80 nautical miles

We were 2 hours into our sail when I woke up. My dad told me to get my schoolwork done quickly because there were big breezes coming later that day, and it's no fun to do work in rough weather. I got my work done just in time!

We furled the jib and reefed the main as we entered the Neuse River. The breeze and waves built over the next 30 minutes. Soon we were only going 5.5 knots! The wind was 40 knots sustained with gusts up to 50 or 60 knots, coming directly from where we needed to go. This meant we had to tack upwind in the small, shallow river. The waves were high and steep too. They would crash over the bow and come rushing back, under, over, and around the dodger, making it impossible to stay dry. My dad was at the helm and got pelted with cold wind, rain, and waves. He was shivering because he was only in bathing suit bottoms and it was late October! The leeward rail stayed underwater while we were sailing because we were heeling so much. Towards the end, poor Clarke got seasick. We also lost a fender. It was one of the roughest days my dad had ever been in, and that's really saying something!

We finally made it into Adams Creek after enduring 4 hours of rough conditions. Right as we entered, we got the sail down and the sailcover on. Thank goodness we did it quickly because right after the initial entry there was a long stretch of exposed water pointing directly into the wind (of course!). We ran the engine at 3100 RPMs, but only went 5 knots instead of our usual 8 knots!

Eventually, we made it to a more protected area and were able to relax a little bit. A couple of hours later, we were safely docked at Town Creek Marina in Beaufort after another stretch of rough water while leaving the canal.

We hosed off the boat and cleaned the inside thoroughly. Everything was wet from our journey, even below deck. My room had a leak in the starboard window and we had put some wet items on my bed for storage earlier in our journey. The main couch and L couch were both wet from dorades and leaking windows. The forward bathroom had a pool of water from the small hatch in the ceiling (it also got the floor outside the bathroom wet). My parent's bed was wet from the forward hatch, and the storage room was wet from a leak in the radar mast. Even despite the mess of the boat, we were able to clean, dry, and organize in about an hour.

We had a celebratory snack before taking nice, sadly cold, showers. It still felt nice to be clean! We hung out around the boat talking with neighbors before eating dinner and going to bed.