After
a long refit, we finally got around to taking another trip in our 15 foot
sailboat "Little Cruiser". We had hoped to go to the Bahamas again, but
we ran out of vacation time. Therefore, David and I decided to take a
shorter cruise to the Outer Banks (OBX), which is in our own home state of North Carolina.
After a 5 1/2 hour drive from Greensboro, we made it to Cedar Island and
settled in comfortably at the Driftwood Campground. There we met lots of
wonderful people, including a couple from Liberty, North Carolina who let us leave our trailer
and our aging Honda Accord in their long term camping spot for the next three weeks. At the time we arrived, the winds were howling
out of the North so we used
the extra days to pack and provision "Little Cruiser" and to make her ship-shape for our long awaited cruise.
I
have to say that I find launch day nerve-racking. There is always so much to do, and in
this case we had worked so hard at making
"Little Cruiser" brand new that we were afraid of
damaging our beautiful boat while sliding her off the trailer into
the cold waters of the bay. Luckily everything went off without a hitch, though we
did have some trouble getting the boat to float off the trailer initially
because the ramp was so shallow and the surrounding waters had silted in
heavily since our last visit
a decade ago. Once we were safely tied to the dock, we finished putting
together all the last little bits and pieces of the rigging, and
then we were ready to begin our cruise.
Since
the winds were still blowing out of the North, we decided to head South towards Cape
Lookout. Our first sail in three years began with a wonderful trip down the shallow waters of the Core
Sound in
about 15 knots of breeze and two to three foot seas. We passed a lot of
neat little fishing villages along the way, and we arrived to anchor after
about 40 miles just before dark at the foot of the Cape
Lookout Lighthouse. This turned out to be an incredible
anchorage spot, and that night every 15 seconds a beam of light would illuminate the
interior of our cabin as the lighthouse did it's job of guiding mariners
safely along this treacherous coast known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic."
Everything was pretty idyllic as we slept soundly until about 2 AM when we heard
a loud BANG followed by a series of even louder Thumps...Then we realized that the
tide had fallen a lot more than we had expected and we were in fact banging on
some brick-sized rocks on the otherwise sandy bottom. In the Sounds
there is usually around a foot of tide at most, but near the inlets there can be
several feet or more. Obviously, we hadn't taken this into
consideration, and now we were bumping on the bottom. Fortunately, we
now have five layers of heavy fiberglass on
the bottom so there was little damage done to the boat. Soon, the yuloh was
put into service, and a new deeper spot was located a hundred yards
away. The rest of the night was spent peacefully.
The
next morning, we sailed over to nearby Shackleford Bank, and we enjoyed a nice
breakfast of fried eggs and toast.
Afterwards I did a little shell collecting, and David went off to examine the
remains of a large jellyfish that had washed up on the beach. A little later
on I spied a few of
the many wild ponies which roam the island freely. They are
rumored to be the descendants of animals that swam ashore from Spanish ships
that had foundered offshore hundreds of years ago. When the tide turned favorable,
we ended our onshore explorations, and headed out of the Cape Lookout Bight for
the Beaufort inlet while in the lee of the Shackleford Bank with it's 8 miles
of beautiful white sandy beaches. Once safely through the inlet we passed Morehead city
to port and Beaufort to starboard and entered the Newport River. Continuing
down the
Core Creek, which is part of the ICW, we noted quite a lot of new
expensive housing projects on the shore along the way, but eventually we
located a secluded anchorage off the main creek. 
The
next morning a hazy mist floated over our marshy hideaway, and we sculled out
into the Core Creek and then motor-sailed across the Neuse river to beautiful Oriental.
We soon discovered that this was a kind of a sailor's Mecca since every
marina was packed with sailboats of every size as opposed to the usual motor
driven craft that is more prevalent now-a-days. During our brief two day
stay, there were plenty of enthusiastic sailors who came by to ask us questions about our little boat
and her various adventures. Everyone was particularly nice, and the local
baker even made us some fresh bread and offered us the use of his shower to
clean up. While we were tied up to the town's dinghy dock, the new
owners of "Hogfish" came motoring in after a 7 month cruise to the Bahamas.
We actually knew Rob and Linda from a prior meeting in the Bahamas in
1994, and that evening we got together with another cruising couple from Canada
at the local Bistro. However, the next day, it was time for everyone to leave
this enchanting town and to start
heading North. We soon followed their wakes.
Leaving
Oriental in light airs, we ended up doing a 35 mile sail up towards Swanquarter,
which is primarily a commercial fishing port. The first evening was spent near
town in a small
creek North of Swan Point, and the next morning we navigated a well marked cut
through Judith Marsh to reach Swanquarter Bay. In a large creek North of the
ferry terminal off Landing Road, we were met by a large fishing fleet of well
maintained wooden
boats. In an age where boats are primarily constructed out of fiberglass and
steel, it was a beautiful sight to see all of these wonderful boats
still in use. After landing at a long dock near to the main commercial dock, we bought a dozen fresh blue
crabs from one vessel for a dollar a pound, which worked out to just $5. David
cooked up our lunch in our tiny 3 quart pressure cooker in two tightly packed
batches, and we ate our messy but delicious feast on the dock.
The next day
we left early for a 64 mile passage in a 20 knot Southerly breeze for Roanoke
Island to the North. After about 13 hours we arrived after dark, and located a
protected anchorage in a marsh at lower tip of the island. The next day
blew 25-30 knots so we spent it resting. It wasn't much better the
following morning, but we were restless to move forward so we headed up the
Croatan Sound on the western side of the island and made some progress to the
North. The seas in the Albermarle Sound looked pretty nasty at the top of the
island so we decided to just hide in the lee until the next morning.
Then, at daybreak we rounded Roanoke island, and we headed into the Roanoke sound
and over to Nags head on the Outer Banks. We anchored behind the sand dunes at
Jockey's Ridge, but bounced around horribly all night when the winds shifted
to the West.
Then we
headed back South towards Bodie Island Lighthouse
the following morning, and on towards Avon on the island of Hatteras.
After 40 miles we arrived just as it was getting really DARK, half an hour
after the sun had already set. The water was VERY shallow and we felt
our way in a foot of water to find a spot behind a small island called "Big
Island!" The next morning we located the deeper water by watching the
courses taken by the numerous local windsurfers, and made our way slowly
towards Ocracoke island.
Within
two hours we passed the Cape Hatteras lighthouse to the east and after 40
miles we anchored in placid Silver Lake. By setting our danforth in
about two feet of water near shore, we were easily able to wade ashore for a
look around. Of course we were anxious for a dinner out, but alas our favorite restaurant
from many years ago, the Pony Island Restaurant, was
not open for dinner meals anymore. Therefore, we ate onboard again,
though we did enjoyed a nice pork chop meal after a quick visit to the local
grocery store.
The
next day we sailed just a few miles away to Portsmouth Island. The
entire day
was spent leisurely exploring Teaches Hole, Ocracoke Inlet and of course
Portsmouth Island itself. We even poked our nose out the inlet to visit
our old friend the Atlantic Ocean just to see how those long rollers felt. There were lots of
smaller boats in the inlet prospecting for fish, and there were a number of
people on the beach surf fishing. We then went over to the old village of
Portsmouth. Apparently, this was the largest settlement on the Outer
banks until the Civil War. Eventually, everyone moved back to the
mainland by the 1960's, and now the place is mostly uninhabited except for the
Park Rangers and a few people who are working to restore the old buildings.
After our visit ashore we tried to take a short cut back to Ocracoke Island across
some shallow flats, but this resulted in us running hard aground on a falling
tide. We remained stuck for about 6 hours, and then in the middle of the
night we moved to deeper water and anchored until first light. 
In
the morning we followed a parade of small skiffs and larger power boats that
were shuttling a large number of visitors from Ocracoke Island to Portsmouth for the
annual homecoming. After watching them for a few minutes we noticed that
they seem to be following a course that closely matched a series of PVC
markers we had noted along the way. By retracing their course carefully,
we eventually found our way safely back to Silver Lake. Obviously our nautical charts
did not show the recent changes in these channels nor the shifting shoals that are constantly being reshaped by the
winds, the tides and the occasional hurricane. I guess the
main thing we learned about navigating these waters was that individual PVC
poles with traffic cones on top usually mean deep water. When these
were not visible we usually looked for the ever present crab pot buoys, which tended to be
set near or in the channels. Sand bars were often marked by thin PVC markers,
and they frequently had duck blinds built on their thin shores. Finally, we steered clear of the
many pound nets and their associated forest of wood branches and heavy PVC
pipes. In all we spent a week at Ocracoke Island. We met a few other
sailors, helped raise a sunken sailboat, ate lunch at our favorite restaurant,
and just generally relaxed. Then when the wind turned to our backs,
albeit at 25 knots, we blasted 24 miles back to Cedar Island, and then towed "Little Cruiser"
back home.
