Wow, talk about a trip. Our annual Memorial weekend cruise is eventful in one form or another every year. This year is the story of a missed forecast, wind on the nose and five foot rollers at one second intervals. The last two+ hours was wearing me out. All my single handed skills were put to the test.
The bow was breaking waves, first seeing sky, then walls of water, then sky, then water. Even with the dodger, connector and bimini, I still got soaked, completely drenched. The inevitable “what the hell am I doing here?” question did pop into my mind from time to time, but was well past the point of no return. The thought of turning around was tempting but I would then have those waves on the starboard quarter and I’d be rolling like hell. No worse feeling. The last time I felt this bad on a crossing was when we brought the boat down from Noank, CT while crossing Delaware Bay. That didn’t work out to well, lost it all.
I kept my lunch down this time (because I didn’t eat much). But when we got to the top of the channel headed down to Ocracoke, the wind was coming from the northeast, we’re headed south and then we were rolling.
So here’s some photos including Seaglass, the boat I paired up with doing the crossing, starting off with the course, finishing with a fantastic omelet the next morning at Dajio’s.
L u k e n . o r g 