Off Season

Those with daily jobs have to go to work everyday. Weekends will give them a bit of a rest, as they gear back up for Monday! 

When these people take an extended break, they want to do it at the "best time." Collectively, everyone wants to do it at a similar time frame and this creates the "tourist season" in destination towns. People don't want to visit a place if the conditions are not optimal, so no one goes when it is not perfect. 

As a result, the stores and restaurants will hire more staff during the "season" and slow down or close entirely during the "off-season" since there isn't really a market to stay open for. When you arrive somewhere by boat, you might get there during the "season" and be surrounded by tons of other tourists who have descended on this area in a swarm. You will get to experience the pre-planned and orchestrated spectacle that the town has put on for its guests. 

Unlike all these other guests that need to return to work after a fun-packed vacation, you get to stay, as you are on your boat and in no hurry to be anywhere. Life is an adventure and you are going to cruise through it at a very relaxed pace. 

When the "season" comes to a close and the "off-season" begins, these towns will roll up their sidewalks and shut down.  Maddie and I find that this is actually the best time to visit a place, as you will get to know the locals and experience what life there is really like.

We arrived in Hatteras, NC just as the season was coming to an end. It was fun going to different restaurants and walking around the town looking at the items the shops had on display. A few days later, all the stores started to shut down because the "season" was over. Restaurants would open on their last day in a blaze of glory! All items on the menu were 50% off, as they wanted to clear out their freezer before closing for the "off-season."  Luckily, each of our favorite restaurants was closing on a different day, so we had the opportunity to attend the closing of each of them!

Once the party was over, the town was much quieter and only a few places stayed open. At the moment, there is a place that is open for lunch, another place open for dinner, a coffee shop, and a general market (which stocks fresh vegetables and other foods). You will soon come to know the locals, as everyone is going to be in one of these places and you can really get a feel for the true town. 

The facade has come down, the makeup has been washed away, and you can see what the town is really like. Hatteras is a town of fisherman who are all welcoming and friendly! While here, we have watched and learned how to clean a fish like a machine (6 quick cuts to extract a fillet) and felt welcomed by the locals.  

We are the only sailboat that has come here in a long time, so everyone knows about it. When we are talking with them and tell them that we are cruisers and we were sailing by, they will interject "Oh, you guys are the sailboat." Then they will usually offer us a ride to a neighboring town if we need supplies or parts. They have all been very helpful, but thankfully we haven't needed to go anywhere as our parts arrived by mail shortly after we got here. 

I don't mean that they have offered to drive us, I mean they have offered us the keys to their car! This is someone who met us 5 minutes ago. The people in this town, truly are kind and generous people who all look out for each other and everyone in their town. 

When planning your cruise, don't discount a destination because you would arrive there after the "season" has ended, or because you will arrive near the "end of the season". Value these opportunities to see and experience these places the way the locals do. You will get to see a side of these destinations that few ever even dream of! 

Sandpipers

Sandpipers are small birds that feast on creatures that lie just below the sand in the wet/dry portion of a beach. These little birds will run up and down the beach like children who are afraid of incoming waves yet want to be at the waters edge. 

As the waves pull back, they make their way down the beach and onto the wet sand. When the wave comes back in, they all scamper up the beach to the dry part. As they run back and forth, they will stick their slender beaks into the sand in search of prey, quietly eating each morsel with each wave. 

It really makes you sit back and think when you see such a sight. You may have sailed many a mile to reach this beach, braving storms and being becalmed, but these little birds have been here the whole time, feasting on the bounty of this beach. 

It may seem like a small thing to focus on, but this large world of ours is full! Every place you go, you will encounter something or someone who has been there as long as they have lived, and will remain there long after you have moved on. It's like if the whole world is a net, and everyone is a fish. They are snared and stuck in that specific place, always been there and always will be there. Cruisers are those who have managed to escape, and swim through the holes to travel to new parts of the net. We have slipped through the cracks and managed to free ourselves as we move about unnoticed. We are here today, but who knows where we will be tomorrow?

Sunsets

While sunsets over the water are gorgeous, there is something special about seeing a new sunset on a distant shore, far from your home. 

You get off your boat and walk around the new landscape all day, lost in your mind as you aimlessly wander about, taking in the scenery as it unfolds before you. 

