Meritage - Log entry 3: Meritage

We completed leg 1! 150 nautical miles feom Annapolis MD to Portsmouth VA in exactly 24 hours. Lots of exciting firsts for me and the crew!
At the end of the last blog, I was going to get some rest before my first nightwatch...I knew that falling asleep would be difficult but eventually, 45 minutes before my watch started, I managed to get a nap in! When I woke, Craig and Paul had set me up with a good heading and a good handoff. We carried on with motoring until 2am when the winds returned. After 15 minutes (of waffling), I decided to let Meritage do what she was out there to do. So we raised sails, cut the engine and were back off to the races moving faster by wind power! As the sun rose we were greeted by a pod of 4 dolphins (screwed up the video, sorry) and by 7am we were entering the James River rolling past the mighty naval warships that line the river! Finally we made port with the other rally boats and settled in for a day to relax and get to know the other rallyers at the briefing and dinner. The weather looks good so off we go to Cape May NJ!
Talk to you again tomorrow night!
Capt Paul