We set off from the marina around10:30 am with the current flowing out of the Cape Fear river which made exiting rather treacherous as the winds were blowing opposite (out of the SW at 15 knots) across shallow water such that waves were short and about 5-7 feet. Harry did his best to minimize the pounding but there were a few waves that we took that made the clothes line we have tied to the mast in the cabin fall down and the which shook the entire boat. Because the Frying Pan Shoals adjacent to Cape Fear extend about 11 miles offshore, we had to head SE - almost in the opposite direction of where we wanted to head - for about two hours just to get around them. But once we through the shoals, we had a nice SW wind pushing us NE around 7 knots with just a jib until around 8 pm when a line of squalls came through to the north. This caused the wind to die and eventually fill in from the northeast (worst direction when we want to go NE). We sailed a bit heading around 100 degrees then tacked and headed due north until another wind shift arrived and we were able to tack and head northeast arriving at the entrance to Beaufort around 6:00 am as the sun rose.
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| No more blue water for a while |
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| To our left, interesting but non-threatening |
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| To our right, a nicely developed line squall |
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