Steady members of the Tadventure© reading community will recall that Day Six of Dire Wolf’s delivery south ended with the intrepid crew and yacht limping, bowed but not broken (well, sort of), back to Beaufort, NC, after a battle with the Atlantic Ocean. Day Seven picks up the tale as we licked our wounds and threw Mary and her gear off the boat. Others may disagree but I thought it was a lot more fun once we were rid of her.
[Just kidding, of course. Mary had to leave as her schedule precluded her from taking two or three more days to travel down the inside passage and Beaufort represented the only reasonable option for public transportation back to Charleston. Upon reflection, I admired greatly her willingness to ramble up and down the east coast only to join us for a boisterous “day sail” out of Beaufort. C’est la vie, I guess.]
When last we left the story, we had been pounded by the merciless seas, threatened by sea sickness (well, I was), and startled to find vast quantities of water entering the boat through a clogged cockpit locker. We turned back to Beaufort to try again another day.
The trip back was no cake walk. The waves, initially on the bow during our outbound passage, were slamming into the port (left) quarter as Warren struggled to keep us on course. The wind had not abated so we were able to sail back to traverse, in the dark, the channel leading us to the Beaufort anchorage. Mary helped to locate the green and red buoys that delineated the channel entrance while I steered and Gary stood at the laptop below, shouting instructions that I ignored. Always trust your eyes.
On the way out, I had noticed very large waves smashing against the shoreline and I was, on the return trip, focused on keeping clear of the beach now to port. The buoys were confusing and it was very difficult to discern, among ninety-two blinking lights, at sea and on shore, which lights would lead us to safety.
Keeping the boat on course was a formidable task given the sea state and in the middle of the channel we had to turn into the wind to lower the main. Gary went forward to complete the dangerous task. I had practically to firewall the throttle to maintain enough steerage to keep the bow in the wind. This thrilled the Professor to no end as he perched precariously upon the inverted dinghy strapped to the foredeck trying valiantly to pull the main sail down the mast in 25-30 knots and 5-10 foot seas; some choice language ensued.
With the sails down we turned back to complete our entrance and managed, after getting “lost” about three times [when I wasn’t certain of our position, I executed some hair-raising 360 degree turns to stay in a known area rather than charge forward into the dark and stormy unknown], to avoid the breaking waves to port and we found the entrance to the small channel leading to the Beaufort docks where we could anchor. Unfortunately, none of the entry buoys for that channel were lit.
It is surprisingly difficult to spot an unlit buoy at night, carefully colored red and green, two colors that do not lend themselves to night vision; they’re practically invisible. I asked Gary to hand up a light so that Mary could stand on the bow and search for the buoys. [Aside: Let’s talk about this “light” business (and provide you, the reader, with some poignant insight about the way a scientist’s brain works). Years ago, Gary and I and a nice fellow named Tom delivered the Wolf from the Chesapeake to Block Island, RI (Gary had made the trip many times, I’d been with him two or three times before; I’d even taken my boat up there one summer). On that particular trip when we arrived at Block Island, we found ourselves blanketed by fog trying desperately to find the entry channel buoy. We had a search light (a great huge million candle power handheld light) but its utility was significantly diminished when it was discovered that the batteries had not been charged. We had instead a “normal” flashlight (albeit a high powered LED model) that Tom used to illuminate a 14 foot, solid day marker about six feet dead ahead at the bow, just prior to impact. At the last possible moment, Gary swung the helm over, disaster narrowly averted. The point is, we had learned the lesson about having a fully charged, gazillion watt light at the ready.] When I asked for a “light,” Gary handed up the very same light that we had used to enter Block Island years before (the little LED model). [We had joked about the state of the big light on Day One and I remember thinking that the light was NOT charged. When Gary handed up the small flashlight for Mary to use, I assumed my memory was intact; the light was not charged, otherwise, he would have handed up that instead. This is not how a scientist brain works.] Mary took the light and repaired to the bow, her challenge to locate small, unlit buoys while I steered skillfully the boat, ignoring Gary’s screams from below (“Go LEFT! MORE!” “Now RIGHT.” “(^() %*&^% %*$%^ *)(*)”.
Mary shouted back that she was having trouble seeing the buoys with the white light shining in her eyes. I thought she meant the white lights on the nearby shoreline; we would learn later the actual source of her difficulty. Gary shouted up compass headings that actually worked and Mary’s duty became one of confirmation rather than location as we approached each marker and we made our way safely to the anchorage where we anchored. It was only nine-thirty PM but it seemed like one of the longest days of my life.
Once the anchor was set, I had a beer. Gary, returning from setting the anchor, mentioned in a casual manner, “The bow pulpit is pulled off the bow.” “WHAT?!?” I exclaimed. [The bow pulpit is a substantial piece of two tiered stainless steel framework to which the lifelines are attached, port and starboard, at the bow. The pulpit on this boat is attached to the bow at seven different places. The forces required to rip that piece off the boat were substantial.] Gary went on to say, “And the lens is missing from the navigation lights.” [This was the answer to Mary’s mysterious laments about the “white light” in her eyes. The Wolf had a single bow light, affixed to the tip of the bow pulpit, covered with a lens, green on one side, red on the other. The lens had been torn off by the seas leaving a bright white light to shine in Mary’s eyes.] I made my way forward to take a look.
