We set the trisail and staysail up hove to, and readied ourselves for a our first night out in the ocean. Since we were only 8 miles off shore, I thought we were too close to sleep the whole night without watches. I had an alarm to get me up every hour to make sure we were ok and not going to run aground.
As the sun set, the winds were blowing around 20 knots. Throughout the night, the winds continued to build. Around midnight, it was blowing 28 knots. And by 5 AM it was blowing 30 knots. The seas also continued to build, but with Wisdom hove to, we stayed upright and very comfortable. Even though we were hove to, we kept drifting in a southerly direction throughout the night, but around 4 AM, the wind changed direction and we were heading towards shore.
With no one at the helm, we drifted along at around 2 knots, and covered 22 miles that night. We went to sleep in VA waters and woke up in NC waters.
5 AM was when my night ended, I came up to do a watch and saw that we were heading towards shore quickly and would be on shore in a bit over 1 hour. I took the helm and set the sails to ride out this storm!
