This is another overnight sailing day, and hopefully our last for a bit. Because of the current and the distance, we didn't leave Beaufort until noon. We were just leaving the fuel dock when we got a text from Salvation that they were three miles away. So close, but perhaps we'll meet up in Florida.
As to be expected, we had winds on the nose throughout the afternoon and evening. We kept the main up, but had to run the engine. We had one sailboat trail us till the early morning and had to alter coarse slightly to avoid another around midnight that was crossing our path. Other then that it was very quiet on the water. There are a lot of dolphins around here and they are always fun to watch. We saw two eagle rays "flying" out of the water very close to the boat....amazing...they were about three feet across. I forgot to mention on our last overnighter we saw a large sea turtle. He must have been 3-4 feet across his back and very crusty.
Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. Last night I had my very first bout of sea sickness, after more then 1500 miles. I seem to be taking a long time to recover so I'm still holding out hope that it's the flu, but.... The seas were only a bit sloppy last night, but I think that once the moon went down and I lost sight of the horizon, and not being good at staying up late..it all finally hit me. I managed to cover my shift until 7:00am, ( yes, I let Greg take the helm. Dire times call for dire measures!) but after that I couldn't even sit up. As soon as I opened my eyes I would get nauseas. Throughout the night we always both stay on deck, but once it was becoming light I slinked off to bed where I spent most of the day. I got up long enough to help put the boat on a mooring and again to help put the motor on the dinghy so Greg could go to the marina and pay for the mooring. I started to come around at supper time, but we have a 50 nm run planned for tomorrow, and right now, I'm not looking forward to it.
The weather is starting to take a bad turn. We are expecting thunder showers tonight and possibly tomorrow. Then high winds along with a cold front are due to hit by the weekend. Even possible gale force winds offshore tonight. So glad we made it here today because this system blew up in only a couple of hours. If we had left Beaufort today, we would have been caught in it. Then, I believe, I wouldn't be the only one chucking her cookies.
We are looking at taking the ICW through most of Florida as we've been told the State does a very good job of keeping it dredged. All landowners along the ICW are specially taxed to maintain the waterway.
We are currently in Fernandina Beach. Sounds like a really nice spot, eh! We have two pulp mills on either side of us!! It won't be a quiet night. Plus our mooring ball continues to bang into the side of the boat...right about where I put my head to sleep!!!
Our overnighter brought us 121nm in 24 hours.
Day 77 - Oct. 31
54 nm in 9 hrs = avg. 6 kts/hr. Not too shabby. It helps when the boat in front tells you the bridge ahead opens every half hour but not at 5:00...so the race was on. We knew we were going to be close and we didn't want to "just" miss it and then have to sit for an hour till the next opening..especially when we could see our mooring field through the bridge. He told us this news at two o'clock so with Empty Pockets taking the lead, Peace and Quiet in the middle, and BuBu bringing up the rear, the pedal hit the metal and the jibs went up! All along I said we weren't going to make it...and you know what...I was wrong! We made it with five minutes to spare.
So now I'll go back to the start of our day. It appears that the residents of northern Florida do not pay their taxes, cause the first 10 miles of the ICW were horrible. Not five minutes off the mooring I rubbed the bottom at our first marker where there wasn't supposed to be an issue. That was an eye opener.
Half an hour later, I hit bottom and stuck. Problem now was I didn't know which way to go to get out. Of course I could and did back up, but in doing so, the boat twisted, but which way was to good water?? Since I was heading SW when I got stuck, I decided to go SE, which put me scarey close to shore, but the water was good and off we went. At this time we could see another sailboat behind us and thought it might be a good idea to let him go ahead of us, but we mozzied on only to strike bottom again 15 minutes later. This was middle of the channel with reported 9.8 feet of water at low mean water on the chart. This was a good stick. I tried reverse, then ahead, then turning the wheel to twist the boat out. On a positive note we were at low tide, so I knew we weren't in any real difficulty, but what a pain. We eventually pulled away and it only took maybe 2 or 3 minutes. By now there were 2 sailboats and 2 cruisers behind us. We warned them of the shoaling and shortly after, let "Empty Pockets" pass us. The cruisers also past, and not long after they both grounded. Now we knew where not to go. We have met Empty Pockets several times in our travels and he generously agreed that he would be our van guard up the ICW as he was going to St. Augustine as well. It was a much easier sail having someone to follow. He's done the trip before.
So after all that, here we are in the beautiful city of St. Augustine, the oldest city in North America. We only made it in to the marina tonight and had a quick look at town. I think it will give Beaufort a run. I'll let you know more tomorrow.
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