Almost to North Carolina

Thursday, June 28, 2007
We have about 20 miles to go to get to the entrance of Beaufort Inlet. We've have a pretty idyllic sail for the last 320 miles from Florida. The wind was light as we left, but it was upwind which meant that a little wind moved us nicely and we didn't have any waves to speak of. We had two days of that and then this morning it got lighter and I turned on the engine. We could have sailed but there is a cold front coming through this weekend that I would just as soon avoid, so we motored for about 6 hours.

Now as we approach Beaufort, the wind has come behind us and strengthened. So we unrolled the jib only and are doing an easy 6.5 knots.
I made gambas al ajillo for dinner and they came out pretty well - a little too salty maybe.

We are going to have to make a decision about whether or not to enter Beaufort in the dark. If we don't, then we will have to sail around slowly outside the entrance and await daylight. If we go for it, we will have to blunder around in a strange harbor in the dark. Hmmmmm. We shall see. Stay tuned.

Update: I chickened out about entering the harbor in the dark. Decided instead to sail as slowly as possible to avoid getting there before daylight. We unrolled just a tiny bit of the jib and eventually even rolled that up, leaving us with no sails up at all. But with a 20 knot wind behind us, we still made 3 knots towards our destination, arriving just at sunrise. We entered along with a couple of big ships and found our way to the Beaufort cityfront. There is a lot of commercial business in the harbor, especially at Morehead City across the bay, but Beaufort is cute - kind of restored anti-bellum touristy cute. But there are lots of restaurants and shopping is right near the docks.

Paul got converted to the joys of iced drinks on this trip. He doesn't have a freezer on his boat, but quickly got used to really cold sodas, beers, and ice water. It has been hot and they really help. North Carolina seems cooler than Florida (or maybe just less humid). The wind is howling outside now and it's good to be in the harbor.

In a few days, we'll take the 25 mile trip up the ICW to Oriental, NC on the Neuse River. Paul will fly home from there and a few days later I will fly out to join Andrea in California. Stay tuned.