It has been an incredible 2 ½ days. It will be hard to capture it all, but here goes… We headed out of Norfolk around 1530 Wednesday with clear sky, big rollers, and once again dolphins escorting us out. There were a few ships at anchor in Norfolk waiting their turn to go in and unload their Chinese junk. Linda took the first turn at the helm and while I cooked us up a great meal of fajitas and a beer that Skipper from Watch Hill had given us (He departed four hours earlier) Phil then came on watch followed be me at midnight. Thursday morning found us with conditions still good, but that didn’t last. By noon the sea state was progressively worsening and wind gusts were peaking at 25. By 5 the weather was the worse I had seen. The waves were mountains and the wind was upward of 30 on the nose so we opted to keep a furled jib out and in order to keep moving (in the wrong direction.)Then we tacked back towards Delaware knowing that we wouldn’t be able to head directly northeast. Phil and I stood 2 hour watches sleeping in the cockpit. The fajitas didn’t taste as good the second time. We continued to fight these same conditions through the night and as if things couldn’t get worse we could see a squall approaching from the west. I understand that somewhere in all the excitement we must have accidentally cut out our tracking SPOT and caused a little anxiety at home ( the coast guard got called), but we had no time to be listening to the radio as the squall delivered driving rain with even higher winds. Just like out of a movie- the engine died. I woke up Phil who tried his best to keep the boat pointed in a direction that would allow me to unclog the last remaining gunk out of the fuel line and then restarted the engine. As soon as the squall passed, conditions started getting better. The next day was certainly a better day as we entered the New York harbor approaches. Our prayers had been answered. We had survived the perfect storm. We had a nice sail all day Friday and a beautiful moon lit our way to Montauk. Sunrise at Montauk was quite something. We saw literally thousands of baby sharks 2-3 feet long, in small schools. We rounded Montauk Point around 730 and are now in home territory. We know we are in New England as we scooted across a sail regatta from Block Island and a observed a submarine heading out to sea. The Last Mango has been a sea worthy ship and has given Linda and me an experience of a lifetime and we were lucky to have Phil spend his birthday with us and help us for the last 325 of the 800 miles we have logged. We will soon be picking up a mooring at our old marina in Groton and closing this chapter. Thank you guys for following us and for your concerns and comments. We will continue to use this blog for future travels, but of course our posts will not come as often.
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