Cape Canaveral to Beaufort
Trippwire
Fri 30 Apr 2010 17:43
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Well, the weather, for once (with the exception of
a few hours in the dead of night when the winds reached 27 knots, when it
should have been calming down), was exactly as forecast, so we had a very nice
and gentle 430 nm sail across to Beaufort. This leg had been worrying us a
little as it is the American equivalent of the Bay of Biscay - added to it
though is the Gulf Stream, which runs at up to 3.5 knots. And as we found
out on the crossing between Cuba and Miami, it doesn't take much wind against
the gulf stream to build up a huge swell!
We were determined not to be battered again as we
were on the crossing to Cuba, so were very careful to choose very calm
conditions to make the crossing. As a consequence, we are suffering a little from guilt that we may have
gone soft. However, we had just found podcasts
(ok, I know you all discovered these years ago), and all I can say is motoring
is the way forward - those night watches have never gone so
quickly!
One of the benefits of nice weather is stunning sun
sets;
 and sun rises;
 and more sunsets;
 oh, and a few jellyfish;
 Now, Cape Hatteras
is deemed to be the line between tropical maritime systems and polar maritime weather systems. Until now, I had thought
that this was just a mythical line, however - I can confirm that really, in the
space of no more than an hour (and we were only travelling at about 7 knots, so
really not far), it went from nice warm shorts and T-shirts even on night
watch weather, to freezing cold woolly bear and fleece weather. Now, you
may not have much sympathy, but for those of us who have spent the last six
months in the Caribbean, this is very difficult to adjust to indeed! Not
only did it turn cold, but it was also accompanied by fog. Now, the last
time we had fog was in Portugal - we could barely remember what this weird grey
stuff was. Combined with this was the unexplainable fact that the water
was only about 15m deep and we couldn't see the bottom - it was this strange
grey colour - we could have been in England!!
Not only that, but we are now gale bound for a few
days - it is blowing over 30 knots, so not weather to go around Cape Hatteras
(know as the ship's graveyard). There are apparently over 600 known ship
wrecks surrounding the Cape - partly due to the shallow (and shifting) nature of
what is essentially just a spit; partly due to two colliding currents that
converge at this point; and partly due to the low pressure systems that all
spring off this point making weather forecasting difficult. It is very
easy to get caught out in terrible weather conditions. Any northerly winds
are generally deemed to be bad, as are any strong winds. So, we will be
here for a little while (and that's without the luxuries of Tom's house to lead
us astray!!).
So on to Beaufort - it really is a strange
place. Think Steven King film set. Think wooden houses, all looking
identical, with rocking chairs gently rocking back and forth in the wind on the
balcony, and wind chimes creating a sense of foreboding and you're
there. This is compounded by there being nobody here
- apparently they all come in a few weeks. Hmmmmmmmm. I for sure will
be looking the hatch tonight!!!
 To be continued....if we survive the
night.....
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