Delivery Trip

 

You could see it all in the photo album Delivery

 

Delivery

 

 

 

Monday morning started cold raining sleet with the odd one or two brilliant white snowflakes. My first site of any sort of snow falling. We dressed in our thermal underwear, three pairs of socks, trousers, shirts,  sweaters, foul weather gear sailing boots and gloves. We backed out of the slip just before eight and proceeded to negotiate very narrow channel out Neuse river. After traveling some hundred or so meters, we slowed dramatically and were very quickly stuck on the bottom, as Sasha recorded in the log we were bogged. After attempting to find deeper water in the channel, we returned to the marina, where the dock master advised us to just “power” way through the muddy channel. If necessary he would tow us with the power boat. About an hour later, heading towards high tide, we “powered” our way through the half mile channel and finally out into Neuse river open water. By this stage it has stopped raining and the temperature has risen to 36 degrees F( about 3 C), but with the wind it was still very cold.

 

 

 

By early afternoon we were out in the ocean with the course set for Cape Fear, some 70 miles to the South West and about 45 miles off shore. Initially we were sailing close hauled in 15 knots of breeze from the West. I took first shift scheduled to be 1800 to 2400 while Sasha slept so that she would take the second shift from Midnight to 6 am. At about 9 pm I altered course using the autopilot, but must have hit the wrong button, for the vessel immediately took a hard port turn. When all is black it is very difficult to determine just what is going on and even taking over manual steering I had to call Sasha to help get everything stabilized again. Our first fright in night sailing. As we were approached Cape Fear the wind direction became more Southerly and we rounded Cape Fear at about 3 in the morning bashing into seas whipped up by winds which were by now around 25 knots. As Cape Fear shallows even 40 miles off shore, we were forced seaward to round it and felt the effects of Golf stream current against us. At one stage, at 0330 our log records us making 2 knots SOG (speed over ground)! By 8:30 am, about 20 miles past Cape Fear, with Sasha feeling quite ill from her cold, despite a constant diet of “Day and Night” cold tablets, we altered course and headed closer to shore, as we were some 60 miles off shore at that point. A little after midday after reducing the shore distance by half, we again altered course to head South West for Charleston to refuel.

 

 

 

At around 6 am next day and a few miles from the Charleston entry shipping channel fog descended upon us. It was so thick that you could barely see the bow from the wheel. Out came the fog horn and we began sounding it every two minutes while at the same time listening intently for any other vessel doing the same. Most unnerving! Fortunately this only went for about half an hour and as the fog lifted we could see the Charleston shipping channel ahead.

 

 

 

We docked at the Charleston city marina to refuel and calculated that Ednbal was using about 0.75 US gallons per hour (3 liters per hour). After almost three days we had our first shower, it was wonderful. NOAA weather (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US national weather forecasting agency) was forecasting a storm crossing South Carolina, so we decided to take the ICW path for the next day. It soon became apparent that ICW sailing is not at all straight forward and in fact quite stressful as you must constantly monitor water depth to avoid running aground “too often”! It was also the first time we had to go through an opening bridge. It was quite exciting to call the bridge attendant on VHF channel 9 to request an opening. The response was something along the lines of “keep coming captain, we will have the bridge open as you approach”.  Sure enough when we were about a hundred meters or so from the bascule type bridge it started opening. We thanked the bridge attendant and in turn he wished us fair sailing and a good trip. The ICW in this area is largely flat and marshy, however there are magnificent US federation style homes with long private docks (jetties) many with boat lifts housing quite large cruisers. Along one section there was even a golf course around various majestically built multi story houses. Bird life abundant and on several occasions dolphins swam close by Ednbal. At around 6 pm we anchored just off the ICW channel for a good night sleep as I had slept very little with Sasha quite ill and unable to maintain her shifts.

 

 

 

Next day we continued on the ICW to Beaufort, where we docked and took a brisk walk to the local supermarket, one of the Piggly Wiggly chain stores. Armed with fresh fruit and vegetable we continued out to Helena Sound and the open ocean again, for the two day south run to Port Canaveral. Initially, it was motor sailing either due to lack of wind or heading straight into it. The last day of the trip however was spent sailing with a beautiful 15 to 20 knots Easterly breeze, pushing us along at 6 to 7 knots pretty much constantly. At 5:50 am on Feb, 25th we rounded Heatzel Shoal light for the Canaveral entry, and entered the port at around 10:30 am. Another first, negotiate the Canaveral lock. Upon request on VHF 16 the lock was opened for us and in we went. By the time we had tried to tie up the lock gate at the other end was already opening so we passed through into the ICW once again for the final run to Ednbal’s temporary “home port” of Melbourne Florida, where we arrived at 15:30 February, 25th, 2006,  five  and a half days after leaving Oriental, 612 Nautical miles.

 

 

 

I felt was exhausted. We shower had an early quick dinner of “ribs, corn and cold slaw” at Long Doggers, then found I could no longer work of how to unlock the Ednbal companionway, so we had to proceed to Orlando – 60 miles…

 

 

 

Couple of celibrations,