Cape May Report

At 2:00pm today we sailed in to Cape May Harbor. We are going to take on fuel and evaluate the weather. There is a stationary low parked in the triangle betweeen Florida, the Bahamas and Bermuda. It is sitting and churning out in the Atlantic. Winds are expected to build to 50kts tonight and seas offshore may build to 25 feet - so we are happy to be in the Shelter of Cape May to plan the next leg of our trip.

Last's night's sunset was gorgeous. Our heading was west, so the sun was full on our faces as it slipped below the horizon. We continued to motor-sail last through the night waiting for the wind to move from the west to the north. Todays sailing was much more invigorating. The wind moved around to the North early this moring and built over the course of the day, so we finally got to do some offshore sailing.

We had eight to ten foot quartering seas which made the steering interesting. As the wind built from 15 - to 20 kts and then to 25 kts, we took a reef in the main. When the wind settled in at 30 kts, we took a second reef in the main and furled up the jib. With a double reefed main, we were making 7 - 8 kts downwind and having a wild (fun) ride. Katie, our novice sailor tells us she much prefers the big waves and winds to motor sailing - so thats a good indication of the fun we're all having.

Here in Cape May Harbor, we are all psyched to get hot showers and have a meal ashore. The guy who runs the Marina is a little sketchy so we've named him "Norman" as in Norman Bates. Tomorrow, the winds are expected to remain strong out of the North which means the 8' - 10' waves we experienced today will continue to get bigger. The low that is churning off of Cape Hatteras is expected to produce 18' - 26' waves, so we don't want to rush headlong into those. Tomorrow we will evaluate all of our options, and will leave Cape May when the wind and waves start to diminish, and we want to time our passing of Cape Hatters when those waves have had a chance to subside. There are some in-shore options along the intra-coastal, but those are very slow going, so we don't plan to resort to those options quite yet.

I'll do an update tomorrow as we have a chance to get an update on the weather. For now, we're all looking forward to a calm quiet night.

- david