Here is sunrise from sunrise. The clouds are at the Gulf Stream. We were there...

Best laid plans... We had a great weather window and motor sailed to the edge of the gulf stream. Excitement was high, some nerves were running, and everything seemed to be perfect... Then the engine started to sputter... a quick check found sediment in the fuel filter, lots of it... indicating a bad load of fuel that we had taken on in Oriental NC. After a few minutes of discussion, we aborted the passage with some disappointment.

We did get to see another beautiful sunset and a bunch of dolphins playing around the boat. That was magical.

Being 35 miles off shore, we could not make it back to Beaufort by dark, so we sailed slowly back to the channel marker, arriving about 2 am. We then Hove-to (Which is a way of parking the boat in the middle of the ocean) until 5:30... as the sun came up we motored slowly into Beaufort. The day was spent tracking down someone to "polish" our fuel and clean our tanks... unfortunately, not something we are set up to do (easily) ourselves. We inflated the dingy, mounted the engine, added oil, rowed to town and buy a gas can... rowed back to the boat as the sun was setting.

We will review the weather tomorrow and weigh all of our options...

Here is video of us leaving Oriental (after taking on bad fuel!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN4a4bt-G8Q