Our next jump was from Atlantic City to Norfolk Va. This, is a short transit probably for many experienced sailing crews but for us it would be the first transit that required staying up overnight and working watches all through the night. It was a daunting task considering that the boat is new to us, it would be such a long transit and Boyd is the only truly experienced captain on board. At some point he would need to sleep and that would mean that Paul or I or Paul and I would be in charge of the boat and our safety.

We started out from Atlantic City in the early morning I actually woke up around 3 am and couldn’t get back to sleep as the waves in the anchorage had become increasingly confused. I lay in the bunk disliking the anchorage, the current, the area. I wished we could go but knew it was to early. Two hours of waiting and hoping I’d fall back asleep, and then just as I’d nearly succeeded Boyd’s alarm went off and we started our greatest trek thus far.

Pulling Paul out of his bunk and getting him to help pull anchor at 5:30 in the morning was no picnic but once it was done he’d been promised he could go back to sleep until his watch from noon to four. We were underway slightly after 6:30 and made good speed out into the open Atlantic where the waves were still churning from the last few days of wind. We made the best of it and started our rotation. Nicole and Paul and I did a lot of sleeping while Boyd took his watch pretty much on his own. Then we had some chips and salsa for lunch. We had beam seas so it was pretty rolly and no one really wanted much to eat. As Paul’s watch progressed the wind settled some and the waves flattened and it became less uncomfortable and by dinner (individual lasagnas popped in the oven for half an hour because my watch is 4pm to 8pm) everyone was feeling well enough to eat a real meal.

We took our dinner huddled under the dodger out on deck in the dark. Paul and Nicole had both been sleeping for several hours and there was already a real sense of disorientation about what time it really was. At 8pm I was happy to hand off the watch to Boyd and duck below to put Nicole to bed in a real bed. Unfortunately, since we were running the engine it was incredibly difficult to get to sleep at first and we spent the first hour cuddled together murmuring “are you asleep?” to each other until finally one of us didn’t answer.

I slept soundly until Boyd came down to get me at midnight. The plan was that he and I would switch places and I would go up on deck with Paul for his watch. It seemed brutally cold coming from cuddled inside a sleeping bag to out on deck but it did manage to keep me from going to sleep for a while. Somewhere around 2am I told Paul I was just going close my eyes for a few minutes and I dozed for the next two hours until my watch when Paul and I traded spots. He took over my pile of blankets and a pillow I had burrowed into and I took the watch.

By 4am the waves had calmed completely and we were just cutting across the water in the dark moonless night. I spent most of my time trying to figure out if the dots of light were boats or far off lights on the shore. In addition to it being a dark night it was also alternately foggy so judging distance wasn’t always easy. With all the equipment though, the radar and AIS and the chart plotter and autopilot it turned out to be easier than I had anticipated and I got us through the next four hours without hitting anything or getting hit by anything. I was prepared to let Boyd sleep until 9 but he ended up coming up on deck around 7:30 in the morning and as we were just about to enter into the shipping lanes in Norfolk I was happy enough to see him. I offered to make coffee if he’d take the wheel and that concluded or nearly concluded our outside run to Norfolk. We spent the next few hours until after noon transiting the Norfolk channel and pulled into the Tidewater Yacht Agency around 12:30 pm on Thanksgiving day, tired but all in one piece.