This should be our last offshore passage in this boat. We’ll leave her with a broker in Charleston, and fingers crossed we find someone else to give this sailboat some love!

5.27 – Wednesday

We got up early, we had a ton of prep left to do before we leave tomorrow. At the last minute I decided I wanted to get a load of laundry done so I hauled that up to the clubhouse. We started bringing loads of stuff back to the boat, it felt like we moved everything we own back aboard! There’s a lot of uncertainty in boat life, this could be a fast 3 day hop offshore, or we could have to bail and spend a week or more on the ICW, so we had to pack accordingly.

When we crossed back from the Bahamas, our topping lift shredded and another ocean passage would snap the line, which runs from the end of the boom to the top of the mast.

It doesn’t actually perform any function as far as we can tell (on some sailboats it holds the boom up, but we have a rigid boom vang), but it’s harder to fix if it severs, so suddenly we couldn’t put that project off any longer. One trip to West Marine and $150 later, the new line was installed!

By that time, it was early afternoon, plenty of time to take care of the camper and then go relax on the boat! We carefully stowed everything that was left in the travel trailer and prepped it to move off the campsite. We took everything out of the fridge and freezer and moved it to the boat. Then we hooked up the truck and pulled the camper over to the storage area. We tucked it in nicely behind a giant fifth wheel, racing against a darkening sky. Literally just as we chocked the wheels and locked the doors, the rain started.

We quickly parked the truck and returned to the boat, with a roar the wind picked up to a new record for us: 45 kt. And it was from the south, the side with no protection, so immediately a steep chop built up. We’re now in the most protected slip in the marina, but even we were bouncing outrageously.

There was a loud noise, and I realized the swell was careening an abandoned ferry moored next to us, it tipped so far it was dumping dock boxes overboard – they were sliding across the deck and into the water, at least four of them.

Our helm seat cushion flew off and into the water, but in the pelting rain we were helpless to do anything but hope to retrieve it later. We could feel the boat hitting the dock pilings when we bounced, Kyle went to check on it and let me know that our fender board had exploded. Normally we would try to adjust the fenders, but in that wind we couldn’t push the boat off the dock. Eventually we had to accept that there was nothing we could do, we had to hold on and wait it out. This helpless feeling has only happened a few times in our boating experience. It’s very intense.

Kyle was able to float the fender board down aways and pull it out of the water, our cushion had circled back and was also floating against the hull so that was a bonus.

(Side note: as we stood inside, drenched and dripping water everywhere, we were also also trying to listen to the SpaceX launch. Neither of us were surprised when it was scrubbed!)

As the wind dropped down into the 20s he squeezed a fender in between the boat and the piling. The whole thing lasted about an hour and a half, and afterward the shore was littered with debris.

Instead of a restful evening, we endured the strongest storm we’ve seen (with a working anemometer, we lived without it for a year so it’s possible we’ve seen worse). These pop-up storms are the only thing stressing me out about our upcoming ocean passage, so now my nerves are extra frayed. We had an exhausting day of moving stuff, and then the storm on top of it all. This is not how we want to feel before a big passage. Over dinner, we discussed our offshore plan, we could potentially wait 24 hours and still be within our good weather window. In the end we decided to sleep in rather than leave at 6am, but otherwise follow our original plan.

5.28 – Thursday

I told Kyle that if we left by 9:30 we would still have favorable current in the inlet. I should have told him earlier, because we left at exactly 9:30! We really needed the relaxing morning though.

We motorsailed through gentle seas with a light beam wind, an excellent start to the trip. As soon as we hit the 3-mile mark, Kyle put 4 fishing lines in the water and I got out a book. It was surprisingly hot out.

After lunch, I tried to nap while Kyle drove. He started pulling in the fishing lines to check for weeds, as he was reeling in a handline, the other line snapped. I grabbed the line and started pulling it in – it felt heavy at first, but it was a smaller mahi! I was very stoked about that because I really wanted to catch one last fish, and this was the perfect amount of meat!

Later that afternoon, I was sitting at the helm and I saw a huge shape in the water, right next to the boat! Too big to be a dolphin. My brain was trying to process the weird shape I was seeing, as comprehension dawned…I nearly peed my pants!

