Day 124, Year 11: Day Five, Passage to Little River—It’s a Delivery
Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Weather: Overcast, Early AM Rain, Hi 60’s, Low 50’s, Wind NE 10, Seas 2-3 ft
Latitude: 33 34.819 N
Longitude: 078 49.305 W
Location: Motor Sailing Off the SC Coast Near Myrtle Beach
Total Miles Traveled: 481 nautical miles (5:00 pm)
We’re not there yet, but we are motor sailing along Myrtle Beach and should arrive at the Little River inlet by 10 pm tonight. We are not going to let the dark night deter us. We are going to carefully follow our previous tracks and hope to find our way to the gas dock just before we get to Lightkeepers Marina, or if the conditions are right, we might go all the way into the slip at the marina. We are making it in just in time as the weather is supposed to turn nasty in the morning, maybe as early as sunrise. It has not been beautiful today, but the seas remained fairly calm and 10-12 knots of wind stayed with us. For most of the day we had all sails up and were doing 6-7 knots on a beam reach. But mid-afternoon the wind turned to the NE and is right on the nose. I have been bemoaning the fact that we have had some great ‘sails’ but only with the assist of the engine. That is when Kevin reminds me that this is a delivery and we had only five days to get here. In that case, you do what you can to go as fast as you can and Kevin really helped with that. These last two days he has transformed from Wonder Boy to Speedo Man. He constantly tweaked the sails to get every bit of speed out of them possible. If we had been able to continue the roll we were on yesterday, we could have made it in before dark tonight. But during the night, we had adverse current and NE wind right on the nose. So we were lucky to go even 4 knots at times. But when the wind switched to the SE this morning it allowed us to sail on a beam reach most of the day. So no complaints. It was a small miracle that we got this weather window at all just when we needed it.
So either tonight or in the morning, we will arrive at Lightkeepers Marina. The captain is voting to go into the marina. It will be at least 11 pm when we arrive there, but hopefully by midnight we will be tied to a dock. Tomorrow we will spend the day packing the car with things we will need until we can sail the boat north later in the spring. Then on Thursday morning, we head north to Cape Cod with a stop in Ashburn, Virginia, to drop Kevin off and visit with Claire. Depending on timing, we might even get to stop in Nyack to see Ed and Lynne. But by the weekend, we will on Cape Cod visiting with Heather, Jed, and the Goldpebbles. Life is good.
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| 160223 Day 124 Passage to LR–All Sails Flying |
