Day 205, Year 10: Passage to Cape Cod, Day 1–Headed Home
Date: Sunday, May 3, 2015
Weather: Sunny and Warm (upper 70’s F); Wind ESE 10
Latitude: 33 39.992 N
Longitude: 077 52.606 W
Location: Just N of Frying Pan Shoals, Off Cape Fear, NC
We’re headed home, offshore, and what a beautiful day it has been . . . blue skies without a cloud in sight, bright sunshine, temperature in the upper 70’s, calm seas. And we are even going to have a full moon to travel by tonight. What more could a sailor ask for? Well, wind going in the right direction would be nice. Unfortunately the 10 knots of wind that we have has been right on our nose all day. That, combined with an adverse current this afternoon, have made for slow going. We could drive to Southport from Little River in an hour, but it has taken us 9 hours of motoring to get this far, traveling closer to 4 knots than 5 all day. But we are making progress, so we’ve tried to just relax into it and hope that we get some fair winds at some point. After passing Frying Pan Shoals, a very shallow area sticking out into the water from Southport, we were able to turn about 50 degrees to the northeast. That turn and the fact that the wind should go a little further south tonight should increase our speed a little overnight. Just remember I said ‘should’. There are no guarantees out here.
According to various weather sources, we should have settled weather all week. That means we will have very little wind a great deal of the time, but it should be calm. Mid-week we are expecting a day or so of adverse winds, so we will be motoring most of the way home. Our estimated arrival time is Saturday, so we’ll just keep motor sailing merrily along. Since I am having to do most of the sail work, it’s probably a good thing that it is going to be calm. It just about killed Mark to let me raise the mainsail this morning. I’m not very good at it because I have rarely done it, but I did it with just a little help from Mark. He can use his right arm, but not his left. That shoulder is still causing him a great deal of pain. Maybe a calm week on the water will help.
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| 150503 Day 205 Passage to Cape Cod–First Day, LKM, Birds, Sunset |
