November - Virginia, North Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean

We tried to pull out -now from Cape May, New Jersey- and our auto pilot broke AGAIN! We detoured into Hampton, Virginia.

We made some new friends at our unexpected stop! Lorelei hanging out with her new friend Eileen from Lady Kae.

We met old friends in Virginia too. Party aboard Anjulia Sue!

Traveler joined us in Virginia to help celebrate Lorelei’s 9th birthday! Yay, for good friends! We had the party at Great Wolf Lodge!

While in Virginia, the girls and I took the opprotunity to visit Colonial Williamsburg!

3rd time’s a charm…nope! Well, at least we ended up in one of our favorite little towns, Beaufort, North Carolina. At that point, we had lost so much of our easting, that we decided to head straight for The Bahamas instead.

Music bingo in Beaufort!

Our favorite pool and burger place.

Of course a visit to Beaufort would not be complete without sitting in their favorite tree.

a beautiful start to the trip!

We had a 5 day passage from Beaufort to Great Exuma, Bahamas. By late on day 2 we started having some very ‘sporty’ weather with breaking waves over the bow. THEN- the jib furler jammed as we were trying to reef (take in some sail area), and Jacob had to tether up and go on deck to try and unjam it. He is very careful and our boat has solid lifelines, so he crawled up on hands and knees and sat down while working on it as waves broke over his head. By day 3 our rebuilt auto pilot QUIT.

We still had 3 days of travel, and started taking much shorter shifts. Thankfully the girls are already practiced at steering a compass course, and were able to take day shifts. During the day our schedule looked like Jacob 1 hour, Audrey 30 minutes, Lorelei 30 minutes, April 1 hour, repeat. At night Jacob and I both stretched to 2 hour shifts of hand steering. It is not difficult in calm weather, but it does take lots of focus.

Lorelei steering a compass course.