Our Natural Element

At Sea
30 53 N 081 19 W

I'm happy. Libby is beaming. Tarwathie seems to breath a sigh of relief. For the first time since last November we are at sea and back in our natural element. And what a splendid day it is to be out here -- warm, sunny, and breezy. We have a west wind at 20 knots right on our beam. We're running with a double reefed main, a 50% reefed jib and a staysail. Mr. Monitor (the self-steering vane) is steering. Tarwathie is gliding trough the water 6.5-8.5 knots. Man oh man, this is the cruising life as the promo videos depict it.

The wind is coming in the off-shore direction and we are staying in no more than 10 miles from shore. Therefore, the wind can blow all it wants and the waves won't get overly large. That makes for great sailing. This weather window should last Monday and Tuesday before dissipating. That's not quite enough to get us to Beaufort, NC, but we may be able to reach Cape Fear before the wind dies off. Not bad.

By the way, the rendezvous was great fun. Over the course of three days, we progressed from meeting some fellow sailors, to having fun with real friends, to having to say good bye to dear friends. What an outstanding flock of nice people there. We really hope that we get to meet up with them again.