Sunday, December 13, 2015

Heading south

We had a sleigh ride after we left Beaufort Nc. The first 1 ½ days were spent under reduced Genoa and mizzen as we headed south before a 25/30 kts breeze that ran us along at 7 kts + (sometimes hitting high 8 kts while surfing down big waves). In other words it was NO FUN. But, we made 180+ miles in that run from Beaufort to Winyah Bay running the Frying Pan shoals in the dark with 5-7 foot seas. YAHOO! In reality it was a long miserable night of wild sailing. The inside of the boat was so violent and noisy that you couldn’t sleep so the next night we stopped in a Winyah Bay for a much needed rest.

After a day on the intercostal we will left Charleston harbor and head south again. This time the waves and wind were tolerable and after two 1/2 days we headed into Ponce Deleon inlet at 4:30AM (translate this to scary) and dropped a hook. During the last night at sea there was a large swell right on the beam that would violently roll the boat every 14 sec. So, again not much sleep. Over all we had one of our fastest passages but paid for the speed with rough conditions. The happy ending is that it’s 75 deg during the day down here and sailing down the Indian river (a wide, 100+ mile long sound behind the space center) is just delightful… no waves and soft, warm breezes.
Under spinnaker heading south on the Indian River
 (OK, I must like this picture since I used it in back to back posts... It was a great sail though!)

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