Making for Charleston – day two

As day one turned into day two, November 3, it was Patrick’s birthday. At midnight shift change, there were happy birthday wishes exchanged. (How cool is it to be sailing offshore on your birthday?!)

Midnight saw us about 8 miles from rounding Diamond Shoals at Cape Hatteras. Wind was at 140 apparent, at 14-17 knots, and we were on a starboard tack. Pretty sweet ride. A bunch of boats were around us heading the same direction, but we couldn’t actually see many of them (well, we could see them on the AIS) as we journeyed. Miles of separation meant we were all just blips on the screen to each other.

Around 0230, the wind had picked up and we decided we probably needed a second reef in the main. As we were setting up for that change, Chris noticed dolphins in the water around our boat. There were dozens of them surrounding us, all luminescent under the water. On such a clear starry night, with the boat speeding along through the waves, it kind of felt like magic.

Sunrise greeted us as we changed watches again, and the rest of the morning passed pretty uneventfully, aside from clearing a clog in the aft head (yet AGAIN…thankfully it was a quick fix) and adding an outboard lead on the jib to use that sail more effectively. In the early afternoon we were seeing speed over ground of 8s to 10s and and the wind was up around 20-25 kts, so we were still sailing and cooking along.

The ocean was bluer than blue all around us.

We had following seas, and sometimes Oestara would get a nice big push from the waves.

Right around dinnertime, we caught what we thought was a barracuda, and threw it back. Later on we realized it might actually have been a wahoo or a king mackerel, and maybe we should have kept it. We clearly have to get better at this fish identification stuff! Oh well.

As the sun set on day two of our passage, Patrick opened some happy birthday cards and we all sat down for dinner. Happy birthday, dear! Hope you enjoyed celebrating your birthday this year at sea!