We decided to come into Charleston at first light on the 15th rather than continue offshore to Winyah Bay as the winds were steady at 20-25 with higher gusts and forecasted to increase during the day. Meanwhile the seas were up to 5-7ft and being dead astern, we were rolling pretty heavily.
It was not a comfortable ride and we were not looking forward to 12 more hours of rolling and entering the Winyah Inlet in 30+kts of wind.
This turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made since sailing. The entrance to Charleston was quite benign with winds on the beam of 18-20kt and seas less than 2 feet as soon as we passed between the breakwaters. We then drove up the ICW in 10kts of wind and were anchored in the protected Awendaw Creek by noon and ready for a well deserved beer and nap.
Here's a screenshot of the forecasted winds for 15th. The orange areas are bad and the red, very bad. It turned out that the real winds were a little bit worse than the forecast as it is always extra windy at the Winyah Bay Inlet and gusting to 35+kts. That would have been very bad conditions to try to enter the inlet.
Another option would have been to continue sailing north another 24hours and come in at Little River Inlet, which we would have done in our earlier years of several day offshore passages but, those days are over. We weren't up for another 24hrs at sea in these conditions and, our very comfortable entrance at Charleston and motor up the ICW proved that toughening out ocean passages is not an essential activity. There are options!
The Charleston entrance takes you by a bit of Civil War history, Fort Sumter at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.
Notice how smooth the waters are. It was still blowing 25-30kts offshore with seas of 5-7ft and higher. What a smart decision to get off the ocean here.
