June 1, 2000
Been having too much fun with "Zaftra." This usually ends with cocktail hour and my supply of Tylenol is getting a workout. Today we had a perfect day for me. We did a little grocery shopping and window shopping in town, had a sandwich lunch at "Laura's Kitchen", packed up our dinghy and went off in search of coral reefs. We had to dinghy a ways, tie up and walk a ways and there we were on the ocean side. The water was delightfully perfect. Gloria and Bob stayed closer to shore where there were plenty of fish to view while Don and I ventured out a little further to this long line of reefs. I had a wonderful time searching out different fish, trying to point them out to Don so he could come over and spear us one for dinner. He placated me a few times but then went off to hunt on his own. I'm kind of big on the buddy system while snorkeling or swimming out a ways but not everyone is. I went off on my own for a while and then came back near Don and tried to keep out of the way of his spear. As I was somewhat near Don but snorkeling on my own, I noticed a big, dark, grey body. With a fin. And two beady eyes, one staring right at me while the other looking at some other interesting prey. This thing was pretty big. From head to end of tail, I'm guessing between 10 and 14 feet. I swam over to Don and yanked on his arm, which wasn't the smartest thing to do since he was wielding a spear, and yelled "shark!" I pointed and Don took a turn in the opposite direction, around the coral rock to shore. I was looking to get his reaction, being more experienced in the waters than myself. Well, I got it all right but I didn't like it. In the worst way I wanted to swim back over to that shark and just watch it for awhile. It was so big and my body swam within about 3 feet of him and he didn't attack. Not to say that he wouldn't have. But not to say he would have. When we compared stories once safely on land, Don only saw his head and fin. I saw the whole shark because, don't tell anyone, once I saw him and before I yanked on Don's arm, I did a couple of turns around the shark to check him out. I couldn't help it; he was mesmerizing. In any case, his tail was really long with more fins on it. At first I thought he was a hammerhead and Don thought he was a reef shark. Looking at shark pictures in a book later that night, I'm convinced he was only a nurse shark while Don still believes he was a reef shark. The story is better as a reef shark because they are much more aggressive but Don didn't see his tail, which explains much more.
We all hiked back to civilization telling our fish stories. We saw the teeniest baby moray eel. Only about 3 inches long, swimming near a hole. I saw the most beautiful fish I have ever seen. It was blue and lavender and mauve and bright pink. And quite good-sized. I swam with her (her, because she was beautiful) for 5 minutes or so. I watched Don spear a small grouper. When he dove to retrieve the spear, the fish got free. Don saw a barracuda, which is a species not to mess with. We stopped for a cocktail (or two) and then headed back to our respective boats to throw together a potluck dinner and feasted aboard Mutual Fun. A cassette playing over potato salad, baked beans and barbecued beef outdid the annoying "bleep" of the weather fax. It wasn't a gourmet feast but we were some hungry storytellers.
June 3, 2000
The day begins at 6:00am. Weather is beautiful already. Neither one of us slept very well in anticipation of the coming days. How will the winds be? Will we be able to sail and use the steering vane or will we have to hand steer? If we hand steer for more than 2 of the 4 days, we will be exhausted. Will the waves be huge? Will we have storms? Hit a whale? See a whale?
We decide on a new watch system. It's called the 3-2-1 meaning on 3 hours, off 2, on 1 hour, off one hour, etc. We pick up our anchor and leave about 7:15 with "Zaftra" right behind. We are out the cut and sailing within an hour. Day 1 starts and ends beautifully. At about 4:00am, I heard a big snort off the starboard side and recognized it as a dolphin, probably just came around to say "hello."
June 4, 2000
The nice part about sailing in the summer is the long daylight hours. The sky doesn't get completely dark until about 9:30pm and the sky begins to lighten in the morning by 5:30am. That is only 8 hours of darkness compared to about 12 hours on our Bermuda trip. It seems to make a lot of difference, especially since the moon rises during the day and is setting about midnight.
