back up and share what led up to us anchoring in this chunk of paradise along North Carolina's Atlantic Coast.

We pushed a big old 'pause button' this week and screeched to a halt in North Carolina.  After doing the math we realized that we have a fair amount of leeway getting down to Florida in time for a family celebration in December, so we're taking more time to check out potentially interesting places.   When we arrived at the town of Beaufort, NC, we stayed for a few days before sailing over to our current location of Cape Lookout, NC.

The trip down to Beaufort was beautiful and remote.  Happy to find phenomenal wind in the Pungo River, Pamlico Sound and the Neuse River,  we were able to fit in some wonderful sailing.  It's fun to recognize (either on the VHF radio or by site) some new friends and learning that a brief conversation in one place might continue 100 miles to the south a few days later.  Unfortunately we still haven't met up with any kid boats.  Though the kids have been (mostly) playing well together, we look forward to some fresh faces.  We follow a Facebook page specifically set up for exactly this purpose (Kids4Sail) and have some tentative plans to meet another boat tomorrow night with a similar age and gender lineup!  It's like Match.com for cruising boats with kids: "42 foot fun sailboat with 3 active girls looking for buoyant yet shallow drafted partner with same-  please no cats (allergies)".


Beaufort was an unexpected treat.  The museum there (free!) is wonderful and proved to be a good school day for the girls.  Perhaps a preamble to Halloween, we found the "Old Burying Grounds" to be another fun way to sneak in some history.  For this silent, serene and beautiful  graveyard dating back to the early 18th century, the church provides a pamphlet that outlines the fascinating stories and circumstances of several of its underground occupants.  We were most taken with "the girl buried in a barrel of rum."  Luckily our rum is in a 900cc Nalgene bottle (pretty small).. so I think we're ok.

We've met some fascinating people so far including an older couple (older than us at least) who circumnavigated twice back in the 1980's with their kids.  And that was before a lot of the current technology that makes navigation much more user-friendly today.   We spent some time with them soaking in their wisdom and plan on catching up with them in a few days further south.

In Beaufort we were repeatedly told that we can't miss "Cape Lookout", an easy few-hour sail from there.  We decided to give it a go.  And, yesterday morning we had our collective buttocks handed to us on our way out of Beaufort Inlet into the Atlantic!  We knew the swells were a good size from the few days of strong unidirectional wind, but what we didn't sufficiently take into account was the outgoing tide (ebb) and how that interacts with the incoming swells and wind.  After being told by a local to "not sweat the ebb tide- no big deal,"  we ended up kind of sweating it- a lot actually.  Like so much sweat that I singlehandedly contributed to sea-level rise.  We had waves coming over the bow (learning point: next time we transit an inlet all hatches will be closed-- water tends to enter them when a wave breaks over the bow), but we muscled through the inlet and found calmer water with a much hoped-for gentler swell.   And because one shouldn't tow a dinghy in the ocean (or even keep it pulled up on the stern davits),  I was so relieved that the dinghy didn't move a micron from where I had lashed it down (upside-down on Baila's bow).  Good old trucker's-hitch knots!

Everyone did fine and in fact for much of that initially tumbly jaunt the girls were attempting to do school down below.  School was adjourned once that first wave dumped a gallon of water on Anna's math test (really).

We were followed out by a sailboat from Annapolis and we are both anchored here in this most pristine and breathtaking Cape Lookout.  We arrived to find a huge deep bay surrounded by a sandy bight and barrier island.  It's protected and calm.  The sea life is incredible.  We anchored amidst dive-bombing kamikaze pelicans, a sea turtle surfacing to say hi and several porpoise fins arcing in tandem across the surface.  Also, for much of our trip we've encountered monarch butterflies flittering about far from land!

Last night we took the dinghy into the bight to collect shells.  The bay side is calm while a quick hike over the grassy dune brought us to an expansive and isolated beach that endures the endless onslaught of the Atlantic Ocean.   Hurricane Mathew brought loads of shells and pieces of coral in so the girls had a blast sorting through and assigning a type of Lord of the Flies currency to the various shells. Trading, bartering, stealing- it was like an entire domestic economy distilled into a few whelk and scallop shells on a remote beach.