Then the sun gets low on the horizon and the sky turns into a blaze of fire, and the wet sand on the beach matches it in shimmer and beauty! You quickly get out your camera to snap a few pictures as the moment displays its beauty before you and you think to yourself "I'm here!" 

Sailing will take you far and away, and each day, you will watch the sun set as you relax in the cockpit as you await your next landfall. Sunsets over water are gorgeous, as the sea and sky begin to glow the same color and the horizon transforms into a singular radiance of beauty; but a sunset over a new land brings new meaning to the entire voyage. 

Standing on a beach as you watch the shadows stretch out on the sand lets you know that you made it here and all those days at sea were worth it! 

Cruising to the Bahamas: Hove To

Heaving to is a tried and true storm survival method. Notice I say storm "survival" and not storm "comfort". That is because there is nothing comfortable about being in a storm!

The waves built to around 20 feet with a period of 8 seconds. This means that every 8 seconds involved us dropping 20 feet and then climbing back up 20 feet. Imagine being on a massive roller coaster for 3 days, and you don't have a special seat with a harness. Instead, you are trying to sleep on the roller coaster, walk around on the roller coaster, even go to the bathroom on the roller coaster!

Cabinets would open by accident and the contents would pour out. The best thing to do at this point was to shut the cabinet and not put whatever fell out back in because opening the cabinet to stow what fell would risk having everything else also fall out on the next wave.

The inside of the boat became a disaster as we were constantly tossed around. Maddie was too seasick to eat, and I didn't feel like eating since that involved getting tossed around the cabin like a rag doll.

While the slick did calm breaking waves down into rolling swell, it only worked on the waves that were approaching from the direction of the wind. Rogue waves which travel their own path do not come from the direction of the wind and are therefore able to sidestep the slick and slam right into us. One most notable of waves came at us diagonally and crashed into the starboard bow with a massive wall of water and the crest of the wave travelled over the boat, coming down on the port deck. It basically looked like a surfer in the green tube!

While we remained safe inside the boat, we did have some issues arise that precluded us from continuing our journey to the Bahamas. Our hatches are rather old and appear to have a few minor leaks. When it rains a simple towel will suffice to collect any water that seeps through the hatch. Three days of rain and breaking waves on the hatch meant that our bed became completely soaked in salt water. Not only was our bed wet, but there was no way it would dry anytime soon.

We also suffered some damage to the boat from the breaking waves and felt that it would behoove us to seek a safe harbor to carry out the repairs.

Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 5

Day 5 actually started out at night. We decided to sail through the night, and since we were out in the ocean, the Monitor would steer us on our course. We were sailing along at 2-3 knots, so I felt it safe to do a good lookout every hour since we also had the AIS proximity alarm turned on. Most of the vessels out in the ocean at night are commercial and all of them broadcast and AIS signal.

Maddie can't nap. If she puts her head down to sleep, it will take her a long time to fall asleep, and once she is out, she stays asleep for hours. This makes keeping a watch schedule practically impossible. As I come off watch, she would stay asleep!

Instead, I get up at regular intervals to check our surroundings based on our speed. If we are moving quickly, the lookouts are much more often, but if we are moving slowly, then the lookouts can be further spaced out.

Sailing at 2 knots, I felt it was safe to check every hour. This meant that I was climbing in and out of bed every hour for the entire night. When the sun came up, I was exhausted and needed to sleep for a few hours without being disturbed.

We puttered along under storm sails on another perfect day, because we knew that there was a storm south of us, and we needed to stop soon.

Sailing through the night and not sleeping seems pointless when you then have to slow down when the sun rises because you can't go that far today!

Early in the afternoon, we stopped and hove to as we waited for the storm to approach. This storm is starting today (Sunday) and going to last until Wednesday. That's right, Sunday night, all of Monday, all of Tuesday, and into Wednesday afternoon.

Our goal for today was simply to sail away from land to give ourselves plenty of seaway to drift in. This would let us safely heave to and ride out the storm.

As the sun set, the winds began to increase. Wisdom, our sailboat, nestled into her slick as she began to drift laterally through the water. This will be our life for the next few days, so we better get used to it!

As the waves build, sloshing increases, but oddly enough, the heeling doesn't. The trysail spills the wind and merely steadies us as we float up and down over the waves as they come at us, calmed by our slick to windward.

Tonight will be a lumpy night, but at least I wont have to get up every hour to check our position and heading. All we need to do is drift through the storm so we can get on with making way to the Bahamas!