Great Sailing Week

Wrightsville Beach, NC          GPS: 34 12.4N  77 48.0W

Well what a productive week, our initial departure plan got delayed as the rain revealed a leak between the forward hatch and the deck, necessitating full removal and reinstallation which took most of the weekend by the time the sealant had dried.

So finally on Monday morning we were off.  We motored/sailed down the Chesapeake in company with Merlin stopping at Solomons and Deltaville before arriving at Old Point Comfort on Wednesday evening, just in time for the weather window to get round Hatteras, we were joined by Bella so we had a convoy of three for the long run outside.

It proved to be a superb sail, we left on Thursday morning and had a cracking sail down the Virginia coast, reaching in a westerly on flat water under warm sunshine.  What a change from 3 years ago when we tucked in sleeping bags and shivering.  Much of the change is due to leaving a couple of weeks earlier, but also the cockpit enclosure Linda has made since then helps to keep the wind off us.

We had a full moon for the night sail and the temperatures remained high, even when the forecast northerly change came through around midnight.  The wind shifted NE at 20-25 knots and the seas began to build a bit, but nothing more than 4-5 feet so comfortable fast downwind sailing.  We rounded the shoals at Hatteras around 0430 by which time it was a bit rougher, but once round we had a comfortable ail as the seas flattened out again.

Sunrise was gorgeous and the rest of the trip uneventful sailing downwind in sunshine and flat water.  We sailed the whole 200 miles to the Lookout shoals buoy averaging 6.6 knots and with no incidents at all to report.  We were joined  by a pod of dolphins for the motor into the anchorage at Cape Lookout arriving tired but very happy in time for a sunset beer and an early night.

Saturday dawned sunny and warm and we had a great walk down the ocean beach at Lookout in the sunshine.  It reminded us of Australia with four wheel drives and surf fishermen on the white sand, the waves rolling in and sun warm on our backs.

Sunday was our last chance to get south for a few days so we upped anchor in the dark and motored out bound for Wrightsville Beach.  The wind filled in once the sun was up and we had another superb sail in calm seas, bright sunshine and at good speeds – it wasn’t like this 3 years ago, we almost don’t trust out luck!

We hadn’t been in here before, but Masonboro Inlet was wide, deep and easy and we are now tucked up in the anchorage riding out 3 days of 20 knot southerlies before the next leg down to Charleston.  We hope to leave Friday on the next cold front getting in 24 hours later to probably our favourite city on the east coast.

To Do List Frenzy

Annapolis, MD

September has been and gone and finally we are ready to head south.   We have been working hard and Matsu now shines and gleams like new and the to do list has gone from 120 to 20 things to do – the truth being the 20 are the sort of things that never ever get done!

We have spent the 6 weeks tied to the dock at our friends Larry & Bev from Chandelle who we first met in the Bahamas in 2007.  They have been so kind allowing us to use the dock and share their superb location in Annapolis, we will be sad to leave!  The dock has an endless supply of blue crab too and we have had some great crab dinners to sustain us.

Linda’s big achievement is to have made a superb dodger, our old one was impossible to see through and leaked like a sieve and the time had come to replace it.  3 years ago we bought a Sailrite machine and Linda has honed her skills on many projects but a dodger is about as hard as it gets.

With Larry & Bev’s dock as a work area and her faithful assistant Charlie, Linda has produced a superb dodger - tight, wrinkle free and waterproof; the difference it has made to the boat is incredible.  We will actually be able to look out for boats on night watch from within the dodger rather than having to stand up and stick our heads out – an important improvement in the autumn weather.

We also took delivery of our new mainsail, it looks and sets beautifully, now we have the new one we realise how bad the old one had become.

I meanwhile have been fixing, replacing, troubleshooting etc etc a  multitude of systems and with today’s rebedding of the front hatch we are set for the off.  There is an excellent weather window opening up mid next week for rounding Hatteras and heading south, like all windows it can disappear but we plan to head south down Chesapeake Bay tomorrow and who knows where the next post will be from.

Summer Travels

Annapolis, Montreal, New York, Annapolis, New York, Quebec, Annapolis!

Our good progress on the to do list, the oppressive heat of an Annapolis summer and the need to spend some time with our Canadian family and friends meant a busy 2 months of riding back and forth on our bikes.

In mid July we headed to Montreal on our bikes via Amish country and the Adirondacks, passing 3 excellent days of riding great roads in the sunshine. 

I will never forget the wave and look I exchanged with this Amish man as I sat by the side of the road on my FJR1300 looking at him on his horse and cart.  We both thought the other were from outer space, but could also see the good in each others choices.

It’s a fascinating culture, each invention is assessed by the community for it’s likely impact on the community and the family and accepted or rejected accordingly.  So for example a mechanised thresher is OK as it helps the harvest on your land, but it must be pulled by a horse and cart, as a tractor would encourage you to farm more land, thus making you want to buy your neighbours land, hence live further from your other neighbours and thus decrease the sense of community.

The Adirondacks were less of a culture shock,  but the mountains, lakes and forests that are so much part of North America never cease to amaze me, much as Linda is blown away by the old villages of England.

The riding was superb too, fast smooth roads and winding curves, no traffic and no speed cameras.

