Heading off again and 1st day at sea.
25 April 2009
• At sea off the Maryland coast
by Mike
Last night was our last for a while at Willoughby and visiting with Maury and Ginger. I have been trying to persuade them to visit us this summer up in Halifax and then perhaps come south with the Uren flotilla in the late fall to the Caribbean, but so far no definitive bites. We celebrated our visit with a dinner of leftovers and great company before crawling into our respective bunks for the evening.
Today dawned with great conditions for a sail north up the Atlantic Coast - south-westerly winds at about 10 knots, sunshine, reasonable temperatures.....what more could you ask for?
With some challenge we were able to get off our kedge anchor in somewhat crowded conditions and steamed slowly out of the channel to Willoughby Bay and into Norfolk Harbour. We put up the mizzen and jib and had a very pleasant motor sail out through the two bridge tunnels and swung north towards New York. We had SE winds from behind us for the rest of the day and most of that night so we were able to make really good time. For once the sea conditions were not hard to handle. I am looking forward to a trans oceanic trip where if you alter course by 45 degrees to take better advantage of the winds it doesn't make any or much difference to the trip. But that is not the case when you are buoy hopping along the coast. One of the most pleasant things about this sort of sailing is that even the on duty watch can get on with other things whether it we catching up on reading or working on projects.
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