June 13th and 14th... Charleston SC to Cape Lookout, NC

We left the slip at 7am bound for Cape Lookout N.C., which is directly east of Beaufort, NC and about 225 miles away from Charleston. There was a little swell from the south east which made for an uncomfortable roll as we worked our way out into the ocean for a couple of hours. When we turned for our waypoint at Frying Pan shoals the roll got a little better. There was a little wind and we had sails up, primarily for stabilization but we were getting a push of about a knot and a half.

We spent most of our time reading but did have to put the books down at one point to land a nice Mahi. It ended up being 45 inch female. The fore deck was moving too much to clean it up there so we moved the cushions and cleaned it in the cockpit, washing down with buckets of sea water when we finished.

I dipped some thick pork chops in egg and cracker crumbs and after searing, popped them in the oven with some potatoes that were baking. Kathy wilted some spinach with our new olive oil and we had a wonderful dinner .... still a little rolly for eating, but with one hand on the plate and the other on a fork, we prevailed.

I went below and rested until about 11pm and then took over for the night shift. There was a spectacular light show in the east for about 5 hours with lightening behind a cloud bank further out in the ocean. The storms all stayed out there and we motored on calm but still rolly seas. The night was uneventful. We rounded Frying Pan Shoals, and aimed for Cape Lookout which was about 80 miles away at that time. At about 4 a.m. there was a wind shift from the south to the west and it picked up enough to sail for a while. We were running on a reefed main (which is the procedure at night with storms in the area) and our staysail for a little balance. I added the Jib and put the engine in idle for about an hour before went to the north and the wind died out completely.

At 5:30 Kathy came took the watch and I went to bed and slept for about an hour and a half. When I got up I thought it must have been about noon, but no such luck, it was about 7 a.m. It's amazing what a couple of hours of good sound sleep will do... I felt fine.

Although we were about 40 miles off shore, there were fisherman in the area and so we put out a couple of lines. Within 20 minutes we had another Mahi in the boat, not quite as big as yesterdays but much more lively. It made a mess of the cockpit before Kathy could squirt some cheap vodka in its gills to slow it down some. It took quite a lot of vodka-it must have been a Russian Mahi.

After getting it cleaned and the cockpit scrubbed out again. I took the lines in .... we had no more room in the freezer for fish.

The day was spent reading on much smoother seas until we approached our destination. At about 3 p.m. thunderstorms developed over the land and moved east and south over the ocean. We were on a course of 40 degrees (NW) and were we far enough away that most of the storms would be south of us by the time we made enough westward progress. For the last 2 hours of our trip we watched thunderstorms slide south between us and land. We got a few sprinkles but nothing of consequence.

With our anchors down in 25 feet of water at 5 p.m., I took a shower and opened some pretzels and some dipping mustard. Steve and Kim came over later with some seared tuna and wasabi sauce. After an hour or so the sky darkened and the wind started signaling the end of our party. We had a good thunder storm with lots of rain and about 30 knots of wind but with the wind moving our boats around, we could see that we were too close to "Fine Lion." We got our rain gear out to move as the storm abated but when we looked up ... saw that Steve and Kim already had their anchor up.

They moved about 100 yards off our port and reanchored. I called to apologize as it was our job to move but Steve just passed it off good-naturedly as usual.

There were no more storms and I slept with out moving until daylight.