Heading on up

By Mike Jastrzebski

Just a short post today. We left Beaufort on Thursday heading north along the intracoastal waterway and are currently 130 miles from Norfolk. When we left the weather was beautiful and we were even able to sail for a couple of hours right along the magenta line with 8-10 knots of wind. We traveled 50 miles and anchored in a nice little spot just as we left Pamlico Sound at mile marker 160. Friday was another story.

We knew there was an 80 percent chance of rain when we pulled the anchor up Friday morning, but it didn’t look that bad and we knew we were only going about 25 miles so we decided to chance it. Within the hour we had a steady rainfall, but saw no sign of thunderstorms. Shortly thereafter a weather warning came on the VHF radio letting us know that thunderstorms complete with water spouts had passed through the area where we had been anchored.

After that it seemed that an announcement came over the radio every half hour to an hour saying that thunderstorms, waterspouts, and high winds were headed for the areas we had just passed. Fortunately, although we were soaked, we never saw any lightning or heard a single thunder clap. Still, we were happy to arrive at our anchorage across from the town of Belhaven, NC.

The anchorage is a little open and was quite rolly when we arrived, but we decided to stay an extra day since the weather report called for a repeat of Friday. It didn’t happen and we only saw a few drops, so our plan is to head on out again today (Sunday) if the weather looks reasonably good.

Share on Facebook