We toured the other side of the bay today with the lighthouse.  Tomorrow we plan to check out the other barrier island that is the home to wild horses (I need to download the U2 song tonight for sure).  We hope the weather cooperates for us to sail from here to Wrightsville Beach (Masonboro inlet) on Monday.  The wind should shift around (from the Southwest and West tomorrow) to the North and Northeast Monday which will be a nicer ride for us in the ocean than sailing close to the wind.  We will leave 4am Monday morning to make that leg and hopefully be tucked in by late afternoon in time for trick-or-treating.

First shrimp boat we saw on way to Beaufort- real hit with the girls after the captain blew its horn and waved at them 

Figuring out some ways to exercise/workout on Baila.. otherwise the occupants will provide good ballast soon

Avery gazing at the sad grave of "the girl buried in a barrel of rum" in Beaufort, NC

Girls find it hard to do a panoramic with waves rocking the boat!

Distant shot of Baila from our friend's boat

This is the tranquil bay awaiting us at Cape Lookout after the rough ride from Beaufort

Happy to be off the boat!

Baila and Cape Lookout lighthouse in the background

Passing out after checking out the lighthouse

Harnesses and jack lines out offshore

Textbook UNO face-- impossible to know if she has blues or reds.  

Girls and their cute birthday cards and gifts

The rare Cape Lookout mountain goat Averius falkus

A rare moment of solidarity atop a dune

Hurricane Mathew deposited a bunch of new shells onto the beach at Cape Lookout 

The protected bay at Cape Lookout is amazing

A live whelk!

Falk groundhogs

Sunset from Baila

UPDATE: 11/01/16
Wrightsville Beach, NC

We made the trip from Cape Lookout to Wrightsville Beach yesterday.  This was 12 hours of a vertiginous roller-coster!  But we have girls that needed Halloween.  Happy crew is happy sailing.

After really considering the wind direction, strength and sea conditions, we decided the best plan was to leave at 3am.   This enabled us to sail south and then as the wind shifted direction turn to have a nice reach/broad reach into the inlet.   Lynn did a phenomenal job getting us out of the pitch black harbor in which several shrimp boats had come in to anchor overnight.  Using the spotlight, radar and charts she really did a superb job!  The wind was predicted to markedly strengthen later in the day so we wanted to leave early enough to get tucked in before conditions worsened.  With this, we still had steady 18-20 knot winds with some gusts to 25 knots the entire day.  To the non-sailors this is a healthy dose of wind in open water.  Instead of the normal 9 second-period gentle ocean swells we had short period (3 second) swells with perpendicular choppy wind waves.  Bottom line: washing machine.  Confused seas.  But, after a few Falks made some room for halloween candy later,  everyone felt ok and we had perhaps the best sail we've ever had on Baila.  The boat did great and we all feel reassured with Baila's ability to make it through rougher conditions.  There were some stressful points.  About halfway through the passage I became concerned that one of the lines used to secure the anchor was coming loose.  Harnessed in, I made my way to the bow to reinforce it.  It was surprising if not refreshing to be fully dunked into a wave up there!  Everything was fine and the anchor was secure.  Perhaps next time I'll just remove the anchor and stow it below for any offshore passages.

We arrived early afternoon and were happy to meet some nice folks in our anchorage.  We ended up trick-or-treating in a local neighborhood with them.  We have never seen anything like this-  every house in this neighborhood seriously embraces Halloween and sets up Disney quality decoration and scenes!  The streets were loaded with kids and parents and we are so happy the girls got to experience a normal Halloween!

We had fast sailing from Cape Lookout to Masonboro Inlet.  Difficult to tell from this picture but the combination of wind waves opposing the underlying swells made for some confused and lumpy seas.  We averaged 7-8kt and at one point (ok, we were coming off a swell but still..) clocked 10.4kts.  Baila was flying!

Sunrise on the ocean 

Our girls and Avery's new friend off a nearby boat

Pirate treasure

This was in front of one of the houses.. 

This man was sharpening his axe.  Really,  we've never seen anything like this for Halloween

That's it for now.  We plan on having dinner with some local folks tonight who are friends-of-friends who passed through last year on their boat.  This community is really small and everywhere we go we seem to meet someone who knows someone.  Everyone is so welcoming and helpful!

Hope all are well and we'll update when we can.

FALKS