Day 8, Year 11: Passage to Little River, SC—Sailing, Sailing
Date: Friday, October 30, 2015
Weather: Sunny and Warm Enough, Wind WNW to N to W 10-15
Latitude: 38 16.601 N
Longitude: 075 02.391 W
Location: Just Passed the Ocean City, MD Inlet, Delmarva Peninsula
Total Miles Traveled: Nautical Miles (5:20 pm)
What a beautiful day it has been without a single cloud in the sky. We left our anchorage in Cape May at 10:15 am, raised the main, and got to the inlet along with a Coast Guard boat, two commercial fishing trawlers, a sport fishing boat, and a small freighter. I think we all had the same idea of going out at the turn of the tide, but it was actually still running a knot against us. Yet it was calm, so no problems there. Once outside we headed south and have been sailing all day. The wind was WNW 10-12 when we started out and we sailed with a full main and headsail. After lunch the wind started to die down a bit and had turned more to the N putting the wind right behind us. We decided to furl the headsail and put out the spinnaker. It took Mark and James almost half an hour to get it up due to a rusted snap shackle. They had to put a new one on and then we sailed along beautifully for a couple of hours. Mark and James were both downstairs napping when the wind took an abrupt turn back to the W and it quickly increased from 10-12 to 12-16. That put us on a beam reach and we were flying, making me uncomfortable. I wanted that spinnaker down and was really glad that Mark got up about that time. We dowsed the spinnaker (after another fight with a snap shackle that wouldn’t release) and are back to sailing with the full main and headsail. We are sailing along at 7 knots on fairly calm seas—really nice. But the wind is supposed to completely die out sometime before dawn and the sailing will end. At least we got in one sailing good day before we start the long motoring trip down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). We’re not sure where we will be tomorrow night. We just have to see what time we arrive in Norfolk and make a decision to stay there for the night or move on down the ICW. Stay tuned.
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| 151030 Day 8 Passage to SC–Spinnaker Sail |
