Belhaven, NC to Beaufort, NC

October 25 Monday:
This was a very wet day and another long one with 60 nautical miles covered. Intracoastal mile 136 to 205 (These are statute miles which start at 0 in Norfolk). More heavy south winds 15-20 to start. We were able to sail at times in Pemlico Sound and the Nuese River, but had several canal portions Goose River Canal and Adams Creek. We had rain showers early then a dry spell before we saw a very nasty thunder cloud with an honest to God roll cloud in front. This is an indication of a mature storm with a heavy wind shear and down flow which creates an eddy in front of it and forms a long hot dog shaped cloud fairly low compared to cloud base. We were flying the main and genoa just prior to that, but as we had to change course ( you guessed it) right back into the teeth of the wind we furled all sail. The wind was up to 20-25 now and we were making slow progress up wind as we watched the squall approach. When it hit the winds went to 35 for about 30 minutes and the 4 other boats near us disappeared in the much reduced visability in the down pour. We have ski goggles just for such weather as this so we donned them and were able to face forward into the pelting rain that stung the remaining portions of our face that were uncovered. It was hard to keep the bow into the wind as any deviation from dead into it would quickly want to blow the bow around. We were hand steering and working hard at it for about an hour before the squall fully passed. The wind slowly abated and in another hour it was back down to 10 knots as we passed by Oriental ( a hot spot for sailors) Most of the boats we were near headed in there as it was getting dark soon, but undaunted by last nights close calls we pressed on once again. This time our ETA was 7 pm and the dark portion was going to be near Beaufort and Morehead City which are lit up very well, so it was not going to nearly as tough as the night before. Ran into thunder storms in Adams Creek canal, just to add to the excitement of the day, but no heavy squall this time just a little St Elmo's fire on the masts (just kidding, but I did unplug all the stuff that was charging and shut the inverter off).
There is a split in the intracoastal 3 miles out from Beaufort. Port channel for Beaufort, starboard for Morehead City. We called the bascule bridge for Beaufort at this point to check the schedule and found we would be a few minutes late for the 6:30 opening and would have to wait until 7 to pass. So we speed up and calculated we could just make it.....until we hit some foul current. As we were about to give up and slow down, an idea came to me. We could go around by Morehead city which has a fixed bridge at 65 feet and come in the back way! So we took a hard right just making the fork in the channel and went the back way. Well as it turned out the current was worse on that side and we only saved 5 minutes after all that.
We took a slip at the Beaufort Docks Marina and were able to dry out and get a hot shower. The Marina recommened the "Rib Eye" sports bar across the street so we could catch Monday Nite Football (go Giants, who kicked the Cowboy's butt and broke Tony Romos' collar bone, actually I don't like it when anybody gets anything more than a bruise so, sorry Tony) .