Morehead City

Today, the third day of our voyage, we sailed into the Beaufort Inlet at 12:30, 3 days and 5 hours after we left Coconut Grove. It was a trip of 618 nautical miles, taking 77 hours, of which we motored 55 hours and sailed 22 hours.We used 46 gallons of Diesel fuel, achieving an efficiency of 0.8 galllons/hour....alll techy stuff but tell me we made great time and the engine and sails...the entire boat and crew performed brialliantly. 

I made some observations about long distance sailing (and of course what we did isn't really long distance sailing, but my limited standards, it is).

First you get really tired. It wasn't as bad the third day, perhaps I am getting used to the constant rotation of 3 hours on, 3 hours off, sleeping when you can, but tiring nonetheless. 

Second, you lose weight...with all the boat motion It is hard to eat, much less prepare fancy meals while underway (and by fancy I mean anything more than a peanut butter and jellly). I couldn't even make a thermos of coffee without causing a second degree burn (healing nicely, thanks for asking). and further, with the constant ship motion - somedays worse than others - its a struggle just to sit without falling over...you are constantly working to do the simplest things, like walking across the salon.

Third, you really don't see much of your shipmate..one of you is always on watch, the other is sleeping, and with a crew of two, that's all there is. 

It was the same coming down last fall...I really enjoyed the trip from Baltimore to Charleston, more than the trip from Charleston to Miami..we'll see how I llike the trip from Morehead City to Baltimore this time. 

We had an excellent  dinner this evening on the boat to celebrate our speedy trip. 

Robert had bought some steaks and potatoes while we were provisioning. I had purchased salad fixing and frozen "steam in a bag" vegetables......and of course I have several boxes of wine on the boat. We barbecued the steaks using the Barbie on the cockpit railings,used the microvave to prepare the potatoes and vegetables (brocolli in cheese sauce) and I threw the salad together (literally). We dined in the cockpit...a truly enjoyable meal...and the first one we had together since slipping the lines

In many things in life it is the voyage....I'm wondering if in sailing it is the destination?...Gonna have to do more experiments!