The second day brings more light breezes, enough to use full sails and "Max"; the steering vane is still at the helm. We haven't reached the fast-moving current of the Gulf Stream yet so we aren't making great time but we don't care because it's beautiful out here. We decide we might keep going and head for Newport if these conditions keep up. My night watches are a joy. I love the peace and serenity of being by myself out in the cockpit, with the stars blazing, the steady wind blowing us, and the gentle slapping of the waves. Below, off-watch, sleeping is calm and peaceful. We haven't seen very many freighters; traffic is slow out here. "Greensleeves" left yesterday about 4:00pm from an island a little further away from us. They will beat us into the anchorage, I just know it. They have an additional crewmember and a working autopilot. That's like having 2 additional people as our steering vane is like having an additional person, but only when sailing. As soon as the engine goes on, the steering vane has to be released.
I have had a fishing line out for 2 days without a bite. It is a hand-held circular jobbie and I trail about 100 yards out with a lure and huge hook. Last night at some point, some very unlucky flying fish lost his life when he flew aboard and landed on the deck of Mutual Fun. Bob found it this morning and handed it to me. I thought about eating him (joke) but instead, cut him up for bait. While Bob was down below sleeping, I was laying on the cabin deck staring at my fishing line, willing it to move. I had clipped the fishing line to a clothespin to the lifeline so it would pop off if a fish bit. As I was staring at the line, believe this or don't, the clothespin popped off and the line went taut. I ran over to it and yelled to Bob we had a fish on. I picked up the hand reel that I had tied to a stanchion, untied it and the fight was on. I felt the fish was really hooked but I didn't want to give him any slack at all. I would be able to reel him in for maybe 2 turns before he took off in the opposite direction or even straight down. The fight took about ˝ hour. My arms were aching, my back was in pain but the smile never left my face. Bob went below and got the gaff hook. We didn't know what it was until it finally jumped out of the water and we saw this beautiful, bright green dolphin (mahi mahi). When I finally got him right up to the boat, Bob was standing right next to me with the gaff hook, poised for the strike, when the dolphin made one final attempt at saving his life, snapped his head hard to the side, and snapped my line. We couldn't believe it. Here he was a second ago lying right next to the boat. All 3 ˝ feet of him, and now
he was floating away. It was like in slow motion. We both kept repeating, "oh, no, oh, no." We sat down on the deck and Bob put his hand on my shoulder so sweet and said, "I'm so sorry." I never did get to put a line back out. Between the rough seas and high winds, neither one of us had the time or energy to devote. "Greensleeves", for the record, caught 3 dolphin and 1 mackerel. They won the fishing contest between the 6 boats sailing from Abacos to Beaufort within the last week.
June 5-Monday, 2000
Well, perfection can't last forever. The wind and seas have begun to increase. Nothing too terrible, just a little less comfortable. We are still sailing but instead of 15-20 knots we have 20-25 knots. The boat starts to heel a little more and getting around below takes serious use of the handholds. It is still a beautiful day, hot and sunny. We can feel we are in the Gulf Stream now and the extra 1 ˝-3 knot current is helping us right along. We reached 8.3 knots, which is really fast for us. Our cruising speed average is 5 knots. I call this a "boisterous" sail and am still enjoying the ride. Our new watch system is working well. We are only getting about 3 ˝ hours sleep a night but since the steering vane is on, we can catnap on watch. We keep a canvas bag in the cockpit with our nighttime essentials. This includes: binoculars, spotlight, flashlights, portable VHF radio and, of course, crackers, cookies and misc. other goodies. Also, the most important piece of equipment is our egg timer. This we set every 12 minutes. When it goes off, we stand up, look straight ahead, ,to the right, back and to the left, check the front again, reset the timer and have another 12-minute snooze. I think we're getting another 1-˝ hours sleep on watch. This means we're averaging 5 hours sleep per day. We never get into full REM sleep, which isn't good but you can live on 5 hours a night. Also, we can nap on our off-watch hours during the day. It's just that there is still meal preparation, cleaning up the boat and ourselves, weather faxes and checking in on SSB. During this trip ""Elysia" and "Shamal" kept in touch with us twice a day. They got positions from all 3 of us, just in case.
