Friday morning we got up with the sun and bundled up because it was in the upper 40s! Chris and Sarah came to send us off, which was fitting since we were the first ones to greet them when they arrived in Charleston almost a year ago. They had woken us out of a dead sleep at 2am when their bow thruster turned on, I swear it was two feet from my head (noise is a lot different under water!). We had groggily hopped outside to help them tie up, but they had everything under control so we grumbled our way back to bed. It just goes to show, be careful who you grump at in the middle of the night, they might end up being your favorite cruising friends!

After we waved goodbye, we motored over to Charleston Harbor Marina to fill up with diesel. We completely forgot to fill the jerry cans, but by 8:30am we were on our way out the inlet.

First I had to joust with a container ship coming in (I exited the channel, it seemed to be the prudent option! You can see the channel buoy in the photo below, imagine trying to squeeze between the ship and buoy). Then an even bigger container ship was leaving the harbor behind us, and rather than get into a situation where he was trying to pass us through the narrow inlet with rock jetties on both sides, I took the conservative route and took a quick loop in the harbor to allow him to go by before we got near the jetties.

We got out into the ocean and, despite forecasts, the wind, current, and swell were all on the nose. We were making 2.5 kts of headway. That is a completely demoralizing pace. It also doubled the forecast length of our trip, which we wouldn’t mind so much except we haven’t really prepped our families for the fact that when we say we should be able to contact them Saturday afternoon, they might not hear from us until Sunday afternoon and that’s still a fairly reasonable timeframe for sailing.

We tried tacking out to sea so we could sail, but the further out we went the stronger the current and swell got. The swell was steep and choppy. We were bucking around and it was quite uncomfortable. When we tacked back in, we made zero forward progress. We gave up on sailing and just motored. Winds were forecast to be on our beam, slowing clocking around to a downwind sail. Instead we had headwinds all day, making 2.5 kts, in steep uncomfortable seas. It was too rough to get anything done, including taking any photos.

By 9pm we were finally up to about 4 kts, and throughout the night the wind shifted to the beam and our speed increased. During my watch from 12am-3am, we finally could have shut down the engines and sailed, but I was cold and barely functional. It was too cold, it was too rough, we didn’t have jack lines out so we couldn’t safely move around on deck to get the main ready to lift. Neither of us could sleep, the bucking was incredibly loud and rough. And unrelenting. The slamming, climbing the waves and sharply dropping, more slamming, dishes moving, something falling. Unrelenting.

After 3am I was finally tired enough to be able to sleep in that mess. It was still a fitful, light sleep. But when I got up at 6am for my next shift we were doing 7 knots, and we continued to keep that pace almost all the way to the inlet. At that speed, we made up all our lost time and still got to the St. Marys inlet around 11am. Also at some point during the morning the swell smoothed out and it was nice and peaceful – after we’d endured almost 24 hours of rough seas. I was way too tired and beat up to enjoy it.

One crazy thing on this trip, it was cloudless the entire time, and we were within 24 hours of a full moon, so visibility was high all night. So high, in fact, that I saw a dolphin swimming next to the boat – under the water! In the middle of the night! I stepped out on deck, because if there’s a dolphin next to the boat there are probably five more playing in the bow wake. For my efforts, I got sprayed by a wave of cold water. We also had a visit from a little bird, he hopped around the cockpit for a while. I was feeling so beat up that I was extra sympathetic, as far as I was concerned he could hitch a ride all the way to Fernandina Beach if he wanted. He didn’t stay too long.

As we entered the ICW, I went up on deck and noticed that we had extreme rust leeching from all the stanchions. I have no idea what caused that, I’m not aware of any rust on them before the trip, maybe a few minor spots but nothing that would explain those dark, heavy stains. (Edit: an oceanographer on Instagram theorized that the heavy swell was upwelling acidic ocean water from the deep, acidic salt water increases the rate of oxidation – so far this is the most plausible explanation I’ve seen!)

We dropped anchor near Fernandina Beach, cleaned up a little bit, then each grabbed a beer and tried to find an unsalty spot in the cockpit to sit and dissect the trip. It was not a fun trip – nothing like last time we tried going offshore. While everything was fresh in our minds, we talked through what went wrong and what we could have done better.

There was strong wind offshore in the days before we left, that’s what built up the steep waves. We should have waited an extra day before leaving, that would have given the waves time to calm down. But once we were out there, I don’t think we did anything wrong, it was just horribly uncomfortable. It was forecast to get better but it didn’t. We need to seriously plan for comfort rather than schedule, which we haven’t been able to do up until now.

That night, we both slept like the dead.