Started: Campbell Creek 35°17.11′N 076°37.18′W

Anchored: ICW Mile 201 Town Creek, Beaufort, NC 34°43.57′N 076°40.04′W

Log: 55.2 nm. Time 8½ hr. Engine Hours 7.6

Beaufort is a Big Milestone. Mile 200 out of 1,000. We're finally getting somewhere. The repairs are behind us. Except for the stuff that doesn't work.

Charleston is about mile 470. Nearly half-way to the Florida Keys.

St. Augustine is mile 780. That's close to ¾ of the way to where we can jump over to the Bahamas.

About midnight last night, the wind went from zero to roaring. More-or-less instantly. Campbell creek offers no protection, so it was unpleasant to wake up in the middle of the might and try to determine if we were dragging.

There's a great iPhone app to tell if your anchor is dragging — Anchor Alarm. Great when you have cell coverage. Not so great when you don't.

There's a great gadget, a Dual XGPS150 which should provide position updates (via Bluetooth) to an iPhone. Anywhere in the world. Irrespective of cell coverage.

Except it's doesn't seem to work with my phone. The antenna receives. But the phone sort of ignores the stream of data. Sort of. It's hard to tell what's going on, except that the app from Dual doesn't even see the GPS data.

Midnight with 20 knots gusts is not the time to find out that your anchor alarm doesn't really work any more.

Today, after anchoring in Beaufort, I was able to determine that CA's iPhone works just fine. We'll use that from now on.

Sail Time

Today we chugged down the canal between the Pamlico and the Bay River which joins with the Neuse River.

The Neuse is our nemesis. It's delightfully situated to be a great place to sail.

However.

When you're transiting the ICW, you have to make a huge turn from the Bay into the Neuse. So the wind may be fair for one leg, but odds are good it will be awful for the next leg.

Today the wind was a gusty and twitchy 15 kt from East of North, giving us a roaring fast beam reach. Hull speed. Delightful sailing. For about an hour.

When we reached the Neuse, we had to turn SW and run dead downwind. We're just awful at sailing downwind.

It gets worse.

After derigging to get hauled out and rerigging at the dock, I had bent the yankee on incorrectly. We were okay on a port reach. We could fall off to a nice broad reach. But we couldn't gybe. So we had to drop the sails and run down the river under bare poles using the engine. Sigh.

We pulled into South River to fix the Yankee. We brought it down on deck, squared away the rigging and hoisted it back up. Noisy and stressful, but it's now up correctly.

Then we slogged down Adams creek and into another new anchorage: Town Creek. This is much more manageable than Taylor Creek. It's still full of boats, forcing us out into the area where the wind from almost any direction except the NE can make it unpleasant. But it's better than Taylor Creek. And cheaper than the city dock.

Weather

The upcoming weather for zone AMZ158, Cape Lookout to Surf City.

Tue: NW winds 5 to 10 kt...becoming N 20 to 25 kt with gusts up to 35 kt in the afternoon. Seas 1 to 2 ft...building to 2 to 4 ft in the afternoon. Dominant period 7 seconds.

Tue Night: N winds 25 to 30 kt with gusts up to 40 kt. Seas 5 to 7 ft...except 4 to 6 ft near shore. Dominant period 5 seconds. A slight chance of showers in the evening.

Wed: N winds 25 to 30 kt with gusts up to 40 kt. Seas 4 to 6 ft... Except 3 to 4 ft near shore. Dominant period 8 seconds.

Wed Night: N winds 15 to 20 kt. Seas 2 to 4 ft.

Thu: N winds 10 to 15 kt...becoming NE 5 to 10 kt in the afternoon. Seas 2 to 3 ft.

Tuesday will grow progressively more stinky, even in the ditch. The wind will be almost on the nose as we go essentially W along the coast inside the ICW. The Small Craft Advisory starts 4:00 Tuesday.

We plan to get to Mile Hammock Bay, which is not great. But it will have more shelter than this spot in Town Creek. And be cheaper than the city dock.

Wednesday looks to be really bad. Low of 3°C. We think we'll just stay put. Bake cookies. Sew. Read. Wear our jammies all day.

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