...or a Seguin 40, or some sexy lifting keel design Bob Perry might be designing in his next life.... (grin)

Gotta confess, I grew way too complacent with the fairly settled weather patterns we've seen this fall until recently, water around here has been higher than normal for this time of year... But that's changed bigtime now that I'm finally close to being ready to leave, the big westerlies from this last storm have virtually drained my end of Barnegat Bay... A good southerly breeze today should bring some water back in, but then it's switching to NW again tonight and tomorrow, back to SW on Tuesday, then a stronger front that night which looks like a nice window for heading down to Norfolk, we shall see...

Good news is, the long range forecast shows little risk of getting iced in before Christmas, so I'm not too concerned about that at the moment... Don't want to sound like I'm whining, I have nobody to blame but myself for dragging my feet departing this year...

The amazing access we now have to weather information is definitely a double-edged sword nowadays, I'd probably be in Beaufort by now if I had never looked once at Sailflow after Thanksgiving... (grin) Problem this time of the year especially is trying to find a good window to SAIL all the way to Norfolk, I've passed on some windows which would have afforded some calms to motor part or most of the way... I'm glad I didn't leave with the strong winds we had this week, it would have been brutal... They were definitely true westerlies, even a bit south of west at times, would have been a very cold and wet ride, I probably would have bailed out in Atlantic City or Cape May anyway, then wound up motoring through the lull that followed...

Still hoping to be able to ride a true northwesterly like we should see starting Wednesday down the coast, but first I have to get over that shallow spot at the entrance to my lagoon... yeah, next time, maybe a nice keel/centerboard Sabre 38 would be nice... (grin)

best regards,

Jon