Day 3 is not quite over yet. Well, actually it is because the action started when I came up for my 3:00am watch. I came up ready to relieve Bob, strapped myself in and looked around. We're in 25-30 knot winds and building seas. But, that wasn't the bad part. The bad part was the storm brewing ahead. The lightning was surrounding us. I sat there and looked around and asked Bob to stay up there with me for awhile and doze in the cockpit. Bob hadn't been doing his fair share of sleeping and I felt really bad about it but it kind of spooked me. Well, then the show began. The sky was lit up in an almost constant show of lightning for 3 hours. In between lightning strikes was 1-2 seconds. The clouds above us would light up and then there would be this huge bolt of lightning strike all of the way down to the water directly ahead of us. We were trapped in the middle of this storm and couldn't get out. We were still sailing at a relatively fast speed; the water went rushing by the hull and the lightning just kept on and on. There was no thunder and no rain. We were poised for our duties as soon as this storm let us loose. I was curled like a tiger ready to grab the helm, undo the steering van and turn us into the wind while Bob sat next to the winch, ready to release the headsail. I won't go into what lightning can do to a sailboat or my mom will make me come home, but I will say that you can use your imagination as to how lightning might be attracted to a 60 foot piece of metal, otherwise known as a mast, sticking straight up into its path. This was the closest I've been to being terrified, to date. I told Bob I loved him and actually asked if he had any last things he wanted to say to me. We sat in these positions for 3 straight hours. Bob was so tired that he was actually dozing off. I was afraid to look directly at the lightning bolts because I don't know if they can blind you but it felt like they could. After 3 hours, the storm finally had mercy on us and let us go. When it did, the winds kicked up, the boat went temporarily out of control until Bob and I got it back under control. We watched the dark clouds and lightning move off to our east with a chuckle as it bade us goodbye. By then it was 6:00am and the sun was ready to brighten the day. Even though I had been on watch the last 3 hours, I wasn't tired so I told Bob to go below and not set his alarm. He slept eagerly although it was still really blowing out there. With the passing of the storm came a wind shift, more to the north. Since we were headed slightly northeast, we were still able to sail.
June 6-Tuesday, 2000
The sun really didn't peak out for many more hours; it was cloudy but still warm. The seas were kicked way up, 6-8 footers with 12-foot swells and it was blowing 23-28 knots. By now, "Greensleeves" is within 12 miles of us and we are in contact by VHF radio. We are calling back and forth during the day. I am a bit worried about Elizabeth because she doesn't really like these kind of conditions but a call over to them finds them having a blast. They are actually reeling in a 4-foot dolphin (mahi mahi) when I called. Bob and I are getting tired and a bit cranky and here are these young kids, fishing, swinging from the ratlines and racing us in. I will say, that extra person makes all of the difference in the amount of sleep you get and the amount of sleep you get makes all of the difference in how you feel and react. Still, they were having way too much fun for me.
It is at this time that we have to decide whether to keep our destination of Beaufort or tuck into Cape Fear. There are dangerous shoals called Frying Pan Shoals that make the decision definite so it had to be made now. We listened to weather, talked to our friends near the Beaufort area and everything pointed to high seas and high winds, gale-like conditions from a storm coming south off New England. We made our decision, as did "Greensleeves" and decided to head for Cape Fear, about 70 miles shy of Beaufort. It was not too long after this that the seas started to settle down and the winds died down to 15 knots. Well, we may have regretted our decision for awhile but a few hours later, the wind was right back up to mid 20's and the seas were gaining strength.
At this point, the wind took another shift and came out of the north. This is not good because we are headed north. We had to roll in the headsail but we kept the mainsail up and headed just a few degrees off the wind to keep the sail full. Unfortunately, it was not enough to sail and we had to release the steering vane and hand steer. I wasn't really upset about it because up to this point, we had only had to hand steer for 4 hours. Not bad out of 3 days. We were now only about 40 miles from the first waypoint to Cape Fear. No problem. 40 miles divided by 5 knots means only 8 hours. There are 2 of us, slightly tired but healthy so we'll steer for 2 hours and switch. Only 4 hours of hand steering each. We can do this. Ahh, but the problem was the wind and the waves. We were now on a serious course for our waypoint and had to maintain close to exact direction. This means we were slugging into big seas and our speed dropped down. Way down. It is now somewhere around 4:00pm and we are expecting landfall about midnight.