Five of the seven attachment points had separated. The pulpit, affixed only at two points on the deck had bent upwards, the lifelines slack. I stood there thinking of what might have been had we continued to beat into the waves and wondered if, upon breaking free, the pulpit might have found its way aft to strike the helmsman, me. “Dang,” I muttered and trotted back to have another beer.
The next morning we pumped the bilge and found it brimming extraordinarily. We also inspected the engine prior to starting and discovered that a short piece of hose between the thermostat housing and the exhaust manifold had worked itself almost free, the consequences of which would have been disastrous. We dropped Mary off on the dock and considered our good fortune.
As we spun around to depart, we passed the catamaran we had seen heading in while we were heading out of the channel the day before. The skipper hollered over that they had seen us and thought us crazy. They had sailed down from Newport, non-stop, and were pounded by sixty-five knot winds.
Gary and I shook our heads and headed south once again, bound for Charleston via the Ditch.
The day was sunny and bright so Gary took the opportunity to bring up on deck all of his bed linens that had been soaked by the previous day’s aqueous influx. He scattered blankets and sheets and pillows and clothes around the deck and I remarked, “Jesus…we look like the Clampetts.” Gary, always a man in favor of function over fashion replied, “Screw you.”
On our way to an anchorage (Mile Hammock Bay) just past the Onslow Bridge we encountered a sign (physical rather than metaphysical):
WARNING
DO NOT PROCEED IF RED LIGHT IS LIT
LIVE FIRING IN PROGRESS
We had stumbled upon and within the United States Marine installation, Camp Lejeune, NC. [I did pause to consider the options faced by a vessel in transit when encountering an illuminated light; there was nowhere to “pull over” in the canal and boats, traditionally, lack even a hint of armor plating, its presence considered somewhat antithetical in buoyancy calculus.] Apparently, the USMC “runs” a portion of the canal and a bridge affixed across it; a bridge sufficiently close to the water in its closed position to necessitate an opening to allow our safe passage, mast intact.
I kept an eye out, my banjo strumming adversary from days before replaced by a highly skilled instrument of death, a United States Marine. How easy it would be, I mused, for a wayward shot to make its way, the very manifestation of friendly fire, into my corpulent form; no long johns could help me; their purpose was to retain heat rather than to repel incoming, high velocity rifle rounds. I announced I had to pee and scurried below like a schoolgirl running from a spider.
The bridge was closed, of course, and Gary began the Bridge Dance, in sparse company at first and then, as time went on, with lots of other boats; the end result was strikingly similar to a Virginia reel. At some point, the bridge tender made an announcement that was unclear (his transmission had been overridden by someone else’s chatter) and I, having emptied my bladder and returned on deck, asked him to repeat his message. Some other boater, not the bridge tender said, “He said for everyone to get as close to the bridge as possible but not to hit each other.” Gary and I laughed since that was a pretty stupid thing for a bridge tender to say. I mean, that was the point of the Dance, was it not? The bridge tender got immediately on the radio and said, “I didn’t say that! Don’t bunch up! Don’t bunch up!” The dancers were close enough that we could hear each other laughing out loud, smiles in abundance. Eventually the bridge opened and we made our way through.
We found our way by day’s end to the aforementioned anchorage which I have mentioned afore, and anchored in fairly shallow water in the company of many other yachts, the popularity of the spot no doubt enhanced by the fact that it was the only place within 50 miles to drop safely a hook, there to affect repairs to the bowsprit.
I demonstrated my remarkable and extensive nautical skill by using a Spanish Windlass to coax the bowsprit back in place. [If you don’t know what a Spanish Windlass is (like Gary), suffice to say that it is a manly technique to provide great leverage/power. Just knowing about it makes one appear head and shoulders above the unwashed masses.] Gary was amazed and paid great homage to me and my knowledge (he made the drinks that night). Bowsprit secured, we took showers and watched a beautiful sunset like a couple of homosexual debutantes.
During our bowsprit fixings, we noticed that the United States Marine Corps seemed intent upon engaging in training flight operations (“ops”). This was readily apparent as a GIGANTIC CH-53 Super Stallion made repeated take-offs, circles, and landings about a mile from our peaceful anchorage. Since we’re at war and my cousin was a Jarhead, I tried to ignore the constant comings and goings like a true patriot. I did think it a bit much that they seemed to time the period between leaving and landing just perfectly to allow one to drift to sleep only to be rudely awakened by the steady WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP of the seven-bladed (each 72 foot long) rotor assembly. It was a long night but I’m sure their training was a contribution to the war effort rather than repeated beer runs.
We rose before sunrise and got underway as the sun allowed sufficient light to see something before we ran into it. Our destination on Day Eight was Cape Fear, its very moniker filling me with trepidation and dread.
