33:57.1572N 077.57.1715W

Halloween 2010 10:00PM

We are about 4 miles from the entrance to the Atlantic and still aren’t 100% sure of which route we’ll take, the Atlantic or the ICW.

The thing that is making the decision hard is the lack of a jib. The offshore trip would be downwind and without the jib it could be a rolly uncomfortable trip especially if the winds pick up to the 20-25 knots they are forecast to on Monday night. We are waiting for the early morning forecast to make our decision.

Last night we anchored in Wrightsville Beach NC (about 20 miles north of us) in a large anchorage with probably 30 other boats. As we move south the anchorages are getting fuller and fuller. I’ve also noticed lots of Canadian boats, I wonder if anyone is left there.

Tonight we are anchored in a rather open area where the wind was blowing against the tide. Neither was strong enough to win so the boat ended up 90 degrees to both. The result was the boat rocked side to side because the waves were hitting us on the side vice on the bow. Never fear I had a solution, I turned on the wind generator and within 45 minutes the winds dropped from 15-20 knots to 5-8. The wind generator isn’t much for making electricity, but it sure is good at making the winds die down.

In my last entry I mentioned that the morning would be like a Le Mans start as all the boats tried to leave at the same time. Actually it was a pretty orderly departure. Here’s one view a bit later in the day in the ICW – there were at least 5 sailboats in front of us at the time.

One of the funny things about yesterdays trip was we had 3 bridge openings to contend with. The last 2 where just 5 miles apart and the last one only opened on the hour. The middle bridge opened on the hour and half hour. All but 2 other boats and us rushed from the first bridge to the second one. They made it through the second bridge on the half hour opening and since the boats couldn’t cover 5 miles in 30 minutes they had and hour and a half to do it. I talked to one guy who rushed and he said ‘Boy that was dumb.’

While anchored yesterday a costumed group paddled by, this is about half the group.  Must have been going to a Halloween party somewhere.