Americas

Thursday 28 Jun: Cape Hatteras to Cape Charles (Hampton)
We have been motoring all night, the forecasted SW wind never picked up. Downwind sailing in 8-9kts is not exactly fast, we would get to Boston by August, Glen jokes.
As we are approaching Elizabeth City, there are lots of ships hoovering around at sea. Some probably waiting for clearance to enter port, as they are hardly moving, and some fishing. We haven’t seen such a “mob” in a long while, there must be 40-50 ships out there. And a law enforcement boat, keeping an eye on us all.
Sea temperature is now down to 25 celsius, clearly we are now out of the Gulf Stream and into cooler water. The watermaker loves this temperature drop and is performing like when the membranes were new.
By midday the wind shifts around and at long last we manage to sail again early afternoon. First, with main and poled out genoa, then with spinnaker only, under which we are doing much better, both speed and motion wise. And surprisingly very stable. We had motored passed a small yacht sailing with spinnaker a few hours earlier and it was collapsing, refilling and swinging all over the place.
The VHF is very busy today, with war ships conducting live gunnery exercise and warning vessels to keep away. They speak so very fast on the radio, and we are struggling to understand their GPS coordinates. But we do get to hear the thudding sound of their guns and also sonic booms from aircraft.
The wind builds to 15-17kts and the spinnaker is really pulling nicely. But Glen is praying the forecast is correct, for the wind to drop again this evening, because there is no way to snuffle it in 17kts!
At sunset we bring the main out and collapse the spinnaker behind it, and it comes down relatively easy, considering the wind is still 15kts. Then we gybe the main on to port tack as the wind is coming around as forecast. And we sail with main and poled genoa as the sun sets and full moon rises. As the wind drops we are soon doing just 4kts in this sloppy swell. So its engine on again. Back to noisy and rolly for the rest of the evening.