We spent 2 days at Dowry Creek waiting for a front to blow through on the 6th. For several hours the winds came from the southeast where our dock slip was exposed to the building waves, but by mid-afternoon the wind had clocked to the south where we had protection.
Staying two days gave us two opportunities to check out the craft beers and appetizers at the new marina restaurant. This will be a routine stopping place in the future.
On the 7th, the winds were down and the sun out and we were able to sail and motor sail across the Pamlico River for the short trip to Hobucken, where we will hole up for 3 more days as a particularly strong storm front blows through.
This is the Mayo Seafood docks in Hobucken. It is mainly a commercial shrimp boat facility but they let recreation boaters tie up on the end of the dock. Its a bit rough but they have power which means heat for us and the price is right - $15 per night - which is good since we will be here for 4 nights.
Its not really the Women's latrine anymore, they have bathrooms inside the ship's store but, it fits in with the local atmosphere. I guess at one time is was the working Lady's room. Funny there's no Men's room. Guess they had to go onboard the shrimp boats.
The storm front came through on Tuesday afternoon and evening. Of course the strongest winds came at 9pm, always in the dark.
All afternoon we had 20kt winds pushing us against the dock pylons but, fortunately the waves were only about 1ft with the protection we had in the canal.
We were able to position are 10in fenders to keep us off the dock and they did there job.
We were a bit worried as the wind was forecasted to go to 30-35kts with higher gusts and that would build the waves up even higher but, to our great relief, when the higher winds came they had clocked to the south, directly astern, and that kept the boat off from the dock. By 9pm the wind was steady at 30+kts with higher gusts into the 40s. We had one severe gust that I was able to record at 58.8kts. I was watching the multiple tornados on my phone radar picture and happy to see none coming near us. By 10pm the front was through and the wind had shifted to the SW pushing us well away from the dock and dying back down to the 20s. We had a Baileys on ice and celebrated our successful weathering the storm with no damages.
Morning came with blue skies but still stiff winds from the west, again pushing us off the dock.
We had doubled up our bow, stern and spring lines but didn't have any problems. Better safe than sorry. There sure was a lot of creaking and straining on those lines during the night.
We were able to walk each day we were at Hobucken. Here is a shot from up on the bridge looking at the whole facility. That is us tied up way on the end of the dock.
The winds were still brisk from the west on the 10th, so it was not a good day to bash westerly up the Neuse River. We will be off tomorrow early to motor on down to Beaufort, NC.
