Are We There Yet?

We left Beaufort Docks Friday morning shortly after 8 am. We were waiting for slack tide and also for the wind to die down. We left about an hour ahead of slack tide and it was still breezy. We made it out of our slip without incident, even though that enormous motor boat, after leaving early, was back in its slip sticking out into our fairway. Also, a small fishing boat had tied up on the wall making our exit even more challenging. There was a lot of wind chop once we were out of the harbor. At that point George guesses that the enormous boat had come out, taken a look and decided it was too rough. There were quite a few sailboats leaving Beaufort Harbor with us. Most turned off to the East, most likely on their way to the Caribbean.
We reached the Gulf Stream just before dark on Friday The conditions weren't much worse than what we experienced just outside of Beaufort. Our course it was dead downwind so we had to sail gybing angles, adding some mileage to our trip. Big Frisky was the only other sailboat nearby. They were behind us the first night but passed us yesterday. George had a nice chat with Kurt on Big Frisky on the VHF radio. Kurt said they were motoring because they were having trouble keep their sails filled and they wanted to get to Abaco by Monday afternoon. We just calculated our remaining mileage and determined that we can't make it to Abaco before dark tomorrow. Bummer! I was really hoping tonight would be our last night at sea. We will have to slow down to time our arrival during daylight hours on Tuesday.
In better news, a large pod of dolphins played with us for quite a while on Friday. They are so much fun. Another pod played with us again briefly yesterday. No dolphins sightings yet today but we have a few hours of daylight left.
The temperature in Beaufort was 43 degrees when we left on Friday. Today George and I have changed into shorts and short sleeves.