Change of Plans

We left Atlantic City this morning at 8:20, heading for Block Island. The wind was NE at 10 knots, coming right down the rhumb line. It was forecast to move east and swells were out of the east...kicked up by hurricane Chris as it went by. This is not the typical conditions for this time of year, we should have southerly winds.

Motoring into the wind and waves did not seem like a fun option so we raised sails and started off on port tack to give us some distance from the shore. Neil pointed out that we were not heading towards Block Island...we were heading at a right angle to the rhumb line. After sailing out into the ocean for a bit, we tacked over to port and were making a better angle towards Block Island, but not great. Owl Moon tacks through about 105 degrees so making a windward destination is slow...after two hours we were about 10 miles from Atlantic City.

I suggested that we might rather go into New York Harbor, up the East River, and then up the Long Island Sound. This will be longer, but more enjoyable. Neil and Carol have not been up that way and it is quite an interesting route. The crew all agreed that this sounded good. By now we were pretty much on starboard tack layline for motorsailing to Sandy Hook.

We timed rounding the top of Sandy Hook perfectly for a sunset photo op.