April 7, 2024 Southport NC

We arrived in Southport, NC around 3:30pm. It was a VERY DIFFICULT 46-hour sail. Started out ok and we sailed a lot Thursday night in moderate winds. Friday night a cold front hit quite suddenly and we had to quickly change sail configurations as winds, waves. and swells increased rapidly. We were able to monitor from inside the boat, which helped, and we took turns sleeping for an hour each. Then the autopilot suddenly switched off and the wind was pushing us off course. Thankfully it went back on without a problem. No fun to have to steer from the helm for hours. It was rough and rolling I was sitting on the floor with Caramel for several hours trying to keep her from sliding off the settee. A few times the boat went up and came down so hard and sounded like it hit something in the water, enough so that we're going to have someone check the hull while we're here. We’re fine, just tired and achy.

Here in Southport we visited our favorite restaurants and shops, did some biking, and made our pinhole eclipse viewer. The eclipse was about 70% at this location.