I did get a good night of sleep, but not long enough as it was cold aboard tonight. I had my morning coffee while checking the weather and my e-mails and then set about making the boat 100% ready for departure. I wanted to leave around 09:00 to catch a high tide and also to make the best use of the 1-2 knot current pushing me out of the Chesapeake. I’d spoken with the dock master the previous day but perhaps he’d overslept as there was nobody around the club in the morning. I opted to leave alone and got the lines doubled back to the boat and reduced them to just 2 and the wind pushed me out of the dock with nary a scratch on the new paint work. I hung around outside the marina for a while getting all the fenders taken off and stowed and coiling the lines and putting them in the garage as well. Then it was time for the channel, but at the height of high tide I never saw less than 6 feet under my keel. Once in the channel I put the engine to 1800RPM and was doing between 6 and 8 knots all the until I exited the Chesapeake when I put up the mainsail and later also added the Genoa. Winds were very light and the sails did little else but look pretty, but at least they added a half knot to my speed and allowed me to reduce to 1600RPM where the engine sips fuel at about 4l per hour (1 gallon per hour). That is what the engine is doing now as I motorsail down the North Carolina coast at 7 knots. The wind has just died and I’ve furled the genoa but I hope that once the sun sets it will pick up a bit again so I can sail rather than motor. The sous-vide steak is cooking and I think I’ll have my dinner after sunset. There are almost no boats in sight but there is a good long ocean swell rolling the boat around a bit.
I still have cellphone connectivity to the internet despite being on the outside of the 3-mile line, so I’m updating the web page now (at 20:30). I used my sous-vide cooker to prepare a steak for searing on the stove top and made a simple red wine reduction sauce with onions and garlic and fond with a baked potato for dinner. This is certainly not roughing it! Although on the downside I am wearing thermal long underwear and a thermal shirt, then normal pants and 2 thick sweaters. On top of that I have a pair of sailing pants that go up to the shoulder and then I have skiing gloves and a thick woolen hat. Despite all that and no wind I am quite chilled and I think tonight is going to get cold for me. And I dread going to the bathroom, it might take minutes to divest myself of all these layers of clothing.
