Cape Lookout to Wrightsville Beach

Cape Lookout to Wrightsville Beach   ...   Saturday 3^rd November 2012

What is it about 4:30 in the morning that doesn’t agree with me?  It might be the dark, the cold or just that it interrupts my sleep.  Either way I wasn’t the happiest bunny this morning.  We brewed the coffee, poured a travel mug each and got underway. Turning to windward to put up the main in the pitch black whilst still inside the small cove of Cape Lookout Bight was unnerving.  After we got out of the bay, I seemed to get used to the idea (at least somewhat).  Once it started to get light we unfurled the genoa and turned off the engine.  The two hours of darkness were incredibly cold. Once again we had multiple layers of fleecy clothes topped by the foul weather gear, harness and life jacket.  In fact Mike went inside to put on his regular rain coat inside his foul weather jacket! It’s no wonder that moving around seemed so difficult.

Shortly after sunrise we had our first visitor –a house wren looking decidedly wind ruffled. Later in the day we had a total of three yellow-rumped warblers.  One of these took the tour of the accommodation.  Apparently, on balance, he wasn’t that taken with it.  That might have had something to do with the large man flapping a tea towel in his general direction.

The sailing went well; over the course of 12 hours we covered about 70 miles.  At one point the wind piped up so much that we put a reef in the main.  A few hours later we shook that out.  Several times in the afternoon the wind got light.  Another boat quite close to us dropped its sails and started to motor.  We considered giving up sailing several times, each time the wind would pick up again and we’d be back over 6 knots. 

We are now anchored just behind Wrightsville Beach, NC. We had a fantastic dinner of shrimp and grits.  Don’t get the wrong idea, Mike didn’t throw this together after 12 hours of sailing.  This was leftover from a dinner I had in Beaufort.  Now, I ate as much as I could that night. Tonight Mike and I shared the leftovers and we are both feeling that we overdid it.  Is there something wrong with portion control in restaurants?  I think that plate of shrimp and grits would qualify as suitable for a “big hungry boy” (as Calvin Trillin would say).

Overall I think we are feeling quite pleased with today’s efforts.  The feeling is slowly returning to my icy feet …

Gloria

34 12 06.6 N, 77 48 15.1 W

The shrimp boat at night - Cape Lookout Bight

Yellow rumped warbler

Blasting along at 7 knots off Wrightsville Beach - mid afternoon

Wrightsville Beach anchorage