Beaufort to Beaufort

We left the Chesapeake and headed down the ICW on Nov 2nd.  We had a package to pick up on the way out, and with the 20 knot winds, ended up in a sticky situation trying to get out of the marina.

After recruiting help from the marina staff, we were able to pull out into the wind and head down the ICW.  We made it to the top of the Dismal Swamp and anchored outside the first lock. 

The next day we went through the Dismal Swamp, and remembered why it wasn’t our favorite, despite how pretty it is.  We ‘bumped’ at least 20 submerged items, and scrapped one over hanging branch on our way through.  The over-head branch broke our wind direction and speed instrument on the top of our mast.

Up the mast I went to check it out, and of course it was broken beyond repair, so we ordered a new one to be sent to Beaufort, NC for us to pick up on our way through.

Three days later we arrived in Beaufort, NC around 2pm and picked up our new instrument.  We hoisted Tristan up the mast to install it, and he did a great job.

Then, as the wind was favorable for only a couple more days, we headed offshore, spending only 2 hours in Beaufort, NC.

As we exited to the Atlantic Ocean, the sun set and darkness set in.  After a quick dinner of Annie’s Mac n Cheese, the crew all went to bed and I stayed up for the first watch. 

Around 10pm the wind picked up a bit, and Ben came up to help me raise the main sail, with a single reef.  We prevented it out to Port and shut the engine off.  We were sailing!

We sailed through the night, with slightly rolly seas, but great wind directly behind us.  We averaged about 5 knots with the single reef in the Main. 

It was our first sail through the night without the engine on, a milestone I have been anticipating for a long time! 

We sailed all through the next day as well, and were visited by a pod of Dolphins right before sun-set.  They played in our bow wake for over 1/2 and hour, and there was a tiny baby dolphin that was super cute!

I hadn’t slept well the night before, so Ben opted to take the first watch and I headed to bed around 7pm. 

Of course there can only be so much of a good thing, and around 8:30pm our luck ran out. 

We were still downwind, with the main reefed and prevented out to Port, when a squall hit out of nowhere and our 15 knots of wind directly behind us became 27 knots of wind on our Port beam. 

With the sail all the way out to Port, and prevented, the wind change strained the preventer hard.  I turned the engine on, and as I was strapping on my harness to head upstairs to help, the preventer snapped and the sail and boom crashed Starboard. Then the wind switched back to behind us and the boom crashed back to Port.

We jumped into action, I pulled in the main sheet, as Ben turned us up into the wind.  Then I took the wheel while he went forward, harnessed in, to drop the main sail.

The squall was over very quickly, but as we no longer had a usable preventer, we didn’t want to leave the sail out, and we were nervous about another squall hitting.

We turned back downwind, which felt much calmer with the wind behind us, and we motored through the night.  We had planned to rig a new preventer in the morning and sail through the day.

As morning broke, we looked at the weather again, and decided to tuck into the ICW at Charleston, SC.  As we had no desire to stop in Charleston, we just started down the ICW and made it all the way to Beaufort SC.

We stopped for the night anchored just outside our old marina, Lady’s Island Marina, where we spent 5 months last winter.  We planned to get in, anchor, go to shore and shower and use the car to do a grocery run, then head down the ICW more the next day.

Just as we got the dinghy in the water, it started to rain, and our plans got all wet.  After some discussion, we decided to take a full day off in Beaufort, do showers, laundry, a big grocery stock up while we had access to a car, and take the kids the the playground across the bridge they we used to go to.

We got all the chores done, said hi to some people we knew, and then picked up anchor and went through the Lady’s Island Bridge, that we had walked and driven across, but never passed in our boat.  There is a free public dock on the other side, right in front of the playground, so we tied up for an hour to let the kids play.

The playground had been completely revamped since we were last here, and it was awesome!  The kids had a ball running around, investigating all the new equipment.  They were the only kids on the playground wearing masks, but they are both really good about keeping them on.  We were also the only adults wearing our masks, a blatant sign that we were back in the South, where cases are skyrocketing, and most people don’t seem to want to try to prevent catching it by wearing a mask.

After an hour on the dock, we left to anchor, as the dock is day use only.  We then continued down the ICW the next day, and have anchored in the Florida  Passage in Georgia.  Tomorrow we head to Jekyll Island to pick up some more packages, and then onto Cumberland Island where we plan to spend a day or two exploring.