Getting everything loaded up Friday night before the trip. I don’t know why, but every beach trip seems to be a flurry of packing right at the last minute. Thank goodness for my sailboat checklist!

I launched at the Village Marina on Saturday evening to motor the 2.5 miles back to the condo with my trolling motor. Dinkey’s and Breakwater restaurants were in full swing with music blaring and I got a lot of curious looks from people on the docks as I went by. I heard one guy wondering why the boat was so quiet.

It was really cool going through the narrow channel with houses on one side and marsh on the other. I have no idea how deep or wide the channel is, but there were some pretty big boats I passed along the way.

I stayed relatively close to the shore and as it got darker I didn’t realize I was in really shallow water. The centerboard grounded and the motor quickly got fouled with grass. Eventually I pulled out the oars and rowed back into the channel. I came across a number of PVC pipe markers in “The Slash” but it was too dark to know what they meant, so I just stayed as close to them as I could.

Eventually I made it to the condo and got the boat tied up.

My slip was nearly at the end of the canal and we had a good view from the third story looking out towards the sound.

Unfortunately during our stay a storm came up the coast and most the week was super windy or pouring down rain. Sunday looked like the best opportunity for anything boat related so my wife and son and I took the boat out for a quick trolling motor cruise.

We nosed up pretty close to the Slash Creek Bridge on route 12 before turning around. A few weeks after we left North Carolina Department of Transportation started a 4.5 million dollar project to replace the wooden bridge with a concrete one which is supposed to be finished by the end of May 2025.

Heading towards a narrow cut around the pair of islands in The Slash. We later ran out of water and drifted into the marsh a bit before I could get the oars rigged and row us back to deeper water.

Back to the dock at our condo.

Here’s our track. 1.4 miles in 28 minutes.

Strong winds kept the boat pushed over towards the finger pier for days. It was kind of funny how lopsided the scum line was when I hauled out on Saturday. My bilge pump and LiFePO4 battery kept most of the rain water out, although there’s no real sump so the bottom collects an inch or so of water.

We were smack in the middle of the purple with 45 mph gusts.

One morning looking out the window I saw this center console stuck in basically the same area I drifted into. It took him a while, but eventually he wiggled off.

On Wednesday when it was super windy we took the ferry over to Ocracoke. The ferries used to hug the point before looping around, but I guess the inlet has shoaled up enough that they need to head north east before turning towards Ocracoke. What used to be a 45 minute ride is now more like 1:25. It was one of the roughest trips I can remember with quite a bit of spray coming over the bow. Every now and then we’d hit a wave just right and there’d be a loud thud and a couple times I wondered if we’d hit the bottom.

Henry had a fun time on the ferry. We rode the River class Floyd J. Lupton over and he got to wave at the W. Stanford White along the way. These are newer ferries with an off center island so there are three rows of cars on one side and one on the other.

On the way back we rode the Hatteras class Chicamacomico. These are the older style ferries with a center island and two pairs of rows that I remember as a kid. I remember climbing up the steps to the lounge area smelling the salt air and feeling the wind blowing in my hair. I never went into the lounge much since I didn’t like the smell of all the smokers.

Friday was actually pretty decent so we made the most of it on the beach. The waves were still really rough and erosion from the storm was pretty wild. It was into the dunes in a lot of places and almost broke through Highway 12.

I took my Freiberger sextant along and made some practice sights. Someday when I have time (hah!) I’ll reduce them and see how far off I was.
Actual location: 35°12’14.8″N 75°42’21.3″W on 9/6/2024
Sight one: 13:20:11 – 31º 29.0′
Sight two: 15:19:23 – 52º 31.1′
Sight three: 16:56:27 – 60º 41.8′

Pretty soon the week was over and it was time to head home. Of course it had to rain Saturday morning when I wanted to haul out, but it was super calm and that was what was important. I put on a rain jacket and left right at sunrise.

With the benefit of research I figured out where the channel was and swung out much wider into the sound to avoid the shallow spots.

Turns out, it’s well marked if you know where to go.

Entering the cut to Hatteras Harbor.

Another guy came blasting up behind me but fortunately slowed down a bit as he got closer.

Village Marina is ahead and on the left, to the right is the main entrance out of the harbor. A ferry was going by before it turned out into the sound and back towards Ocracoke.

Back at the ramp where I hauled out. Later at the condo I got the spars all secured and the cover back on for the trip home. It rained all five hours on the way back!

This week I finished cutting out the third sheet of 3/8″. Scoring the lines with a knife before jigsawing does stop the splintering, but that quickly got old. I’ve started cutting out the parts within 3/8″ or so of the line with a jigsaw, then doing a more precision job at the bandsaw. I’ve had really minimal splintering that way and I can get it accurate enough that just a few swipes with a plane takes things down to the line. I also had time to epoxy the two stiffeners on either side of the stem.

If there are a pair of parts I only draw one and cut that out as accurately as I can. Then I use it as a pattern for the other side and jigsaw that out. A few temporary screws holds the two together so I can run it through my router with a follower bearing. This has worked really well and is an easy way to get things symmetrical.

Like a lot of boatyards, there’s an abandoned Fuji 35 in the corner slowly rotting away. I’m trying to keep costs to a minimum so the boss let me salvage anything off of it I could.