We spent two great weeks in Canada visiting Linda’s parents and friends, lots of laughs and a few beers, and Canada too was experiencing a glorious summer so the sun shone nearly every day. 

It was all too soon time to head south again as we had promised Dave and Donna that we would help them move their new motor boat from Long Island back to Annapolis.  We rode down through the stunning scenery of Vermont and joined them on Long Island for our first ever week on a “stink” boat.

We had a great trip, the weather played along and we had days of no wind and sunshine which is ideal for motoring.  It was odd to set off with no expectation of sailing, resigned to the chug chug of a diesel for the whole day, knowing to the minute what time we would arrive and nothing at all to do other than watch the scenery slip past.

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The journey took us back along a route we had done in Matsu in 2007, down Long Island Sound, through the eats river at NYC then down the Jersey coast, up Delaware Bay, through the C&D Canal and back into Chesapeake Bay.  We had an excellent time as I hope the photos show, lots of laughs with our great friends, watching Dave’s face as the fuel pump ticked round and around on the dock, and being back at sea cruising gain after all this time.

We arrived back in Annapolis in time for Paule & Louis to stay with us for a week, we went into Washington DC and walked the length and breadth of the National Mall, perfectly sensible on a 104 degree day!

After that we headed back north, riding through the White Mountains of New Hampshire this time.  More stunning scenery, mountains, forests and lakes again, we camped out at night and even saw a bear, my first wild one, she had 2 cubs with her who climbed into the skip in search of food while she stood guard.

It was outside a restaurant and we had visions of an unsuspecting bus boy coming out to empty the trash and being ripped to shreds.  An amazing sight, so powerful and dangerous yet cute and cuddly with the Paddington, Teddy Bear etc image they retain!

More fun with family and friends in Canada saw out the rest of the month, we still didn’t get to see everyone we wanted, but as summer passes into autumn it is time to head back to Annapolis and get on with the massive to do list that we have before we can head south.

Heat, Humidity, Repairs & Annapolis

Back Creek, Annapolis, MD

We decided that as we had already motored the whole way from Beaufort we would do the same on the Chesapeake Bay, so we chugged steadily north in three legs from Norfolk VA to Annapolis, rather than waiting on favourable winds.  Previous experiences with the bay are little to no wind at this time of year, and we are keen to arrive and begin getting Matsu in shape.

It was all very uneventful except for once more losing our steering, we were coming in to anchor for the night, turned off the autopilot and had no manual steering!  We used the autopilot to anchor uneventfully, and once topped up with oil the steering worked fine again – further investigation found a big leak from one of the copper pipes just where it went round a bulk head, and we have finally found the cause of all our problems – just need to fix it now!

We got into Back Creek Annapolis, said a big hello to our friends from the Caribbean, Dave & Donna on Magic who live here aboard their boat, and then settled in for 3 weeks of trying to get Matsu into some sort of cruising shape so we won’t have to brave the bridges on the way south!  The to do list is long and we are keen to get the major items either done or in progress before heading to Canada to see the family.

For the whole time we have been here the weather has been unbearably hot, our Target ice maker has been a life saver keeping us in iced tea, 100+ degrees most days, and dropping to only 90 at night (apologies for the Farenheit but when in Rome).

Boat wise the priorities were a new main sail, fix the generator and the steering and get some varnish onto the exterior wood work.

Our old North main sail has done 12 years and I would guess nearly 50,000 miles so it is hardly surprising that it is now made of tissue paper after all the UV damage.  We have repaired some small tears, but it is only a matter of time until it blows out permanently so time to bite the bullet.  I hunt around for quotes, and happily North are the best value (half the price of a quote from an independent maker here) and so we can continue the relationship.  It will be built at their loft in Sri Lanka and then shipped to the USA for final finishing, fitting our batten cars etc and then the sail maker will help fit it and test sail it with us.  It’s a nice heavy cruising cloth, 3 reefs and a few extras and should last us well.

Starting the generator should have been easy, I soon isolated the problem to the injectors, so bought 3 new ones and installed them.  Unfortunately while tightening the final bolts I managed to break the fuel return manifold, so had to buy a new one of those.  The only stock in the USA was in Seattle and the 3 day delivery time stretched to a week after a rock fall in Montana – has anyone else seen “Delayed Due to Natural Disaster” on their UPS tracking status?  Finally it arrived and 5 minutes later it was fitted and I was pressing the starter – chugga chugga, vroom, yeah! sound of fridge opening, pssst, slurp, aaaaaah was the sound sequence from then on!

The steering was the only other big ticket item to stop us sailing south, and this was duly fixed after much crawling in lockers, sweating and swearing.  We cut out the troublesome 4’ length of copper tubing and replaced it with a brand new hydraulic hose and hopefully we are done.

Meanwhile Linda braved the heat and did all the exterior varnishing, so Matsu is now shiny and mechanically sound.  We still have a long to do list of little things and improvements, some essential, some desirable and some that I am sure will be on the to do list as long as we own the boat!

Aside from the boat our other priority was to get some transport, as we want to shuttle back and forth to Canada, as well as do some land travel this summer, and with our hard earned motor bike skills we decided that a couple of bikes would be the way to go.  Much searching later and Linda is the proud owner of a Kawasaki 650R and me a Yamaha FJR1300 – the open road awaits!