Our sixth day of trip started out with some maintenance... oil and filter changes on both engines and transmission oil change so we got off to a late start... departing Portsmouth, VA at 1000 hours and our destination being Coinjock, NC... Coinjock Marina where we would fuel up... have a great dinner... 32 ounce prime rib... and it was GOOD!

The weather was forecast for rain but warmer than it has been so far on the trip... we started getting a little rain about 10 nm from Coinjock and we could see surface fog on the water... it made the daymarks appear as if they were buoys floating in the water rather than being 10-12 high... it was kind of weird... then about 5 nm from Coinjock the surface fog turned into pea soup fog... we had maybe 1/8 of mile visibility... it was real nasty and we slowed to a snail's pace... :(

We did make it to Coinjock Marina at 1730 hours... half hour later than our original ETA... it was dark, foggy and raining. We traveled 42 nautical miles today and our final position is (N36°20.999', W075°56.885')

After departing from New York City on December 9th... we ran all day and night through December 10th arriving in Portsmouth, VA at 1900 hours. A total of 279.1 nm in 40.5 hours... weather and sea conditions were great. It's still a little cold but this is the first time since leaving Rhode Island that the temperature has been above freezing and is forecast to remain that way for the next couple of days... just checked and it's 39 degrees outside and it feels like a heat wave compare to temperatures we had in the teens when we left NY.

We are docked at a town dock in Portsmouth, VA... position (N36°50.138', W076°17.782') Shortly after docking here a close friend also docked here behind us... Mike Effort of MI-T-MO.... he's not on MI-T-MO but a 60' Grand Banks that he is delivering to Florida. We'll fall behind him as we travel tomorrow as he will be cruising at 20 knots with the Grand Banks... nearly 3 times the speed we cruise at with SAILS.

We departed from New York City at 0330 hours on December 9th with final destination as Cape May, NJ. We left having a favorable tide in the lower East River and New York Harbor... attaining more than 10 knots many times. The trip was to take approximately 15 hours arriving to Cape May around 2100 hours. Weather conditions were fantastic... west winds and calm seas.

Off the NJ shore we did experience a few fuel filter issues... the previous few days of rough seas stirred things up a bit and clogged both filters.. and we had to change the Racor filters on both engines. After that things went smoothly.
Approaching Cape May we made the decision to not stop and continue on offshore to Norfolk, VA. Looking at the weather reports our window of calm seas would escape us if we stopped and we would of had to continue the trip on an inland route going up the Delaware Bay, across the C&D Canal and down the Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk... 4-5 days compared to 1 day offshore to Norfolk.

It's now December 10th approximately 0900 hours as I am writing this...we are off the coast of Virginia at approximate position (N37°34.600', W075°29.545')... or about 67 nm from Norfolk, VA.