Going the wrong way, but...

14:00UTC 17/11/08 34'50N 75'52W

We have turned round the bottom of Cape Hattaras and are heading west, towards Beaufort and a comfortable couple of nights at anchor. Hopefully this front will pass and we can set off again early on Wednesday morning. The marine weather forecast now agrees with Herb, 35-40kt and big seas on Tuesday, moderating Wednesday so we're OK with this choice. We could have got through, but it wouldn't have been much fun and there's always the risk of breaking something.

Almost as if in compensation, Mother Nature and Neptune have combined to give us a fabulous first day. The winds were perfect and we equaled Ty Dewi's personal best, with this skipper at least, of 151 miles in 24 hours. In the late afternoon, a couple of dolphins came and swam with us for a few minutes, giving Karla her first ever glimpse of these sublime creatures in the wild. The sun set rapidly in a cloudless sky, turning the sky a delightful shade of red and purple over the shoreline and then revealing a magical carpet of stars. The Leonid meteor shower is due sometime soon and so I picked out the constellation of Leo and sure enough, a couple of shooting stars made their way across that part of the sky. The moon rose shortly after, making it hard to see any but the brightest meteors, but it was a gorgeous moonrise so we forgive old Luna for outshining the rest of the heavens last night.

We had an easy night with little traffic and got some sleep then the dawn came nice and early at 6am. By 8am I couldn't doze any more as the sunlight flooded the cabin so I let Yan come off watch and head for his bunk. The sea has turned a nice blue out here in the sunshine and I thought I'd give the fishing line a try. I don't have high hopes for fish this side of the gulf stream but heck, I let out the line with a simple cedar plug - just a bare round piece of cedar with a hook on the end. Apparently the scent attracts fish for some reason.

It took less than ten minutes before the line was whizzing out of the reel. I put the brake on and played the fish a little to tire it, taking about fifteen minutes to reel it in. We have caught a lovely little Tunny, about six pounds and good for a couple of meals. So our fishing is off to a good start and the new fishing reel claims it's first tail.

It's getting on for half nine but the crew are still asleep so I'll let them be before making breakfast, then we should be in Beaufort shortly after sunset tonight. It's a well lit harbour, thankfully, and we'll report more later.

All's well.

N.

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