Why it's a bad idea to annoy the gods of the sea

Friday, November 15, 2013-Saturday16, November   Cape Hatteras to Beaufort, NC

Headed around the top part of Hatteras. On my dawn watch we noticed serious transmission problems. Green called his tranny guys, who said to pamper it and go no faster than 5 knots. We had virtually no wind, for once, when we needed it most. We hobbled slowly around the corner of the Cape and decided to sacrifice to the god of the sea. Green had a $3 bottle of cherry vodka and poured it into the water. We also dumped in a fake tuna we had caught and not eaten, as the meat was nasty. 
Immediately a pod of dolphins popped up and circled around us. Misa, I think their message was BAD IDEA, SUCKERS! 

I cooked a nice pork tagine, Moroccan style, and we had a lovely dinner by lantern in the cockpit. We were at the moment catching the tiniest of breezes and had up the full main, 2 jibs and the mizzen sail. The hatch was open and the hatchboards were down in the cabin. After dinner I stood my watch and things deteriorated rapidly. With 90 miles to the nearest safe port and NOWHERE to pull in, we experienced Neptune's vengeance for the fake cherry vodka. First a couple of fishing boats got in my way and seemed to then follow us just to be annoying. Just then, the first squall came up with some rain and high winds. Green had to reduce sail area and make sure the autohelm (steering unit) was working. The weather got worse and worse. By the time my watch was over we were sailing with a jib the size of a handkerchief and heeling and rolling in 30-50 knots of wind. Since the boat was heeling the other way my bunk wouldn't hold me in. I crawled to the foot of the bed where it about 3x3'x2' and and I couldn't fall out. I made a nest of pillows and blankets and curled up and slept through all kinds of weather. William just climbed into his bunk, (Juliana's) and lay on top of wet sails, duffel bags, boots  and wet foulies. At one point he woke up, feeling a persistent annoyance on his hip. It was one of Juliana's baby dolls that had fallen into the mess. Her head was under his hip half the night. 

The belt on the autohelm broke and we had to hand steer in all the wind and spray. Eventually the weather subsided and the sun came out. We sailed into Beaufort, NC and anchored.