Going North to Get South

What in the world is going on with Penny & John? Where are the blog posts? Did they fall off the earth or get swallowed by a sea monster? Feel free to enhance this tale anyway you wish, but here are the basics: On Day One, we sailed out of Beaufort in freezing weather and anchored 25 miles away in Swansboro--we really seemed to be on our way south! Day Two we woke before dawn (brrrrr), weighed anchor, and headed out into the channel where we promptly ran aground because our depth gauge quit. After trying to motor out of the sand, we called TowBoat US and a jolly fellow zipped right over and pulled us off. He said it happens all the time, but we felt that not having a dependable depth gauge would just bring more jolly TowBoat fellows. Trying to be smart sailors. we anchored to think this over. John called a local marine electrician and dinghyed him out to the boat. When he determined that the transducer was fouled below the water we decided the best option was to call Jarrett Bay Boatyard (back home in Carteret County) and make arrangements to have Caribbean Soul hauled out. Yikes! We hated the idea of going back north, but hey, sometimes ya have to go north to get south!


Now we are on Day Three or Four--who's counting? When Caribbean Soul came out of the water--oh-my-gosh! It looked like a giant chia pet with woolly shag growth all over our hull. The bottom paint had failed completely. What a shock. We had just painted that bottom in August. Pressure washing cleaned off all the growth except for under the lifting straps. The strip of growth we hand scrapped is pictured here.














For you fellow boaters, the bottom paint was Pettit's Hydrocoat. The Pettit dealer said is was just a bad batch of paint. He paid our expenses and sent us two gallons of a better batch. We did the painting out at the boatyard and slept in our own bed in Beaufort during this time. Our neighbors Patti and Alan Frank thought they were seeing things when we arrived back at our house. They bolstered our spirits with hot tea and blackberry brandy--thanks. And we had the very best land support a sailor could ever have--Mom (Jean Ferguson). She dropped everything and drove out to the boat yard, lent us her car until we got ours out of storage, and hauled us back out to the boat when it was time to go again. Thanks Mom/Jean!
















On Day Eight of our adventure, we got Caribbean Soul back in the water. The plan was to motor/sail swiftly (shiny new bottom paint, ya know) down to Swansboro again, but the weirdness continued. It was rainy and overcast, but we had on our foul weather gear and were having fun. Then, at the port in Morehead City, the fog settled in around us. It was so thick we could see nothing in front and were losing visibility behind us by the minute. The only option was to turn around quickly and head for any dock along the Morehead Waterfront. Well, we could have continued and gotten acquainted with some more jolly rescue guys, but stopping seemed like a better idea. When the fog didn't lift, we knew we would not make it to Swansboro and with a big windstorm approaching (40 knot winds) a boat slip seemed to be a good place to be. Denard Harris at Portside Marina in Morehead City was most helpful. He found a nice big dock slip for us, helped secure the boat and we settled in to shelter from the storm. Joe and Sue Kreuser who live nearby fed us pizza (thanks guys!) and we weathered a night of serious rocking and rolling at the dock. We were up most of the night--John adding lines and monitoring things outside --me pacing around inside being helpful by not throwing up. In the morning the sports fisherman in the slip next to us said he was watching a video of Perfect Storm all night--funny guy.




Today is Day Ten (December 12th). We said goodbye to Denard and the nice folks at Portside Marina in Morehead City and headed toward Swansboro again. It was cold and overcast, but the skies clears and we rolled out the jib for a nice stretch of motor sailing along Bogue Sound. That shiny new bottom paint definitely increased our speed. We made it to Swansboro in about four hours passing another sailboat along the way. Tonight is getting chilly--we've got to keep going in the right direction--rumor has it that there is warmer weather south of here. We really do want to go south to get south. It's been a little like one-step-forward-two-steps back, but we signed on for an adventure and we're having a great time! Stay tuned.