Silver Lake

Ocracoke Coffee Company
35 06.73 N 075 58.61 W

Wow, what a ride.  Yesterday we made a 50 mile passage in more-or-less a straight line from Roanoke Island to Ocracoke Island.  We spent the whole trip close-hauled.  I mean really really close hauled.  We could not squeeze a single degree more out of her.  For those who don't know, close hauled means sailing as close as possible into the wind.

Tarwathie is not at her best close hauled.  Many other boats can sail closer to the wind as we do.  In addition, she plows into oncoming waves which slows her down a lot.   We generally tend to avoid it.   However, I committed an error; one that I do over and over again.    I tend to think of our north-south migration as truly north-south.  The winds yesterday were from the West.  Perfect, I thought.  Actually, our course yesterday was not South, it was Southwest.

Anyhow, it worked out well.  We and our two buddy boats got here about 1 hour before sunset.  Perfect timing.

You may wonder what it's like here since Ocracoke Island was ground zero for Hurricane Irene.   On the island here there was very little damage or flooding.  The full time residents here have long experience with hurricanes.   However, highway 12 north of here was washed out in several places, and it still closed.  That highway was the route that most tourists used to get here.  As a result, the fall tourist season here on Ocracoke is disaster.

We'll spend a few days here.  This is one of our favorite stops.  Our next leg is westward and on Thursday the winds are supposed to turn North.