By June 25, we were at the maximum Gulf Stream, and the seas had grown to 10 feet. The winds were still about 30 knots, and we were broad reaching as close to south west as we could. We were being set to the north east by the stream, so were not making much progress. Rain squalls were pelting us, and we motor sailed for a few hours to try to get progress westward against the Stream. Now we faced another problem; we had four jerry-jugs of diesel fuel, but they were all lashed together on the wrong side of the boat (bad planning!). And, we hadn't thought through how to put the fuel into our tanks in a bad sea-way; we needed some type of siphon system while keeping the jugs in place. So we had to conserve fuel to only use what we had in our main tank. It was a wild ride. The only good thing about night fall was the fact that we couldn't see the size of the mountainous seas coming at us. The boat was handling it all very well, with good motion. Twice I watched, transfixed, as she went over to almost 45 degrees, with the whole side in the water up to the portholes, and then just came back up, shook herself off, and went on!

The motion of the boat was such that even off-watch not much sleep was to be had. We had the starboard settee wedged with pillows and cushions all around, but the breaking seas kept us awake, even as tired as we were. Larry suffered some sea-sickness during this time, which subsided when he put on another patch.

On June 26, we sailed and motor-sailed in towards Beaufort, NC, and docked at the Town Docks for two nights. Then we motored over to Oriental and dropped anchor, where we went to dinner with our friends Joe and Priscilla Brant. It was great to see friendly faces and have a relaxing dinner.

On June 29, we went up the Neuse River and docked at the SkySail Marina at New Bern, NC, for 2 weeks of rest and relaxation. We both had quite a bit of recovery to work on. Our friends Judy and Bob Reuss came over from Raleigh to visit with us, have brunch, and a drive into the North Carolina countryside. We made some new friends on the docks and in town, and are now ready to sail north towards the Chesapeake starting on Thursday.