Day 376, Year 10: The Weather Conundrum
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Weather: Still Mostly Sunny and Warm–High in the 60’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

Oh, weather, weather, weather. We thought we had a three-day window for heading to Norfolk, Virginia, starting on Monday morning of next week, but that seems to be dissolving into a two-day window—not enough to get us to Norfolk. Chris and Geoff of Shambala are leaving on Friday morning for Block Island and that gave us the idea of taking a different route. If we leave on Friday morning and head west through the Long Island Sound, we can spend the weekend getting to Sandy Hook on the south side of New York City. We could leave there on Monday morning and be in Norfolk early Wednesday morning avoiding a full day of beating into south winds. I’m not sure I can get everything ready to go so quickly, but if I can, we might do this. We have never sailed through the New York Harbor so this would be an interesting side trip while, at the same time, helping us get to Norfolk a day earlier than planned. Mark called James, our crew member for the trip, and he says he can get here tomorrow if leaving on Friday is the plan. So we will check the weather again tomorrow morning and make the final decision.

Today was another day at Heather’s cooking for the passage south. Then in the late afternoon, I picked Ollie up from daycare and brought him to Windbird for a couple of hours. Sam had soccer practice and Heather needed to spend some time with Jonah working on a school project, so I jumped at the chance of picking Ollie up. We played Legos together and had a great time. He asked if he could spent the night on Windbird with us and I had to hold back the tears when I told him it was a school night and he needed to go home. I’m going to miss that little O, and Sam and Jonah so, so much. I really don’t want to spend the cold winter here on Windbird, but leaving Heather, Jed, and boys makes me so sad. On the way to take Ollie home, I pointed out the empty osprey nests where we watched babies grow up this summer and told Ollie that those babies and the mommas have flown south for the winter and are probably in Florida by now. He made me promise to wave to them when I see them in Florida. I promised I would wave and I also promised that Windbird will return in the spring about the same time as the ospreys.