We Are Home

George and I often follow the philosophy, “a bird in hand is better than two in the wood,” to make our sailing decisions. We used it again this week when we decided to leave Beaufort, NC and sail home. Our choices were to either leave Sunday afternoon or wait and leave Tuesday morning. I would much rather leave in the morning and have just one night of sailing but the departure Sunday afternoon was our “bird in hand,” so we took it. We left Beaufort Sunday at 4 pm and by the time we rounded Cape Lookout a few hours later we saw our friends on Desiderata II approaching Cape Lookout as well. We stayed within sight of each other until we reached the Chesapeake Bay and, surprisingly, were the only sailboats we saw using that weather window for the passage. It was a good passage with the usual combination of sailing, motoring, and motor-sailing. Our decision to leave Sunday afternoon paid off because—if we had left on Tuesday—the conditions at Cape Hatteras would not have been good.

We anchored at Solomons last night so we could get a good night’s sleep and arrive in Cambridge during the day. We arrived in Cambridge today in the early afternoon and were met by our friends, Dawn and Ray, who helped us tie up the boat and served us celebratory boat drinks. Since we left last October we sailed 3300 nautical miles and we are already looking forward to our next trip.