Sailing Irish Eyes: Day 21 Norfolk, VA to Coinjock, NC

Three weeks already?! Wow, that happened fast! Well, most of the days happened fast. Maybe not this one.

It was as hot as I imagine hell would be if there actually was a burning caldron for swearing captains and crew. It knocked me down. We ran the generator while under way and I sat next to the air conditioner most of the day. It was brutal as we slowly made our way down the channel.

Once I was done working for Charter Oak we turned off the generator and I did my best not to be a jerk. We joked that instead of the t-shirt “sorry for what I said while I was hungry” I deserved one that reads “Sorry for what I said while I was hot.” Lucky for me, John and Carrie were too busy managing locks, bascules, fixed bridges, and swing bridges to throw me off the boat.

Once we passed all of those obstacles there was a sigh of relief from our captain. In case you have forgotten, or perhaps missed the ‘Carrie toots her own horn, part 2’ John is managing a 28 foot catamaran with one small fixed engine steering solely with two rudders. We were feeling cooler as well because the wind had picked up. There was a storm behind us and it seemed to be pushing us along. We were feeling really grateful that the temperature was also dropping. Rapidly….

Helen and Patty, I think maybe you should skip to the last paragraph!

The wind kept picking up and the clouds started catching up. Although the wind was making us faster, we are too slow to outrun a storm. This monster wrapped around us like a boa constrictor. And then she struck. As she spun around us our boat went from 6 knots to 0 and lost its way. We were stuck in the eye of the storm.

John’s navigation programs got confused as the boat changed its course and visibility went to nothing. We were soaked from head to toe as the rain poured from buckets in the clouds. I got sight of a buoy and John got back on target right before the first lightning bolt struck. And then it was everywhere.

We are in a sailboat with a 46 foot mast and Mother Nature started flinging those electric bullets all around us. John sent me inside as he tried to navigate the boat. We were in a canal so we were in danger of getting pushed onto a shoal if he didn’t keep us steady. The thunder shook the boat, John yelled as the dark sky became light, and Carrie and I saw sparks inside the boat when lightning struck within 100 yards of us. Fortunately, John was wise enough to have had us turn off all the breakers before the lightning came or we would have lost electronics for sure.

As suddenly as she came, she was gone and all was abruptly quiet. You could hear John’s breathing, the squishing of his toes in his sodden shoes. She just left us there bewildered and soaked and shaking with adrenaline. At first we just stood there in the boat silently. Water was dripping down our faces and adding to the puddles on the floor. Then suddenly we were all talking at once about what we did right and what we did wrong and how shocked we were at how quickly we were overtaken. We tried to convince ourselves we were okay.

When we pulled into a dock that night we were still shaken but had much to do to dry out the boat and start the laundry and eat some food. We got to it. We decided to go to the dock restaurant for drinks to calm our nerves. We settled into a booth and all of the sudden we were ravenously hungry. We ate and we laughed and we made jokes about our crazy day.

I am not sure if the food was good or the drinks were good or the jokes were good. I just know as we sat there with each other we once again found our ground and were able to start looking forward to another day of sailing.