Morehead City to Charleston, I mean Georgetown…

So we headed out around 2 pm on Thursday.  Ryan’s Dad, my parents, Frank, Polly and Joe Murphy were there to see us off.  Julia took us out of the channel into the Intercoastal Waterway.  We were doing pretty well for the first 4 or 5 minutes but managed to run aground right outside of the first marker!  It was only a slight brush and we got right back on track but we got a kick out of it (by we I mean everyone except Julia:).  We had very light winds to begin with but put out our sails since Mom and Dad were following us along the shoreline and taking pictures at a few spots.  We waved goodbye to Mom and Dad at Ft. Macon.  We made it out of the inlet fine and then turned right down the coastline.  We motorsailed for a couple of hours until the wind finally picked up.  Our first sunset was absolutely gorgeous.  Jimmy and I had the first night watch from 1900-2300.  It was fairly pleasant but uneventful.  Right before the watch we tried to make our first meal and we could not get the kerosene stove to work.  It had just worked yesterday but we couldn’t keep any pressure!  So we used the Jetboil (our backup) and made a hot meal.  The stars were absolutely amazing!  No lights around anywhere and it was a very clear night.  I fell asleep right away and apparently missed helping everyone putting a reef in the sail (it reduces the sail area in higher winds).  The wind continued to pick up through the night and when Jimmy and I came back on at 0300 it was blowing a steady 15 knots with gusts up to 22 knots.  We had a blast!  We take one hour shifts steering at the helm and during one of Jimmy’s we reached 8.3 knots!  I had a little trouble keeping a straight line but got better as the night went on.  It was really cool to steer by the stars and sail at night.  Julia and Ryan relieved us at 0700 and we went right to bed.  Everyone was having trouble sleeping.  The seas were pretty rough and I was definitely airborne several times while laying down.  At first everyone felt a bit nauseous but it passed when we were up on deck or at the helm.  We tried cooking a bit of breakfast in the morning but our backup stove wouldn’t work either!  We ended up making some sandwiches and having a few Cliff bars.  The winds were fairly light the second day but it was warm and beautiful so we just made our way along.  Several dolphins came up and played around the boat for about half an hour or so.  The day overall was great and Julia and Ryan took over at 1900.  Our plan was to head to Charleston because a big storm with gale force winds was coming in Sunday.  We were on track to make it around 1000 Saturday morning.  Jimmy and I took over at 2300 Friday.  This was a terrible watch!  The wind shifted and started blowing directly from Charleston.  We tried tacking back and forth and beating upwind but couldn’t make any significant progress.  We turned on the engine and it looked like it was smoking a little more than just exhaust.  So I went down to check the dipstick on the engine.  There was plenty of oil but I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get it back in it’s hole!  Jimmy finally had to come down and help me.  We decided to keep the engine off and keep sailing.  Julia and Ryan took over at 0300 and Jimmy and I had only made about 5 nm.  We were pretty frustrated but laid down to get some rest.  The seas started picking up and things got a little rough after that.  Julia and Ryan tried motoring for a little bit but the engine was still acting up.  About five minutes after they killed the engine, there a was big ripping sound and the clew of the sail ripped out of our headsail!  So Jimmy runs up on deck and helps furl the headsail.  Jimmy goes up on the foredeck and I went up to try and help out.  He handled the situation really well.  We had a spare headsail so we removed the old one and folded it up.  Ryan was at the helm and Julia was helping find parts and pieces down below that we needed and help with the halyards from the cockpit.  I just did what Jimmy told me to do and it was pretty much his show.  The boat was bouncing around all over the place and as he was trying to put the pin back in for the new headsail, it dropped in the water!  Julia found another pin below but we didn’t have a very good stash of spare pins (fixed that now!).  So, with the boat bouncing all over place, being dunked a few times and the wind flapping everything around, Jimmy got the pin in.  The sail has to be fed into the furler track and it wouldn’t reach, it was about a 1/4 off!  So he had to take the pin out again, feed the headsail first and then repeat the whole procedure.  We got the new headsail up and got back to sailing.  We decided to change course and head to Georgetown instead because we could sail there and save the engine for the final docking part just in case there was a problem.  