Sailing to the Lighthouse at Cape Lookout

We set off one fine early morning with four fellow boats from Wilmington, North Carolina for a day's sail to the lighthouse at Cape Lookout.

Looking Northeast at Dawn

What had promised to be a day of manageable wind and low seas turned into a day of high winds and high seas. The ride was rough and I turned my camera off until near the end of a fifteen-hour cruise.

Waves and Sea Salt

Here is a little bit of sailing with the genoa down and the main reefed two times...

The sight of the red entrance buoy was a welcoming sign at the end of the day.

Arrival at Cape Lookout Anchorage

Pulling in the Sails

We settled into the quiet harbor near the lighthouse for the night. 

The Anchorage at Cape Lookout

Several loggerhead sea turtles turned up to welcome us and stare curiously while we put down our anchor and tied down the sails. I tried to photograph them but they dipped below the water each time I raised my camera to my eye.

To the Lighthouse

Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity; and pausing there she looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one could not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things one saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke.   - from To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Wolf, chapter 11, paragraph 1.