Day two continued to be a motor sail with very mild seas well into the afternoon. Late afternoon found us off Cape Lookout, NC with winds increasing to the low teens and the waves staying moderate at 2 – 4 feet. As evening arrived, so did the “scattered” thunderstorms. They were marching one after another, right up the Gulf Stream to our starboard. We were happy that we elected not to swing further offshore to take better advantage of the lift from the current since that would have placed us in the path of all this rain.
As darkness fell it became evident that there was quite a lot of lightning activity, with many stunning ground (sea) strikes, making me even happier that we weren’t another 10 miles offshore. It was quite the light show.
Around 3AM this morning as I came back on shift, our luck dodging the squalls gave out. We found ourselves wet and nervously watching the lightning strikes all around us. My laptop, the sat phone, a spare GPS and VHF all went into the oven in the hope they would be protected in the event of a strike. Jen happily went off shift to catch some sleep while I sat at the helm running over a mental to-do list in the event of a strike on the boat. The lighting activity was so frequent and brilliant that I found myself using the light of the lightning flashes to look for passing ships since the after-images had ruined my ability to see anything in the dark.
After a tense three hours, the squalls moved off a bit and the lightning became a glorious lightshow again, instead of a threat.
The end of our second full day at sea found us just off the Diamond Shoals Light of Cape Hatteras in a minor thunder shower. After that the skies cleared up and we’re on a sunny downwind run up the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Tomorrow we should arrive in the Chesapeake Bay.
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