I've been really slow with these Outer Banks posts. Oh well, they're more for me than you really because really, how many pics of my kids can you really look at?
Wednesday was a pretty crappy weather day, so it would only stand to reason that was the ONE DAY I needed to be nice. It's the day I booked our private sailboat charter. Oh well, we were going come hell or high water.
The charter I booked was the sunset cruise so we were to meet at 5:15 pm. The weather was a "cold" 65 degrees and completely overcast. I was excited, however, because I wanted to make the best of this no matter what.
We were greeted by Captain Dan and Katherine right away and they were very welcoming onto their boat, the Sea 'scape. We introduced ourselves and they gave us a quick tour of the boat. The kids were quite impressed. (By the way, I got no actual picture of our boat. Oops.)
Before I knew it we set sail on our little adventure.
The wind was pretty bad so Ella and Jack were kind of afraid. The stayed "down below" with Katherine and she warmed them up to the idea of sailing by distracting them with crafts. It was a good way to calm their nerves.
Nicholas was a lot braver and he was the first one Captain Dan let overtake the helm. He was a good little navigator.
Despite the wind we did venture out onto the bow.
And we convinced Ella to come out. She was scared to death, holding on for dear life.
But she always has time for a pose and a smile (especially with her mama).
Jack was terrified too. I wish you could have seen his face. This smile is totally and I mean totally fake. As soon as he's smile he'd start to whimper.
Also fake.
Fake!
This is a real smile and one of a pretty brave boy. He walked all around the boat. He was less scared than I was. It just felt like at any moment you could go overboard.
After Ella came out from down below she did decide she wanted to "drive".
And then of course Jack did too.
He was genuinely happy driving and was chatting away to Captain Dan. It was really cute to watch. Captain Dan was impressed when Jack used the term, compass rose.
I took a turn driving too, but I was horrible. Dan kept having to tell me to correct this way or that. The whole darn thing just made me nervous. I'm a better passenger.
Pretty soon the sun did start to set (from what we could see through the clouds) and we turned around to head home.
That's when we first heard, and then eventually saw, the dolphins! This was the highlight of our sail. It was truly amazing to see them. I squealed each time they surfaced and felt like such a little kid seeing them.
They're pretty amazing.
There were about 10 to 12 dolphins and we spent about 20 minutes circling to watch them.
It really was an unexpected treat. Dan and Katherine said they see them about 1 out of every 10 times they sail so I thought that was pretty lucky!
We might not have had the greatest weather for our sail, but we had a great time. Sometimes things aren't always what you imagine the will be, but I never expected to see dolphins so that part turned out better than I anticipated.
I have to think that riding the Sea 'Scape is an adventure my kids won't soon forget. I hope they'll always remember the time we went on the sail boat with Captain Dan and Katherine and saw the dolphins. I know it's a memory I won't soon forget.
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