We left Beaufort, which is right by Cape Lookout for Wrightsville Beach, which is right above Cape Fear at 4:30 AM. We cleared the harbor and shipping channel at around 5:30 and raised the sails. We got to experience a beautiful sunrise over the ocean with no sound but that of the wind and the waves.
We took one hour watches so that we could each catch up on the sleep we missed the night before. We were heading on a course of 250 degrees magnetic to our destination some 60 miles away. The closer we got to our destination, the further we got from land, at least until the end part of our trip. Each hour we carefully plotted our latitude and longitude in the ships log as we read it off of our GPS. The winds were heaviest in the morning and they were coming directly over our starboard beam. A fast point of sail that had us traveling at between 7 and 9 knots all morning. We did see up to 9.5 at one point. The winds were fairly steady at 14 to 16 knots. The gusts started to become stronger and we started to see high 19's. At that point, I thought it best to put the 1st reef in the main. Immediately thereafter, the winds dropped but we didn't shake the reef until wind speeds fell under 10 and our boat speed fell under 6.
We came out of the Atlantic at Wrightsville Beach and the inlet had very strong 2 knot currents. We passed back into the ICW proper and motor sailed to Carolina Beach where we are staying the night. We will stay until about 11 AM tomorrow to catch the falling tide out of the Cape Fear River. Our plan is to sail on until we reach Charleston SC. We think it will take us at least 15 hours ( is is 90 miles) and plan on getting to Charleston early Friday morning. An earlier start would have us arrive in the dark and we don't want to negotiate the harbor at that time.
Our position for those you like to look things up click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment