The schooner Jeanie B. made an overnight stay in Washington, arriving Wednesday and leaving today for Ocracoke, as part of a two-prong excursion.

The schooner’s crew, at least for this trip, is mostly young women, about 15 of them. Once the schooner docked, they headed for downtown Washington in search of lunch.

“The Jeanie B. in the summertime works with Camp Sea Gull (girls) and Camp Seafarer (boys). We take two-week trips. So, the girls will do two weeks, and we’ll have another two weeks of boys and other two weeks of another boys’ trip,” said Lee Sutton, owner of the 72-foot-long, gaffed-rigged schooner, minutes after it docked at Washington’s waterfront. “They come to (sailing) camp, which is on the Neuse River. They check in Sunday, kind of orient themselves to the boat, and then we have destinations for two weeks that we choose.”

The trip to Washington didn’t just come about.

“This particular trip, because the wind is so forecasted during the summer at southwest, I thought it would be nice to come to a town.

Sometimes we’ve gone to Belhaven, but Washington, of course, as I think we all know, is a better waterfront town than Belhaven,” Sutton said. “So, we decided to come here, essentially with a straight shot to Ocracoke with a southwest breeze. So, that’s one of the main reasons we came to Washington, so we could utilize that southwest breeze as we head to Ocracoke. … The whole basis for the trip is an adventure experience for the girls and boys. … They’ll sleep on the boat. They’ll cook on the boat. They’ll navigate. They’ll check the oil. They’ll clean the bilges and stuff like that. It’s a working ship.”

Sutton found a way to work the summer solstice, which occurred Tuesday, into the excursion.

“I thought since were are so close to the solstice I’d do a celestial navigation and archaeoastronomy on the boat,” Sutton said.

Sutton, a biology professor at East Carolina University, was scheduled to present a program, Biography of Man Through the Stars, at the N.C. Estuarium on Wednesday night. He was to discuss “the Biography of Man through the stars, and trace the journey of how man has utilized the heavens beyond simple gazing to form ideas of farming, calendar, mathematics, buildings, navigation and construction,” according to the Partnership for the Sounds’ website. Partnership for the Sounds operates the Estuarium.

Lynn Lewis, the city’s tourism-development director was among several city officials and others who met the Jeanie B., named after Sutton’s wife (the “B” is the first letter in his wife’s maiden name). The Suttons met at camp. Lewis told Sutton the city’s Visitor Center had received several inquiries from people interested in attending the Wednesday night program.