Thanks for all the comments on our Aug. 21 post! Please keep posting comments and if anyone has questions about the boat or our adventures please ask.

After months of work on the hard and life on land, Anne and I decide a short shakedown cruise to Cape Lookout Bight is in order. The overnight trip quickly generated a long list of forgotten provisions. The sailing was lively with wind on our nose both out and back on the 9NM run in the Atlantic Ocean. The image included is from our trip out to the bight. The new dodger is six inches lower that the previous one. The reduced height and new glass add dramatically to our visibility. No more standing on tiptoes to see over the dodger! Guess we will need to find a new exercise for our calf muscles.

Over the summer we sent both our genny and jib off to sail care to have them cleaned and repaired. We ran up both sails during the trip. The sails look great and we've now decided our main looks quite dingy... guess we'll add that to the project list.

Fresh breezes through the night made for fine sleeping. Ahh its good to be back on the water. One note for fellow cruisers - we were surprised at the consistent depth of 20 to 25 feet in the anchorage. This is more depth than I expected in the area. I was also surprised to pull up black muck on when raising the anchor. I was expecting sand. The black muck makes for great holding, but quite a cleanup job when raising 100+ feet of muddy chain off the bottom. Hmm maybe we should add a pressurize wash down to that project list.

We will be back on land working out the car and provisioning logistics until next Sunday. We will post more before raising the hook and departing Beaufort early next week.