Friday morning, 20 Jan, and the high pressure system continues to sit over the East Coast. It's clear and cold with blue skies and light winds. Not a great sailing day but a good motoring day and we have a 24hr transit to make offshore from Charleston to the St Mary's inlet on the GA/FL border.
Making the transit offshore allows us to bypass the shallow and winding marshlands of southern South Carolina and Georgia with their 8ft tides, and cuts about 4 days off the meandering ICW route.
After a last minute early morning run to Publix for coffee and bagels, we are off and heading down the Charleston Harbor bound for sea with a strong 3kt tail current pushing us out the channel. The sails are up, but they are mostly for looks as the winds are light. The good news is the seas are relatively flat so no mal-de-mer yet.
Making good progress. This ocean area always seems rougher than it should be and the wind is never from the direction forecasted. The last 3 years we have experienced quite uncomfortable passages along this route, but this year it's not so bad. Not ideal, but far better than previous trips.
Here's a video of the typical sailing conditions on a relatively mild day - click on the video link. Sailing Conditions
The crew are toughing it out. Chilly temps and rolly conditions, but a lot better than our previous transits through here.
Sunset after a full day of motor sailing south along the coast. We learned in previous trips not to take the straight, shortest path south which takes you farther offshore and makes it tough to get back in if the weather turns bad. We are taking the slightly longer route paralleling the coast line about 20 miles offshore.
We'll be at the inlet first thing in the morning after another 12hrs of motor-sailing through the night.
Here we are off the paper mill at Fernandina, FL. Last year we spent a month here waiting for our transmission to be repaired. This year we were able to motor past the plant and anchor up a nearby creek.
Life on a boat is always an adventure. The evening after we arrived, a cold front passed through with a leading squall line. The front arrived with a 45kt blast that laid the boat over about 45degrees. We watched the boat next to us with no one onboard (fortunately downwind) break free from his anchoring and be blown downwind, then taken by the current downstream right through the city mooring field, where his anchor finally grabbed and stopped him as the wind had died back down to 20kts. I'm sure he will be surprised to find his boat in a different place when he returns. We didn't have any problems with the wind. It's almost always boats with not enough anchor line put out that drag.
