Southward

At Sea
32 00.01 N 080 12.34 W

Well, the creatures showed up yesterday after posting my blog. I saw a dolphin.

Soon after a goldfinch came hopping into the cockpit. Several times before we have had land birds land on the boat when we're out to sea. In our first year sailing, a little bird we called Birdie Num Num rode with us from New Jersey to Virginia. The implications are sad. Every day there must be numerous land birds who accidentally fly out to sea and get lost. If they don't know how to fly back to land, they'll die. Finding a boat at sea is a refuge and can be a life saver. The goldfinch stayed with us overnight, but we have not seen him this morning. Fare thee well goldfinch.

But this morning we also picked up a gorgeous moth as a hitchhiker. I presume he has the same problem as the birds. Hopefully, he'll stay until we get close to land.

Our AIS is working well. There were several ships coming in and out of Charleston as we passed by last night. Using the AIS I was able to track each and to determine that they were no threat to us. The peace of mind AIS gives is is much appreciated. It would be better still to transmit our own AIS info, but one small step at a time.

We made 120 miles in our first 24 hours. If that keeps up, we'll arrive early Monday morning. Unfortunately, ebb tide at St. Mary's inlet is 0730-1330. Hmm, can we hurry? Should we delay? The answer is neither. Winds are highly variable. We'll take what we get and decide on when to enter the inlet when we're within a couple of miles.