A loud yowl, and she came bounding up the companionway steps into the cockpit, making a beeline for the bottom of the cockpit enclosure. Wanting to get off the #@#! boat, Smokey started pushing her nose under the bottom of a promising pannel, as she had learned she could sometimes get away with. It being 11:30 at night, 20 kt winds, 5 to 6 ft waves, the boat rolling and pitching, this was not to be! Luke grabbed Smokey, and held her in his arms. She really wanted to get to the bottom of an enclosure pannel. To "NO!" and "Stay" when she tride to get away, interspersed with "good kitty" when she relaxed, the battle of wills continued for the next half hour. Fortunately, Bruce, the autopilot, was doing a heroic job of steering and almost keeping the boat on course through the waves.
We left Morehead City about seven hours earlier, intending to catch a good (but not excellent) weather window and do 48 hours to Savannah on the outside. When we first got out, we had 4 to 5 ft waves from the south, left over from the recent south wind. Now the wind was building from the north east, as expected, so the wind chop to the south was added to the swells from the south - not great but OK. As the wind continued to build to 15 to 20 kts from the north east, so did the waves, to 4 to 5 ft. - still not great but OK. With the main sail only up, and the wind from nearly dead aft, we were getting virtually no steadying from the sail as we motorsailed downwind. A nearly full moon was on hand to greet the evening, leaving the horizon there as a reference - a big help as we're being tossed about. It didn't help Smokey much, though. She was cowering in the far reaches of a little space under the galley stove.
As Luke was trying to console Smokey, the clouds started building from the south, and Smokey was still trying to get away to escape. Positive reinforcement, warm secure arms and soothing petting didn't change her resolve. Finally, Luke brought her down to the aft stateroom, which has a door, and consigned her to the sleeping (sort-of) Bobbie, and closed the door.
When Bobbie's off-watch time was up, she left the kitten in the bedroom, came to the cockpit, and we pondered our next move. It had now started to rain, and the seas were gettting worse. We were both getting queasy, and had little desire to go below to sleep. We were at a decision point, at Cape Fear: continue to Savannah for another 36 hours, with the last weather predictions showing the same or worse, divert to the Winyah Bay, another 60 miles, or divert to Little River inlet, another 36 miles -- Little River won. We turned to port, now on a beam reach, wind 20 to 25 kts, raining nicely, Cape Fear lighthouse about 15 miles away, intermittently visible over the watery horizon. At 8:00 AM, we entered the shelter of the breakwaters of Little River inlet, motored to the ICW and headed south.
Once we got into the ICW things got better. Still plenty of rain - here's our first swing bridge, in the rain.
Take a look from the stern of our boat at this floating casino! That would be fun, huh?
Sweet Smokey finally came out into the cockpit and settled down. Luke is never going to have this pair of woolie socks if she keeps helping me knit.
After her terrifying experience on Friday night, she's been loathe to let us too far out of sight. Here she is, helping me navigate.
This section of the ICW, in SC, is one we've not seen. It's pretty - still a little greener than in VA. The land is so flat and there are little creeks meandering off everywhere. Lots of marsh grass and trees. We've seen eagles, too.
Our plan - you know how that goes - is to spend tonight at the city marina anchorage in Charleston (no sightseeing this time) and then do 2 more ICW stretchs. That will get us to Savanah for Christmas! The weather is a much smaller factor on these inside runs. AND it's supposed to be in the upper 40's and SUNNY tomorrow!
