Beaufort/Morehead City, NC Thursday 3 July 2008

We arrived late morning after a 9 day trip. Here is buoy RW BM at the start of the Beaufort Inlet Channel with 5 miles to go to shore.

The big challange of the trip was to stay far enough south to avoid stormy conditions that covered the western Atlantic from the New England coast to Virginia. You never are sure where you are going to end. The idea is to keep safe and treat your vessel kindly.




We began our return trip on the 25th of June and arrived in Beaufort, NC the 3rd of July. We had wanted to go to Newport, RI but a series of cold fronts working against a very large high pressure system east of the Bahamas created very strong SW winds and large seas on the rhumb line to Newport so we elected to stay a bit south of the whole thing. We had good sailing conditions for 75% of the return voyage which give us our first real feel for the boat for "off shore" sailing conditions. Gordon had several problem solving challenges that always seemed to happen just before his "off watch sleep time" such as Why is there more water in the bilge then usual?, Why is the self-steering mechanism getting too loose?, Why are we not getting enough amp power even though we are running the engine a few hours a day? He is good at crawling through all the nooks and crannies of the boat while it is heeled over in 7 foot seas, tightening bolts, etc. etc. How can we reduce sail without getting our lines tangled up in wind gusts of 25 knots etc. etc. So I was really glad to get to land and made sure the Captain had a Grog of Rum and a Extra Thick Steak for all of his skilled efforts-that is the First Mate bought him a shore dinner! Also, desiel fuel prices are better here as they are $4.89 vs $7.74 per gallon in Bermuda.




The early evening sky at sea.

















Sunset














Some folks inquire if we fish while we are at sea. The answer is that we let the fish land on the deck. Here is one of our larger catches of a rather small flying fish.