Friday, June 20 – Sunday June 22 — On Thursday, we’d mentioned that our speeds inside the Gulf Stream were incredible. Eric had had calculated that if we could maintain a speed of 10.2 knots, we’d get in a full day ahead of schedule, so he’d increased RPMs to 1750 to get us up to 10.2 knots. Then our speed picked up even more, eventually getting to 11.7 knots!

After that peak, our speed slowly crept back down, and by 0800 on Friday, we were doing 10.4 knots. While the extra speed was exciting, we were on track to arrive in the middle of the night, so Eric dropped the RPMs back down to 1650 for a daylight arrival. At 1650 RPM, we were still doing a blazing fast 8.8 knots! The speeds continued to slowly creep down the rest of the day, and by 0800 on Saturday. we were down to 7.1 — which was still a great speed.

On Saturday, the speed slowly crept back up. Eric kept reducing RPMs to keep us on track for a daylight arrival. By midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, we were doing 9.3 knots at 1500 RPM! On Sunday, our speed was a yo-yo, but we were still averaging a fast enough speed that Eric continued to gradually reduce RPMs to 1425 — and we were still averaging 5.5-knots at 1425!

On Sunday evening at about 2000, Eric changed our course to avoid the shipping lanes in the Chesapeake Bay. The new route added more miles, which was fine as we needed to arrive later, anyways. Once he’d re-routed us, he increased the RPMs to 1650.

On Friday, for most of the day, the sea conditions were the same as they had been on Thursday: 2 -3 foot swells at 5 -6 seconds with 1-2 foot wind chop. But on Friday evening, we were hit with a squall at about 1830. It was ominous on the radar.

The wind went from nearly dead to strong in an instant, and the seas rapidly worsened. We’re pretty sure it rained a little bit. But it passed relatively quickly, and all went back to being calm almost as fast as it had picked up. We could see the silent lightning from the storm for a long time after it had passed.

We rolled up 47,000 almost exactly at midnight. What an interesting way to start Saturday.

On Saturday morning, we were hit with a very hard rain shower. Oddly, the wind never picked up and the seas stayed calm. We also had an odd stow away. Usually little birds can’t make it out that far into the ocean. We didn’t shoo this little guy away as aggressively as we normally would because we were worried it couldn’t safely make it back to land.

On Saturday afternoon, the wind completely died and the wind chop went away. While the swell was still there, the surface of the water was smooth, glassy and reflective. On Saturday evening, we saw an aircraft carrier. It seemed to be doing a circle around us, and a couple of aircraft came and went from it. Given that the US had attacked Iran only hours before, we weren’t sure what to make of the military activity.

On Saturday evening, we saw a lone dolphin. The dolphins on the Atlantic side were bigger than the dolphins on the Pacific side.

Saturday’s sunset was obscured by the clouds and the clouds were glowing brightly.

And, when the crescent moon finally rose in the wee hours of Sunday morning, it reflected off the glassy water. There was also some bioluminescence in the water.

On Sunday morning, the swell also died and it was flat as a pancake as we went around Cape Hatteras. Cape Hatteras was infamous for its rough sea conditions and many shipwrecks, so the incredibly calm conditions were almost unreal. The ocean was a mirror to the sky. It was hard to tell exactly where the horizon line was because the sky and sea melded into one. The ride was so smooth that we felt like we were simply floating, not like we were actually moving.

There were a lot of jellyfish, too.

The wind did pick up in the late morning, and for the remainder of the day, we had gentle swells at long intervals with 2 – 3 foot wind chop. We still couldn’t get over how calm it was! Sunset on Sunday.

Throughout the passage, the temperatures were in the high 80s – 90s during the day, with high humidity. Except for the couple of times noted above, the wind was light. Needless to say, it was stifling outside during the day, so we ran the generator and A/C for most of the daylight hours. The nights were sultry, which was not unpleasant.

In addition to the dolphin and jellyfish, Eric saw a couple of large flying fish that went surprisingly far.