We left Hilton Head as planned on Saturday morning. All went well as we motored up the ICW to Port Royal Sound. The engine ran perfectly, yeah! Once we got into Port Royal Sound we hoisted the sails and had a great 24 hours of southerly winds and following seas. After the first night, the
wind started to slow and change directions. It was expected to come from the north, but not until Monday as far as our grib files were showing. However, that was not the case. So on Sunday morning, we had to start the engine back up. We knew we would have to motor for the next 24 hours if we decided to stay offshore. So, we had to decide if we wanted to keep going or pull into the ICW. Because we wouldn't arrive at a suitable inlet until later in the day and probably after dark, we decided we would just keep going. This meant that we would need to figure out how many hours the engine was going to be running and if we would need to have the 50 hour engine checkup sooner rather than later. Decisions, decisions! Since Michele is very anxious to get home, we decided to keep going for a second night out at sea. (We were traveling at least 35 miles offshore). On Monday morning the weather was starting to get a little nasty. The clouds were thickening and lightning was looming. We were expecting this, and wanted to get tucked in before it hit. Unfortunately, right as we were entering the Beaufort Inlet, the skies opened. We got a little wet, but not too bad. Beaufort Harbor was too crowded to anchor, so we kept going up Adams Creek and anchored at a little spot where we anchored on the way down in the fall at Cedar Creek.When we pulled into the anchorage, we noticed that Kristenly, was anchored there as well. Randy is single handling the boat home (with Rocky and Spike their two little dogs), while Nikki had to return to work (guidance counselor at a high school in Vermont.) Steve had originally talked with Randy a couple of years ago, via the IPHomeport website. Then we met him in Nassau, Bahamas where Nikki joined him. We hung out with them in the Exumas for a couple of weeks. Kristenly is also an IP38. Nikki had taken a leave of absense from her job for a couple of months, but had to return to Vermont. She'll join Randy and dogs in mid June when school gets out. We ended up going in different directions, as we headed here to Oriental and Randy headed to the Outer Banks (Cape Hatteras, Roanoke, and Kitty Hawk.) Maybe we'll bump into him again on the way up north.
So, even though we weren't quite at 50 hours on the new engine, we decided to go to Deaton Yacht Service anyway. They come highly recommended for Yanmar mechanics. If we didn't stop here, then we weren't sure how far north we'd have to go before finding another really good place for Yanmar service. We also wanted to have a reputable yard to check out the install that we had done in Hilton Head. It was a really good choice coming here. We even got free T-shirts and a hat. They're very nice here, and we love Oriental. We've been here a couple of times already by car.
We decided to stay another night here and head out first thing tomorrow morning. We'd like to go back offshore, but we won't have favorable conditions for a couple of days. So back up the ICW we will go and hopefully get to the Chesapeake by Friday. We're getting closer and closer to home sweet home.
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