day four - back north

I wake in darkness, well-rested and ready to go.  Only after I have slipped out of the bivy and into my clothes do I check the clock on my phone.  It is only 4:30.  I think of crawling back under the sleeping bag but instead take my time packing away the sleeping gear, folding the tent, putting everything in place.  

Sails up just after 6:00 just outside the breakwater.  Broken overcast, north wind and making 2.5 kts.  It is cold so I layer on a light jacket and slip on my foul weather bibs.  Mango pineapple bar for breakfast, wind improves giving us 4.5 towards Piney Point on a pretty morning.  

A mango fruit cup as we sail by crabbers working pots about mile offshore.  The wind is better than forecast.  Just before 8:00 doing 3.8 off of Gum Thicket.  A high overcast with banks of lower clouds to the north.  Perfect wind lets us sail parallel to shore.

Off Broad Creek the wind begins to fail, 2.2.  Under power at 8:40, skies beginning to clear.  Rounding the Lighthouse Shoals I stop to bring down the main and jib.  At 9:00 I top off the outboard tank and strip off the foul weather pants and jacket.  At Maw Point boats on the ICW turn into the Bay River while I continue on north.  Patches of wind here and there, nothing sustained.  What looks to be a small raft with red strobes floats in the distance.  I wonder if it connected to the military.  Getting closer I see this it is three or four mylar birthday balloons, the light catching the red mylar looks like flashing strobes.  I grab it and stow it in the trash, glad to remove some debris that might eventually kill a turtle or a whale.

More hints of wind at Boar Point.  Sow Island Point at 11:30 and soon a light SE breeze.  Sails up, making 3.0 with wind over the starboard quarter.  Tuna fish and a fruit cup for lunch just after noon.  Making 2.4 across the mouth of Big Porpoise Bay. 

 We sail under a low, dark cloud, the water shivering beneath the cloud but calm all around.

Casting for trout at Big Porpoise Point, no luck for me as I watch a couple guys who have beached their boat and cast from the marsh shoreline, bringing in six nice fish in the time it takes me to sail by.

Just before 2:00 the SW wind comes in strong and hard, then swings to NW, making 5 kts.  Very, very gusty.

In Mouse Harbor at 2:45, drop the main at 3:00, sailing under mizzen and jib, looking for an anchorage protected from the NW wind.

It's fun sailing under the two small sails, tackingback and forth along the marsh line makes for a fine afternoon.  Anchor down 4:00 in Southward just below Hog Cove.

Running total of 101.9 NM and 28 + hours of sailing.

AlpineAire Sausage Pasta and a mango cup for dinner.  High winds out of the N forecast for the early morning hours.