North To Oriental 6-23/6-28

Prelude to a thunderstorm.
On our way out of Charleston, a storm was brewing......

The wind came up, cold and stiff. The wind against the tide made the seas steep soon after this photo was taken.

My only contribution to this post is:
I was a wee/little/lot bit freaked out by this storm :-) I dealt with my stress by taking as many pictures and videos as I could before we got hammered with rain. After that I laid with Valin and Drake in the aft cabin convincing them (me) that we have lots of thunderstorms in Alaska and that being in the boat is not different than being at sea. I knew in my heart that Free Spirit and her crew were capable of 10 times worse, but it was still a little freaky!

Still no rain, but rest assured it is on its way! Notice the seas are still small, but growing larger by the minute.

You can see the water running off the winch if you look closely here. The winds were only gusting to 35, but it made for a little excitement on our way out.

Thunderstorms usually involve sail changes, and this was no exception. The main was doused, and here Dave contemplates the fate of the jib. The seas built to a steep 6 feet (12 feet top to bottom), and we took a few over the bow for good measure. Free spirit handled the little squall with aplomb as she always does, but the cook got shook up a bit and the pasta went airborne. Too bad, as Laura's pasta dishes are always 5 star.

In due time, the thunderstorm rained the seas flat and melted into a dead calm by morning. This trip took us a total of 56 hours, unfortunately 46 of them were spent motoring to keep us at 4 knots.

Calms on the open ocean are eerie to behold, with such potential for powerful motion held in reserve. It makes this sailor nervous, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Along the way, we saw this box floating and decided to investigate. At the time, it felt to me like the beginning of a bad horror movie... but it turned out to be a live well or some kind of tank, lost off of another boat.

On our offshore trips we frequently hear mayday calls from other vessels, but so far we have been too far away to be of any help. The problems vary from one to another, but seem to have a common thread of recklessness, ill preparation, or other pitfalls of good seamanship. They usually end happily, but serve as a good reminder that the sea does not suffer fools gladly. It does make me wonder how that box was broken loose from its mounting, of what drama might have accompanied its separation, of what mistakes were made.

Blayde, helming Free Spirit on a very challenging downwind run into Beaufort, NC.

On a downwind run, Free Spirit keeps the helmsman busy arriving into Beaufort, NC. Adding to the difficulty was a steep following sea, a strong current, and a complex and narrow channel. Blayde handled the challenge with a great show of skill and strength, a feat any sailor could be proud of.