Our weather window finally arrived. We left Brunswick Landing before dawn on Thursday morning. The winds were light so we were motoring for several hours. After leaving Brunswick we headed east to catch the Gulf Stream and take advantage of the current. There were residual NE waves, leftover from the last front so we were slamming into them through the day and all night long. Neither one of us was able to sleep much. The wind eventually picked up enough the first night to turn the engine off and sail. By mid-morning on the second day the waves calmed down and the slamming stopped. George took advantage of the calmer conditions and transferred some diesel into the tank.
Our plan was to take three and a half days to get into the Chesapeake Bay. Yet another cold front was expected Sunday and the timing was tight. We purchased a custom weather route from Chris Parker (weather guru) and he confirmed that we could make it. George plotted out waypoints that indicated where we should be every twelve hours. Our goal was to not fall behind. If it looked like we weren’t going to make it before the front arrived our plan B was to go to Beaufort, NC. If our speed dropped below six knots when we were sailing we would turn the engine on. We made the 580 nautical mile trip in 78.5 hours, averaging 7.4 knots. We motored for 39 hours. Not bad at all. The Gulf Stream helped with our speed, particularly toward the end. As we pulled into Cobb’s Marina at noon on Sunday it was just beginning to rain.
Our friends, Jean and Michael on Desiderata, were here already and we went out to dinner together to catch up.
We are planning to leave before dawn tomorrow and sail about 90 miles to Solomon’s, then on to Cambridge the next day. As much as we love Breeze On we are both looking forward to being home.
Transferring diesel
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