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Published: December 3rd 2010
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Heading South -2010, part II
After a quick trip to Baltimore and a long weekend in Atlanta visiting with our daughter Julie and her husband Dan, we returned to Charleston to get Double-Wide ready for an offshore trip to Florida. Monday November 8th dawned clear and cool. The weather report called for high temperatures in the 60’s and an offshore wind from the NW at 12-15 knots. It looked like an excellent chance to sail on a beam reach down the Carolina and Georgia coast. This section of the coast does not run North/South but more NE/SW until Georgia meets the Florida border.
We started out motoring out of Charleston harbor then were able to raise the sails and begin a beam reach as soon as we cleared the long jetties that extend past the mouth of the harbor about a mile and a half. This perfect beam reach lasted about two hours before the wind built to 15 knots and backed to the WNW. Now we were on a close reach with spray starting to splash back against the forward windows. By early afternoon the wind had built still stronger and was now dead out of the
West (270) and we were having trouble keeping our intended course of 310. I decided to bear off 10 degrees to get a little better speed and to keep from bashing directly into the growing seas – now about 4-5 feet and close together. Still we were charging along at close to 7 knots and making good progress towards the St Mary’s Inlet at the FL/GA border.
My hopes were that the wind might ease off or back more to the predicted NW as the sun set. Unfortunately, this did not happen. If anything the wind increased to 18-22 knots with gusts into the upper 20’s. Because we could not quite make our intended rum line we were now slowly getting farther offshore into deeper water, which meant larger seas but spread out a little farther. About an hour before sunset we spotted what looked like another catamaran coming up behind us. Since we were now charging along at 7.5 knots with a reefed mainsail and a jib rolled in 30 %, I was surprised to see anyone catching us. It took them about 45 minutes to catch us and sail by us. I called the other boat on
the VHF radio and found out it was a 47’ Crowther design built in Chile by Aeroplast called “Francis Mae” We met in Georgetown the previous year. They were making 9.5 knots and trying get to St Augustine by noon the following day so crew could catch a flight home.
It was a very rough night with the waves constantly hammering the bow of our boat. We took several waves with green water against the front windows. It was probably the roughest night on the boat since our trip across the Gulf of Mexico in the fall on 2007. Needless to say neither one of us got much sleep. As dawn arrived after what seemed like a week and a half, we were greeted with another great sunrise. By 08:00 we were nearing the St Mary’s Inlet, when the wind finally backed to the North and fell off to about 15 knots. We decided not to head in but to change course to the south for Cape Canaveral Inlet about 120 miles to the South. Now we had the wind and the seas behind us and the ride improved tremendously.
As the day went on we had to start up one engine to keep our speed up and to recharge the batteries that had been depleted by the autopilot during the night. However, this day and night made up for our previous night. This was a great sail with brilliant stars out and no traffic to worry about. We never saw a vessel the entire night. By dawn we were just off the large shoals that protrude far out from the Cape. We were entering the Inlet by 09:00 and waiting for the two bridges and a lock to pass us into the Canaveral Barge Canal. Once through the canal, we entered into the Indian River which is part of the ICW. This is a very pretty area with beautiful homes lining both shores. The river is very wide here, about 3-4 miles from shore to shore. Most of the depths are 6-8 feet with a marked 8’ channel down the center. There are bridges about every 10 miles but most are 65’ tall and we sail right under them. By 03:00 PM we found a nice place to anchor just below the Melbourne, FL high rise bridge. The long man made island used as a base for the bridge served as a good wind break from the north wind. By now we had been going non-stop for 57 hours and were ready for a shower some food and a quiet night at anchor.
The next morning we had breakfast and then finished our ICW trip to Vero Beach. We made it into the Municipal Marina by early afternoon, and found our friends Doug & Sharon of “About Time” on a mooring waiting for our arrival. Vero Beach is one of our favorite places and we usually use it as a place to finish our last minute shopping for the winter in the Bahamas. It gave us a chance to get our last professional haircuts, fill the propane tank, visit a dive shop and West Marine. There were many cruisers already here including Bill & Sue from “Nice & Easy” ( we had sailed with them from Annapolis to Oriental). Also, our friends Joanne and Toby are still living on their trawler at the dock at the marina. As luck would have it the Thursday we arrived was the night of the weekly cruiser “Happy Hour” so we were able to see most of the people at one time. Later that night we dinghyed to a little restaurant - sports bar that had the Thursday evening Ravens / Atlanta game.
We spent the next week in Vero before the weather looked like it might give us a window to cross to the Bahamas. Our goal was to cross from Lake Worth, near Palm Beach to Lucaya, Grand Bahama. We spent two days motoring down the ICW with an overnight stop in a little place called Manatee Pocket, just outside Stuart FL. In Manatee Pocket we found a fruit stand selling oranges and grapefruits right out of the fields, a nice drug store, a pizza place, a used boat equipment resale shop and a very nice sea food market where we bought some fresh scallops for dinner.
We arrived at Lake Worth around 02:00 PM with plans to head offshore across the Gulf Stream about midnight for a mid day arrival in the Bahamas.
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