Conditions deteriorated quickly. The wind speed intensified to 26-32 knots, the seas were lumpy and awful, we were smashing into big waves at a direct front angle, water was spraying the helmsman in the face, our speed was reduced even further to 2 knots or less and the temperature was rapidly dropping. Under these conditions, we are now on ˝ hour turns at the helm. Wet, cold and growing more exhausted by the minute is not good. I started to get the shakes and Bob sent me below to warm up. I tried to doze for 10 minutes but felt too bad about him being out there alone. I stayed below, though, knowing I needed to warm up. I put some more clothes on, got back into my foul weather gear and harness and went back above. Bob needed to plot our course so he went below and I took the helm. He wasn't down there 2 minutes when I called him up. He came storming up when I screamed for him the second time. He caught the face of his watch on something and it went flying somewhere and then his hat blew off. He started to look for the pieces of watch and I'm yelling about a freighter. He looks up and irritably tells me it's far off and I tell him it is not and he gets mad and takes the wheel. He studies it for a few minutes, has to tack to alter course and says he's sorry, the freighter was much closer than he thought. He was my friend again after that, went back below to finish charting and I left him alone to think in peace. He came back up and took the helm for a long time. I tried to relieve Bob at the helm but he wouldn't let me. He said I needed to save my strength for getting through the channel and anchoring. I sat in the cockpit, under the dodger and shivered. We didn't know where "Greensleeves" was but we could see their running lights earlier. They decided on a different method of fighting this situation by tacking back and forth. They called us to suggest this to us but we decided against it. It just took too
much energy to work the sails while hand steering in these conditions. We didn't have much in reserves. The lights of the channel looked so close but it seemed like we were making no progress. It was about 4:00am when we finally got in the channel. Instead of finding relief from the winds and waves, we found all of the above with a heavy current. Bob had been steering for many hours at this point and by now, I felt incapable of relieving him even if I wanted to. And I didn't. I noticed I was starting to lose it when I was looking for the spotlight to shine on the buoys. I couldn't find it and I started throwing things down below. Breakable things like the egg timer and small flashlight. Bob didn't say a word. I was on shaky ground and he needed me to search buoys numbers and anchor. And where was "Greensleeves?" Turns out, only 3 buoys ahead of us. Bob had been berating himself for not taking Dylan's advice and it turned out not to make much difference. Here we thought they were in, anchored and snoring. We were talking of hot chocolate when Dylan called to tell us where to anchor. The current was mighty swift but we anchored in 15 feet of water at 6:00am, went shakily below, got out of our wet clothes, made hot chocolate, congratulated ourselves on being alive and dropped down. Bob lay down after one swallow of his drink and was asleep in 3 seconds. I told him to sit up and drink his warm drink and he said it was like this curtain of sleep just came down over him. Another couple of swallows and he was out cold. If anyone ever deserved sleep, he did. Bob's stamina is a never-ending comfort to me. I know however bad it gets and for however long it takes, he will be able to withstand it. We motor-sailed the last 18 miles in 12 hours. It was hell. The pillow never felt so good.
June 9-Thursday, 2000
In between sleep, I have been taking in as many calories as possible. I am famished only to find that my stomach won't hold very much food. I am feeling better and stronger. Tonight I will sleep like a baby and by tomorrow I will feel my old self. Maybe the next day we can take off for Beaufort. Ooh, rounding Cape Hatteras; doesn't that sound like fun?
June 11, 2000
We are safe and sound in Beaufort, NC after an overnight passage from Wrightsville Beach. I was really looking forward to this trip. It was only a little more than 60 miles. We left Wrightsville at 6:00pm and expected to arrive Beaufort at 6:00am, which we did. My only problem was I couldn't stay awake. I took my first 2 watches without any problem, but my 2:00am watch, I was falling asleep at the helm. There was virtually no wind so we were motoring and hand steering, which was most of the problem. I kept nodding off so I would stand up and I would still nod off. We were set up for 2-hour watches, any more being too difficult hand steering, and at 3:30am, I finally threw in the towel and called Bob up. He had been sleeping nicely so he wasn't too upset. I went below and was asleep within minutes, a major feat for me. I told him to wake me at 4:30am but the next thing I knew, it was 5:30am and we were headed for the channel. I dressed and came up and offered to take the helm but Bob said he was fine. I curled up and immediately fell asleep again. I have been out of my allergy medicine for a week or so, waiting to get here to Beaufort so I could order more, and I'm hoping this is the reason for all of this tiredness. I have the typical symptoms of a person needing allergy medicine and not on it so maybe once I get it I'll be fine. Or, maybe I'm still tired from the BIG trip.