So far I’ve got some 14″, 10″, 6″, and 4″ cleats. Three fairleads, assorted blocks, a tether, and some bronze. I’m toying with the idea of casting a few things for my boat… I’ve wanted to give that a try for a while. Not sure what I’ll do with those big cleats though. Maybe mount one to the mast for the flag halyard?

Today was forecast to be pretty nice with 10-15 mph winds from the west which would swing northerly around noon. I figured I would head north from Windmill Point on a beam reach and visit Reedville which is 16 miles away. Then the wind would change and I’d have a run back to Windmill Point. I didn’t think to check the tide which I ended up fighting the whole day. I ended up going 40.7 miles in 9.25 hours. Average speed was 4.4 mph with a max of 8.1 mph.

It was so calm at the boat ramp that I launched without brailing. The improvements I made over the winter have really made rigging easier, although it still took about 35 minutes.

Heading out of the marina at 7:20 am with the faintest breeze. Someday I want to make a topsail for ghosting along. But I think that’ll have to wait until after I get camping aboard figured out.

Out into the Rappahannock and the breeze picks up, but the only waves come from a passing deadrise loaded down with crab pots.

Just about at the end of Windmill Point. Straight ahead is the Eastern Shore about 20 miles away.

I made the turn at the point and headed due north on a beam reach in beautiful weather and I settled in for a pleasant day of sailing. Reedville hasn’t popped over the horizon yet, but I could see the far part of Fleet’s Bay. Somewhere along here I scared off a flock of surf scoters… they’re big fat ducks with a white patch on their forehead and back of their neck. Dad did a lot of duck hunting and he always called them skunkheads.

Alas, Mother Nature didn’t check the forecast and the wind went northerly way before it was supposed to and I had to start tacking. I was also fighting the current which I had neglected to check before leaving. At times it was a bit frustrating since the wind seemed to keep shifting, or maybe it was being influenced by the land which made it a bit difficult to know how to keep making progress. One of my tacks got cut a bit short when I came across some watermen working a trotline. At the time I thought it was a gill net and didn’t know if I’d get tangled up in it.

About 3/4 the way to Reedville I went by Dameron Marsh. This is a low lying, marshy area with relatively shallow water all around. I managed to skirt by with 50 yards to spare and it was pretty rough. The wind had picked up and the waves were short and steep.

Crossing Ingram Bay was the roughest part of the trip with lots of white caps and gusty wind. It wasn’t quite to brown pants level of wind, but there was definitely sufficient wind. Once I managed to get in the wind shadow of land it got a lot better. One of these days I really need to figure out reefing…

Heading to Cockrell’s Creek where the waves really calmed down.

My original plan had been to go to Reedville and get lunch at the Crazy Crab and then check out the wooden skipjack and buy boat at the Fishermen’s Museum. But it was already 1:30 pm so I decided to head back after checking out the smoke stack at Omega Protein.

The menhaden fleet at Omega Protein. These ships rely on spotter planes to find schools of menhaden in the Chesapeake and Atlantic. Then they drop a pair of purse boats which encircle the school with a net. The fish are vacuumed out and later rendered down for their oil at the factory. Rendering puts off a powerful smell of money and I remember getting a whiff of it as a kid 15 miles away when the wind was right. These days it’s not as bad since regulations have improved.

This is a menhaden ship from the 1940’s which carries the purse boats on davits. Modern ones have a pair of ramps at the stern to winch them out. Right now all the purse boats are stored on land beside the stack.

The Morris-Fisher stack was built in 1902 and stands 130 feet tall. A decade ago it was in real danger of falling down… a huge chunk was missing from the top, there were cracks running down the side, and bricks fell off regularly. Funds were raised and it was restored in 2011.

Not in very good shape! From savethestack.blogspot.com and https://www.hmdb.org.

Reedville was at one time the richest town in America. There were over a dozen fish factories along the creek and many owners and ship captains built their mansions on “Millionaire’s Row.” The red roofed building in the center is the Crazy Crab where I was going to have lunch and on the left is the ruins of a fish factory. You can just make out a few of the mansions too. One of them, “The Gables” is made from bricks used as ballast and has a mizzen mast running through the center of the house to support the roof.

Heading out of Cockrell’s Creek there are some more ruins and piling.

Back into Ingram Bay and the wind and waves started picking up. But it was great because I was on a 14 mile broad reach!

I averaged about 6.5mph which is a little slow because by now the tide had started coming in again. I mostly sat on the side deck straddling the rowing thwart. Lots of hiking and the leeward side of the boat had a constant stream of foam shooting out. The waves were probably about 2′ with an occasional bigger one. It always looks scary until the boat just slides up the face and it’s gone.

Back to the familiar waters of Windmill Point.

These guys have front row seats to all the hurricanes and nor’easters.

Wing and wing after making the turn into the Rappahannock. I’ve been thinking of building some kind of combo whisker pole/boom crutch, but I haven’t quite got it figured out yet.

I dropped the jib as I approached the entrance to the marina. Closer to the boat ramp I let the peak droop to depower the main with my new snotter led aft arrangement. Then I removed the toggling snotter block and dropped the main halyard. The sail came down easily without hanging up on the thumb cleat due to the new spiraling robands, I definitely think the winter improvements are working well.

This guy’s got a bit of work to do before summer fishing! While I was waiting for a guy to pull his boat out, he asked me how old mine was. He was pretty surprised when I said three years, he said he thought it was “an original!” I think someone has complimented Ross’s design on every outing.