Last week on the boat for a while
11 March 2009 | Shakleford Banks NC
Jon - Its been warm and sunny - yeah!
Well, our last week here before we have to head back to NY has been a lot of fun.
We installed the new arken traveller for the mainsheet, tidied up some other rigging issues, and basically have been sailing every day for the past 6 days or so.
We spent two nights pout at the Shakleford Banks, anchoring near the parkranger pier. We also had an exhilarating sail up the coast to Cape Lookout where we planned to anchor, but, having run aground in the bight even though we were in the channel on the correct side of the buoy, requiring a dinghy launch and distant anchor deployment (not easy with a strong wind, current and heavy anchor chain) decided to sail back to Shakleford as we feel that we've had enough up close and perosnal contact with NC sand bars on this trip.
Daisy (our newly christened dinghy) performed flawlessly all week,m as did pour old trusty 2-stroke outboard, and daisy put some miles under her keel up and down the coast on a towing bridle behind the mother ship.
We saw the wild horses on Shakleford, whcih was a real treat, and explored a little piece of the island on foot - see the phot gallery for some of those shots.
We've now thoroughly tested the sails, rigging, Norm (our electric autopilot who did a great job to Cape Lookout coping with pretty big swells from both abeam and quartering without any drama), Guss, the windvane autohelm, and our new AGM batteries which sustained us for 3 days on the hook without a problem.
So, while this wasn't the winter trip we oringinally anticipated, it ended up on a very positive note, with a boat that will in almost all respects will be ready to go next year, we've met a whole lot of friendly, helpful, interesting and hospiutable people along the way.
We're committed to continuing this journey late this year and beyond and ultiumately still are excited about doing the BIG trip at some point whne we can do so without a time limit or schedule.