Cruise, Day 4

The second anchor was already washed and its rode coiled in the starboard cockpit locker when we sailed off the bower anchor with a full main and jib shortly after 0700. We rounded Eastern Neck and proceeded north closehauled on the port tack, encountering the expected Love Point slop. To make it worse, the wind started backing, which brought us bow-on to the waves rather than taking them at an angle. To get enough drive to power through them, I changed to a genoa, but about every third wave still nearly brought us to a dead stop.

By 1220, Swan Point was abeam to starboard, but with the wind still dying, I changed to a gennaker or cruising spinnaker. We had reached Tolchester by 1440, and the wind had backed a full 180-degrees by then and began to fill slowly from the southeast. We reached the entrance marker for Fairlee Creek where we dropped sail and started the engine. We had made 28-nm by the time we anchored in Fairlee Creek off Great Oak Landing, just in time to enjoy the sunset.