Still in Cape May due to a storm to the north. I have been working on our anchorages for the trip home for six hours. With our slow-end speed set as our average to keep things safe and simple as possible, we have decided to cover no more than 40NM/day.
There are so many factors in choosing a route, and most importantly, where to tuck in for the night. This is more difficult that I’d expected. I was under the obviously naïve impression the chart plotter would be doing the majority of this for us.
I have broken the coast-hugging route down into 20 total stops from Cape May, NJ to Bangor, ME (our home port).
The first page of anchorages is mostly full-day hops, whereas the second page gives a couple options to stop per hop. It’s hard to tell where we will be in our journey by then, so variable anchorages six hours apart are best while we navigate around islands and lobster pots as we get closer to Maine.
Kevin entered the coordinates into our new B & G chart plotter as I read them off from my log book and hit enter. Hopefully when we check in a bit the route is laid out. In the meantime, I need some downtime from research, record, report, repeat… Time for a drink and a rest on the beanbag on the trampoline with Chip.
Kevin is working today, and in his last meeting shortly. I’m so glad the Starlink is installed and we can poke-along without the stress of rushing to get back. There is no rushing in a sailboat—only the nagging anxiety over not being able to.
