We left Ocracoke, NC on August 10th and sailed overnight to Virginia Beach. The exit from Ocracoke was a bit challenging, as it was low tide and there were a couple of very shallow spots. Once free of the inlet, though, we had smooth sailing and gorgeous weather all day. Later in the evening, however, Mother Nature decided to put on a fireworks display for us. We sailed through a bit of wind and rain, but we were never really close to the lightning so I count that as good luck!
Weather During Overnight Sail to Virginia Beach
On the morning of the 11th, we arrived at Virginia Beach and went to a lake that had been recommended in one of the cruising guides. It was a protected anchorage and had good holding, but the "lake" felt more like a neighborhood retention pond and I felt like we had driven our motor home into someone's back yard. Since we had been sailing all night and would have had to sail another 24 hours to get to the next viable inlet, we decided to stay the night; we never got off the boat, though, and left the next morning.
Anchorage in Lake Wesley, Virginia Beach
One of the notable things about our short stay in VA Beach, was the frequency of F18 training expeditions. Norfolk is only about 18 miles from Virginia Beach, and is home to the largest naval base in the world. It seemed that there were F18's overhead at least every hour. Thankfully the flights were limited to the daytime hours.
F18 overhead in Virginia Beach
The other notable event (read: not good) was when I went to raise the anchor for our departure and realized that there was damage to the interior of the anchor hold. Further inspection revealed damage to the outside of the boat as well - an arc-shaped gouge a few inches below the anchor holder. It looked as if the anchor had not been secure in its cradle and had been swinging against the boat. I could not imagine how this could've happened since I double-secure the anchor as standard procedure - every time. Eventually I reconstructed the event and realized that I had "over-corrected" in response to a previous error. As I raised the anchor the time before this one using the electric windlass, the anchor had gotten stuck in the hold. I thought it was because I had brought the stem of the anchor too far into the hold and so the next time around, I didn't bring the stem of the anchor as far into the hold. Unfortunately, this meant that the anchor was not seated properly in the cradle and was able to swing freely and damage the boat. The real root cause to the anchor getting stuck was that I raised it too quickly and it twisted inside the cradle, not that I pulled it too far into the hold. As I've mentioned before: this whole adventure is a learning experience and I learn new things every day...even when I already thought I'd mastered a particular task. My standard procedure has now been updated to include a visual check of the anchor to ensure that it's resting securely in the cradle. :-)
The bad news is that the damage was even more severe than we initially thought so Steve is currently perfecting his fiberglass repair skills. :-( The good news is that, although there was a 3 in x 8 in hole in the boat, it was in a location far above the water line and didn't cause us to take on water.
Once the damage was assessed and the root cause determined, we lifted the anchor and set our course for Yorktown.
Good root cause analysis. Something you took with you from Siemens.
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