About sixty hours (2 overnights) after leaving Shelburne, Nova Scotia, we arrived to Newport in time for a delicious dinner ashore last night.
Before leaving, we had to prepare the boat for going offshore. This included tying down the anchor and rigging jacklines. We use tethers offshore (especially at night and in high seas) to ensure we stay in the boat, and we tether to jacklines if we have to leave the cockpit for any reason.
For the first part of our passage, we had a mix of motoring and sailing, with lots of rain and fog. We were treated to a dolphin pod sighting, which hasnโt grown old yet! We also saw many seabirds as much as 100 miles offshore โ a few in particular appeared very tempted to sneak food off the cockpit table. And of course, our spider friends in the cockpit were with us the whole way!
Offshore overnights are an entirely different feel from coastal cruising with nightly stops at anchorages or marinas. We shared a hot dinner as crew every day. Other meals were largely catch-as-catch-can snacks (appetite tends to diminish in the swells and boat movement). We stood night watches of 2 hours apiece. With Lucy and Tyler in the rotation, we could each catch up to 6 hours of sleep at a time. This makes the overnights so much more pleasant, especially with two overnights in a row.
Our second and third days brought great wind and clearing skies โ a gift at least in part from Hurricane Franklin, which passed far to our south. Itโs been great to have the sails up for much of the journey! We actually had to start the engine simply to charge the batteries.
Arrival in Newport is bittersweet โ we plan one more post to reflect on the over 3200 mile, nearly three month journey, one that Lucy dubbed โThe Guidance Exodus.โ