Ryan and Julia were amazing and let Jimmy and I sleep for a little bit longer since we were up for a good portion of our sleep time.  We finally came into sight of land and started navigating towards Winyah Bay.  Georgetown sits about 10 miles inland and we had to go into a narrow inlet and up the Sampit river.  The conditions were very rolly at this point.  Sleep was pretty difficult and Julia still felt exhausted and nauseous.  We made it into the channel and started to furl the headsail.  The furler line snagged and Jimmy and Ryan had to go up on deck again and take it down!  I was steering at this point and trying to let Jimmy and Ryan know when the bigger waves were coming.  There was one wave that would have been a great photo op and I thought for sure it was going to break over the bow of the boat but it passed by just fine.  The channel passage in was pretty swirly.  We had a serious opposing current with steep, frequent waves.  I was having a blast steering but there were a couple of piles of rocks just outside the channel that made me a little nervous.  Because of the current we were only making about 2 knots and it took us 7 hours to motor the 10 miles to Georgetown.  The engine worked well the whole 7 hours but we are still going to have someone check it out just in case.  Once we got out of the inlet things calmed down and we took shifts at the wheel.  We made it in to the Boat Shed dock and got showered up.  The stove still didn’t work so we went to eat at the Big Tuna, at the dockmaster’s suggestion.  The food was great and we were happy to be on land again.  We stayed at the bar after that listened to the band.  There was a strange painting on the wall and a t-shirt of the same painting.  I asked the waitress about it and she said that her Uncle Bucky owned the bar and I should go ask him.  I introduced myself and he told a brief story about it.  We talked for awhile and when he found out that we had sailed down, he took Ryan and I outside and said that we should stay at his dock for free!  He had oysters in the dock box that we could help ourselves to and we could stay as long as we liked!  He also mentioned that his cute stepdaughter and niece were single which I appreciated:)  We stayed for the rest of the night and met so many friendly people.  The next day we just rested up and walked around town.  There were a ton of beautiful colonial homes and few industrial facilities that were pretty interesting.  We headed to the Buzz’s Roost around 3:30 to watch some football.  They were having a silent auction and a 50/50 raffle to benefit the Humane Society.  Julia bid on some cat treat’s for the marina cat, Mr. Sniffles (I named him that because I’m allergic to cats).  We all bought $10 worth of tickets for the raffle.  They called number 771170 and I ended up winning the raffle and $204!  Everyone at the bar was yelling to give it back to the Humane Society but I’m kind of broke and decided to buy everyone at the bar a round of drinks instead.  We met some great people at Buzz’s Roost as well and one girl lived above the bar and offered us fresh baked ziti with homemade meatballs!  We had seen this amazing restaurant called Aunny’s while walking around and had our hearts set on it.  It was closed on Monday so Sunday dinner would be our last chance before leaving Georgetown.  Jimmy said that it closed at 8 pm so we headed over around 6:20.  They closed at 6 pm on Sundays!  We were heartbroken!  We talked with Aunny for awhile but had to find some other food option.  We ended up calling Ellie to see if the invitation for ziti was still open.  We went to her house and had some amazing ziti with her and her friends Penny and Joyce.  We hung out with them for awhile and then came back to the boat.  We have spent most of the morning today running errands.  Chris, the sailmaker, came by and picked up our headsail.  Ryan and Julia went to the hardware store and to do laundry.  We are still waiting on a mechanic but we are about to do a general cleanup of the boat and work on a few repairs.  We are going to move the boat to the Big Tuna this afternoon and stay at Bucky’s dock for free.  It is really cold today and we are hoping to have a heater solution by tonight.  Everyone is having a blast on shore and we are meeting a lot of great people.  Our plan is to head out around 5 am tomorrow and make our way down the ICW to Charleston (60 nm).  We will stay there for a night or so and then see what kind of forecast we have after that.  I will post a link right after this to a slideshow of photos from Georgetown if anyone is interested.  I’ll also invite Julia, Ryan and Jimmy to post an account if they want.  Just as a fair warning, most of my posts are ridiculously long so if you made it this far then congratulations!  Thanks for all the great comments so far!  We will keep you posted over the next couple of days! -Daniel