Day 237, Year 6 Passage to Cape Cod, Day 1-Fast Start
Date: Saturday, June 18, 2011, 4:30 pm
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Hazy, Upper 80’s
Wind: SW 15-17 Knots and Building
Latitude: 33 37.680 N
Longitude: 078 04.644 W
Location: Off the Coast of North Carolina
We left Lightkeepers Marina before noon. My sister Patsy came to see us off. She walked down to the lighthouse to give us a final farewell wave and then we were motoring in the Intracoastal. We passed the buoy well outside the Intracoastal at 1 pm, so we’ve only been sailing for about three and a half hours in these choppy, sloshy seas. We’re making great time averaging better than seven knots because we are on a beam reach. I said in last night’s log that I wasn’t sure that my nephew Rex, our crew member on this passage, has been on sailboats before. But today he reminded me that he went out once on our previous boat Sky Breaker when we sailed to Myrtle Beach in the late 1990’s. And he chartered once with friends in the Caribbean, but there wasn’t much wind and they didn’t get to sail a lot. So he is getting a real introduction this afternoon. It’s not really rough, but we’re leaning enough to make it a challenging ride. We are getting tossed around a bit and once in a while waves crashing over the starboard side. Right now we are sailing ESE on a course of 110 degrees. Before dark, however, we should be able to head to the north and the wind and seas will be behind us making the ride quite different. We’re heading ESE until we get far enough out to sea to stay safely off Cape Fear. By Monday moening we should be past the Outer Banks and then things should settle down considerably. Of course, if the wind decreases as forecast, we could be motoring by then. So we’ll enjoy the fast ride now and just wait and see what kind of wind we really get. Right now both Mark and Rex are down taking a mid-afternoon nap so they will be well rested for doing first watch tonight. Since this log is being posted so soon after leaving, I will try to send another log in the morning to let you know how things are going.