Beaufort is hopping with a marlin tournament this week. The anchorage is crowded and we are anchored with our stern in the channel. Maybe tomorrow it will clear out a little and we'll move the boat. We will stay here a few days, awaiting mail, and medicine and possibly have someone else look at our autopilot. I'm thinking of going on strike until it gets fixed. What do you think?
"Elysia" is presently at a marina in Baltimore where they will leave their boat and go home for a week or two. Susan is already having withdrawal. "Greensleeves" just landed in Cape May, after a 2-3 day sail. They are resting up to continue to New York. "Zaftra" is an unknown at the moment and we are a little worried about them. They were supposed to have left Jacksonville yesterday morning for Beaufort, but no one has heard from them in 2 days. We all like to stay in touch so this worrying thing doesn't happen. "Vagabond Tiger" is 7 miles away, with their boat out of the water being worked on but I haven't had the radio on yet to talk to them.
Well, I feel the sleeping bug attacking. G'night.
June 12, 2000
A really fun thing happened today. I was on the VHF radio hailing "Vagabond Tiger" when another boat named "Strider" that we knew from Vero Beach called us. We chatted for a few moments and then I got another call, asking in a foreign accent if this was Bob Hess and Mona Russell of Mutual Fun. I answered that it was, we switched to another channel and I found myself talking to Laurent and Elaine of "Linus." They are the original doo doos (darlings) that we met in Hampton, awaiting our departure to Bermuda. They were just passing through the area, via the ocean, rounding Cape Hatteras and heading north. The doo doos are from Switzerland and there are pictures of them on the web page, probably last November. Laurent was making crepes in our galley, remember? In any case, they are well and we hope to meet up with them in Maine.
Today was a busy day of phone calls and errands. I had to send my GSC 100 back to Magellan. It was the 4th unit that failed and we give up. Our permanent email address is: mutualfun@pocketmail.com
This is a unit that I need to be at a telephone to use but while in the States, it works beautifully. Our orbair.net address is no longer working. We are also awaiting mail and my prescriptions here in Beaufort. Prescription medicine is always difficult. I ran out of my allergy medicine over a week ago and have been feeling pretty bad since. It will be nice to get them into my system again and get my head clear. Bob is working on getting our autopilot fixed. I threatened to go on strike. Also, we both need doctor appointments so tomorrow we will rent a car and go take care of business. It was a nice day of errands and window-shopping and lunch consisting of $1.40 hamburgs. Bob ate 3 and I ate 2. Yum. I better be careful or I'm going to get my Intracoastal hips back.
When we got back to the boat, I tried to clean the engine grease and rust off the hull but the current was so strong, I almost tore my armpit out trying to hold onto the boat from the dinghy. I got the big and messy parts but it wasn't a perfect job. Bob was in sleep deficit denial these last few days and it finally caught up to him so he had a big snooze while I worked. He made dinner for us and now we are vegging for the night. As Bob went into town to watch basketball last night, I actually turned on the TV and watched the X Files. That was fun. Life in these United States ain't so bad after all.
June 17, 2000
Well if this is going to be my log of my journeys, thoughts and feelings, all days can't be upbeat. Actually, we both got a lot of work done today. Minor boat clean up in the morning, followed by 4 loads of laundry, followed by cheap but good hamburgers for lunch. Well, there things started a bit of a downward turn. For some reason, probably because Father's Day is tomorrow, I started asking Bob all about his father, whom I never had the opportunity to meet. I asked him to describe his looks and personality and his relationship with Bob and his sister, Caroline. I've asked him this on many different occasions, I don't know why except that I missed not being able to meet him. Well, that started a small stream of tears, thinking about my dad who passed away in September. Right in the middle of this hamburger joint. I wasn't particularly close to my father but your father is your father. Between the good and the bad, there are the questions you maybe should have asked or the forgiveness you possibly could have given. Or maybe you just choose to think that was all possible when it really wasn't, but things always get jaded as time passes. So, there was that.
The rest of the day we kept extremely busy. I finished cleaning, wiping, waxing and buffing every piece of stainless steel on the outside of this boat, with the exception of the bowsprit. Bob fixed the generator, which had pooped out the day before, after he changed the oil. Then the bilge motor pooped out and Bob worked on that. Meanwhile, my friend Kathy had e-mailed me to let me know she was making me cookies and the sad news, our friend Joe Gio had passed away. I read this with sadness but stayed busy the rest of the day.
Bob went into town after dinner for a couple of beers and to watch the US Open. I preferred the peace and quiet of the boat. I worked on my financial stuff that my sister had forwarded to me here, with my other mail and had just started to play computer games when it hit me. My friend, Joe Gio has died. And with him, a whole era of our lives.
There were 3 of us every year. Kathy, Holly and myself, went to real estate convention for over 15 years together. When Holly's daughter, Jill, entered the business a few years ago, she came, too.
We had a ball. And every year, Joe was the center of our table. He was funny, a good dancer, a flirt and a friend to all. And I mean all. The guys loved him and the women loved him. As the years progressed and we started getting older, the dances in the evenings started actually to be over before sunlight but the shopping and the lunches and the bonding between the three of us women never let up. If we couldn't party until 5:00am any more, we could still talk half the night away. And always, there was Joe, begging us to go to one more bar, have one more dance, telling one more hilarious joke. Joe was a gift to all of us Realtors, but especially to that group of Toledo Realtors who gathered together, year after year, to relieve our stress of the hectic year, dance a few dances, tell a few jokes, gather around and smile because life was good and we were alive and healthy.
This date is dedicated to Joe Gio. And my father, Albert Russell.
June 20, 2000
Bright and early, Bob and I set out to find a new bilge pump. We walked about ˝ mile to a marine hardware store and found just what we needed. Then we walked a little further and found a True Value and replaced a couple of light bulbs. We trucked all of this back home and Bob installed the new motor while I redid the dinner dishes. 
Yesterday, while waiting to use the phone to call my stepfather to wish him a happy Father's Day, I met a very interesting couple who are just in from the Bahamas. They have spent the last 4 years on their boat cruising the Mediterranean. I knew Bob would love to talk to these people so I invited them for cocktails. Pam and Tim are owned by a 40ft. Southern Cross named "Querida Grande." They had so much to share with us and all so interesting. Cocktails moved on to a spaghetti dinner and I was falling asleep while Tim was still going on about where to anchor in Greece and how to make sure your visa stays good through Europe. These are the kind of people that we have been dying to meet but we haven't run into many of them in the Bahamas. It seems like there is one group of sailors that go to the Bahamas every year and another group who are more adventurous and go to all sorts of far-away ports. We hope to see Pam and Tim again. They still have a home in Maryland and are planning to become land-based for awhile.
It is still very hot and sunny here. I think I will go plunge myself into the murky depths that lie just outside my front door.
Big, bad thunderstorm got us last night. It rained buckets for hours but "Zaftra" made it in before it started. They have picked up a passenger; a friend of theirs from Wrightsville Beach named Tracy. We'll meet him in a couple of hours when we all gather in town. It's nice to be back with friends. "Greensleeves" just radioed; they are underway from New York to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, their hometown. There they will haul their boat out and Dylan may work for a couple of weeks so they can make some money for a new water maker. 
The bad news is the new computer brain for the autopilot is no good. We have a new one being shipped and should be here Monday. The good news is the orchestra was really fun. We piled into the bleachers and listened for an hour or so and then we went to the Royal James for cheap burgers and a few games of pool. We met another young cruising couple who apparently got pregnant in the Bahamas and are on their way to Long Island Sound. I'm not sure if they are going to continue to sail with the baby or not.