Florida to Maryland 2015

..The plan...the actual...

We stayed in the Bahamas longer this year, and then we stayed in Florida while we enjoyed a family vacation to the British Virgin Islands last week. Now, it is June and we are trying to push the boat home to Maryland ASAP. We have come very close to storing the boat here in Florida and simply driving home. That would be far easier and take a lot less time and effort, but we want the boat at home for some work, so here we are pushing north 10+ hours a day.

Our plan was originally to go offshore directly from Fort Pierce, FL to Cape Lookout, NC, a 500 nm run. As we prepared for two days, the forecast was perfect for this with South and Southwest winds. Then on Wednesday, departure day, our weather router, Chris Parker, suggested we not go offshore unless we like pushing into a 15-20 knot head winds with seas of 4-6 feet. Our other weather tools were saying calm seas and light S SW winds. We were confused. But we took his advice and stayed inside the ICW. We found the winds really were 15-20 N NE, just like he said! With our ocean passage course of 040 degrees, we would have been sailing directly into it. These N NE winds have been here for 4 days!

We will reach Fernandina tomorrow, Sunday, and will wait there until the winds go S or SW, which is supposed to happen Monday or Tuesday. If so, we will make a 330 nm run for Cape Lookout. If you click the picture, you will see our original plan and now our actual plan. The NO leg we could not do because of head winds blowing against the Gulf Stream. The 1, 2, 3 plan shows our day hops up the ICW to the FL/GA line. We can wait there for S or SW or W winds to make the direct run to the Outer Banks. Thanks for sailing along.