A Real Offshore Passage

     We are now at Fort Pierce, FL visiting good friends, resupplying, doing maintenance and upgrades. We've had to find a new anchoring spot because of new islands being built in our usual spot off the City Marina of Ft Pierce. Building islands? Yep. Hey, it's Florida.

     How did we get here? Well, that's interesting.

     Our last stop had us in Charleston, SC and Ft Pierce was the next stop. That's right, no stops in between. In a (mostly) straight line, Ft Pierce is about 350 nautical miles from Charleston.

     We stayed an extra night in Charleston to allow the seas to die down a bit after the long term offshore storm we'd been dealing with and also to do a little tourist stuff. We love Charleston.

     Then we got underway. 0630. Still mostly dark, clear and cool. We leave the Ashley River, get into the main harbor and then exit by going around historic Fort Sumter. The main shipping channel is about 10nm long in order to get clear of the breakwaters and the shoals. This often a very lumpy trip and this year was no exception. Not as bad as last year but rough enough. About 3/4 down the length of the channel we can turn south. This put the seas (about 4') and the wind directly on our stern and this is not too uncomfortable for us. A straight line to Florida puts us about 50nm off the coast of Georgia and as the day went on conditions improved. Lower seas and wind. During the first day we had a very large pod of dolphins join us again and stay quite a while. Really stunning.

     Our first night at sea was pretty nice, too. Reasonably calm, not too cold. I keep referring to our first day or first night. Yep. Normally it's about 24 hours to the Florida border from Charleston or 30 hours to St Augustine but conditions were good and forecast to remain that way so we decided to keep going and spend a second night at sea and continue on to Ft Pierce inlet, the next Class A inlet available to us. Class A means 'safe' in nearly all conditions. St John's River Inlet and St Mary's River Inlet are both Class A but St Augustine Inlet is not.

     We passed by St Augustine and headed for Cape Canaveral. Things went well... until about 2300, about 10nm from the cape. It got much windier and choppier, right on the nose. Not the favorite conditions for a catamaran. Not conducive to sleeping either. We had about 8 hours of uncomfortable bouncing around. Not dangerous. Just not much fun. And very tiring.

     Our third day at sea was okay overall. Better later in the day than earlier and we were around Cape Canaveral. We arrived at Ft Pierce late in the day, checked our 'normal' anchorage and then moved to our current spot outside of Faber Cove across the ICW from downtown Ft Pierce. It's nice and protected but it's about a mile from a spot to tie up the dinghy. Not too bad a trade off.

     We got to sleep well for the first time in a few days, shower at our friends home and enjoy mostly upper 70 degree days. Hatches open at night, too. It's been way too long since the last time for that. We are looking forward to a month or two of similar days. We can only hope.

     So that's the story of of 350nm and 58 hour passage offshore. At times we were about 50nm offshore and at others just a mile or two. Carol got really into it and was willing to keep going. Maybe someday. Maybe not.

     Oh, did I mention our encounter at sea with a Chilean Navy submarine? No? Maybe next time ;>))

Myrtle Beach

     We're at a marina in the North Myrtle Beach area now. Why?

     Welllll, it's been an adventure getting here. And it's cold. Cold means not wanting to shower on the boat. Sooooo.... we're paying for a marina to have access to a hot shower, laundry and other amenities. We also had to get some paperwork notarized so a stop was in order.

     We had nice passagse from the Solomons. Pretty calm conditions. We stopped at Portsmouth, VA so Carol could get off the boat to go earn some $$$$ to keep us going. I spent 4 days at a free dock at Great Bridge, VA in the town of Chesapeake. Chesapeake is not on Chesapeake Bay so who knows why it's named that? It is a site of an important Revolutionary War battle so I was able to learn about that, get groceries and fuel and do laundry while there.

     Of course the weather took a turn for the worse while sitting. And it was worse for a while. A storm parked itself off the Carolinas and stayed. And stayed. And stayed. This made for very strong northerly winds and rough seas in the open water portions of our passages. Albemarle Sound wasn't too bad with following seas. Neither was the Alligator River. But it would not have been fun going north in those conditions. Then we had to deal with anchoring in 30+ knot winds as well as crossing the Pamlico, Bay and Neuse Rivers in atrocious conditions. Four or more foot seas, heavy rain, gusts to 40 are not our idea of fun. Yet we pressed on. Can't get to warmer weather if we're parked. And we do need warmer weather. It's been in the low to mid 40s at night, low to mid 50s in the day. With the strong winds it felt much worse.

     Now we're getting highs in the mid 60s so things are looking up. We are only a couple of days from Charleston and from there we hope the seas have layed down enough that we can make a 30 hour passage to Florida offshore.

     We can only hope.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Afloat Finally!

   
 We are back floating in the water and we don't seem to be sinking. This is always good. The repair job is done and it was an excellent, quality job if a little on the expensive side. $19,000.

     Okay, maybe more than a little on the expensive side. Our previous boat only cost a five thousand dollars more. For that we got an entire boat. Oh, by the way, you can make an offer on that boat.

     Here is what all that money looks like. The before photos are in my previous post.

     And here we have the guys who did the work.

     Now that this ordeal is over we are heading down the Bay towards Solomons Islands where we'll stop while Carol goes off to work. I don't know when we'll ever get to the Keys and it sure is damn cold up here. Yuck!