2022-05-27 Not a 3 hour trip - and again not a 3 hour trip --- 2 ocean passages in a row.

Well, the season in the Bahamas is over. Almost 6 months.  

Guess time to leave, flag is worn out.

 We had a great but long trip back from the Bahamas.  It started with light but ok winds and seas were decent.  The winds did lighten so we tried the spinnaker a couple times with mixed results.  After 24 hours the wind finally gave up and we had to start the motor.  The weather forecast showed wind coming in first by Florida so we motored to the west.  The seas flattened out and we did ok except we had a current against us and only made 3.5 knots.  After 30 hours of motoring the winds started to pick up and we went back to sailing.  We hoped that the overall trip would be 3 days (72 hours) but it ended up being 4 days (96 hours).  Pulled into Beaufort NC at 8 am on Monday and dropped our hook.  It would have been shorter if we had taken a straight line, but as you can see, we did not.

Our route, avoiding currents against us, thunderstorms, and looking for wind.

Along the way we only saw 5 ocean ships, 4 sail boats, 2 dolphins, had 2 flying fish land on the boat, a small bird landed for 20 minutes.  Bird looked tired, and spent some time inside and outside the boat, then flew off.

Glassy seas

Visiting dolphin

Playing on the bow

This one was not underway, and just drifting

Nice sunrise

Just a bit of rain, but excellent rainbow

This is the moon, not the sun,  nice full moon nights

Tired visitor

About a 100 hour trip, but only 30 was motoring, so not bad.

Pulled in to Beaufort, NC, spent the night, and ran some errands to get a phone data plan, groceries, and of course lunch out.

After errands in Beaufort, we moved up to our friends dock near Oriental.  Duane and Karen on Sojourn, a Manta 40, are super nice folks, and graciously allow us to stay at their dock, use water and power, and the ever hard to find, address to ship things to.    We spent the day basically putting in Amazon orders, as well as some other non-Amazon items.  Rinsed the salt off the boat, and relaxed.

Karen and Duane keep their boat at the dock as well, and they showed up the next day, and we started planning, as we had planned to help out our other friends, Ed and Cathy, who due to some medical issues, were not able to move their boat - a Manta 38 "What If" (Yes, the boat we used to own, and sold to them).  What If  was is Jacksonville, FL, and with hurricane season approaching, the boat needed to go further north, to a nice protected place, until they recover and can take care of What If themselves.

So after 3 days off the ocean, we got in the car, and drove with Karen and Duane to Jacksonville, FL, to get on What If, and take her north.

Delivery crew on What If, ready to cast off

Cruise ship passed us in a tight channel - but not unsafe, just close

Artwork on Silos on river outside of Jacksonville.

Cute tug on river outside of Jacksonville, FL.

What If was fully stocked with groceries that needed to be used before they spoiled - so we had some nice meals

Flat seas, also means homemade cookies are in order.  

Little wind, and more motoring that we liked, but made for flat seas, and relaxing times.

You can see the delivery trip was not very stressful

Passed a few ships closely in channels

Coast Guard overhead - not searching for us.

4 days later, we made it back where we stared from.  We did stop for a night on the way up, or would have been 3 days. Opted to stop due to thunderstorms, and contrary winds.

Charm, Sojourn and What If, safe at dock

Karen and Duane were a pleasure to sail/motor with.  Super nice folks, and easy going.

By the time we got back, we had several packages waiting for us.   Just like Christmas 😁

Lots to unpack.

Now we will settle down, and do projects for a couple of weeks, before resuming our trip north.