Well, the wind got a lot stronger sooner than we expected. When Donna got off watch at 5:00am the wind was up to 25 knots and we were flying along with too much sail up. We had rolled up our staysail early in the evening and partially rolled up our jib at 3:30am. Now we decided to drop the main. Donna thought we should wait for daylight but we needed to do it sooner. Besides, there was enough light from the moon to easily work and it would just be scarier if we could actually see what the ocean looked like. It took a while but came down easily. Under the mizzen and a reefed jib we were still doing 12 knots at times with an average around 10 knots. A good part of that speed was the current and surfing down the faces of waves.

This morning the ocean is amazingly beautiful. The waves are 10-12 feet and actually come above the stern before we ride up over them. You have to hold on every second when you are not lying down because of the motion of the boat but it's not too bad. Neither of us are sea sick but Donna is not getting much sleep so I don't think she is enjoying this part of the trip. However, we are getting closer to home every minute. We are now about 80 miles directly offshore from Charleston, SC. We should be in Beaufort, NC by tomorrow afternoon.