“Kyle! Get out here, there’s a 10 foot hammerhead shark!”

Kyle’s first thought was “how the heck does she know it’s a hammerhead?” but as soon as he saw how close it was he understood. It was passing by in the other direction, so close to the surface that the fin ominously popped out of the water, Jaws-style, for a few seconds…and then it was gone.

Of course this whole thing happened so fast, even if I’d had my camera in my hand I still wouldn’t have gotten a good pic. But lest you forget that these sharks look like they were made out of leftover shark parts, I’ve pulled a pic from the internet so you, too, can enjoy this wide-eyed absurdity!

What a rush! To see one of these things in person, at sea on our own boat? We’ve never seen a shark anywhere near this big, and we’ve never seen on while at sea before!

Around dusk, the sky clouded over, and then an ominous wind-shear appeared.

We had a sailboat slightly behind us doing about the same speed, so I’d started to think of them as our informal buddy boat. They hailed the cargo ship about 16 miles north of our position, so we switched channels to listen to the conversation between him and the deep Russian voice that answered.

“Hey, I was just wondering what the weather was like near you.”
[chuckles] “Eez 16 miles, weather eez the same!”
“Can you just tell me what kind of wind you’re seeing?”

The conversation was hilarious, but we’re grateful it happened because the Russian was seeing 25 knots of west wind, whereas we had about 10 knots of east wind! Eez not the same! We pulled down the sails and as the wind shear hit us, our wind did exactly as the Russian had said.

At some point, our buddy boat hailed us and chatted with Kyle a bit. They were coming from Belize, their last port of call was Marathon FL so they’d already been at sea for a night. They were also headed to the South Carolina coast, but based on their track they were staying towards shore whereas we were heading out so we could catch a ride on the Gulf Stream.

5.29 – Friday

During the night, we had an active lightning storm ahead to starboard, but it was heading out to sea. We heard a few cracks of thunder, I used my 5th grade skills to determine it was at least 6 miles away.

Imagine being in the middle of a field during a lightning storm. You can see the whole sky, you see every zig and zag the lightning bolt takes, your view is unimpeded. Now picture doing that standing next to a 59 foot lightning rod. It’s amazing to see, but you’d have to have nerves of steel not to feel a little bit anxious, even if you’re a good distance away from the storm.

As I stood watch, I did what I normally do: math. Based on how tired I was, I knew a second night at sea was not a good idea, so I started looking for a bailout plan. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of good inlets in northern Florida. The nearest viable port would still mean being at sea until 5am on Saturday, so we’d be at sea for two nights no matter what (technically we could have made it to St. Augustine, but that is not a deepwater port and while I’ve heard it’s navigable, Navionics does not show that so there’s some uncertainty). If we’re going to be at sea for two nights no matter what, we might as well stay in the Gulf Stream and head all the way to Charleston. Any other destination would have led to ICW logistical problems anyway.

It was so hot again during the day, I don’t remember offshore being this warm. At least at night I was perfectly cozy cocooned in a comforter.

We passed big fluffy clouds all day. In the afternoon we saw some pop-up rain showers. We managed to do a pretty good job of dodging them. This was our view to port.

Our view to starboard! Kyle pointed at the storm out there and said “364 days ago we were right there!” A year ago we were also hightailing it out of Ft Pierce right before June 1st, and we can still see our track in the Garmin chartplotter, just east of our current position.

And just like last year, the Gulf Stream is ripping along at 3-4 kts so we are making great time. This is why it takes almost the same amount of time to get to northern FL as it does Charleston!

Again, as darkness fell, the storms increased. There was a big dark rain storm off our stern, I was hoping we’d outrun it but even if we didn’t it was just rain, harmless! As it engulfed us, the first bolt of lightning cracked and lit up the sky like daylight. My fingers tightened around the wheel and I started counting. Two miles away. And closing. Was I counting too fast because I was stressed? Another crack. Keep the tempo even, count it out. Definitely two miles.

The lightning was infrequent, but it was so close. We stayed on the northern edge of the storm, it moved out to sea and we never saw a drop of rain. Kyle took over.

5.30 – Saturday

At 3am I got up for my last night watch. We had finally turned out of the Gulf Stream towards Charleston. Kyle was excited to show me what he was seeing: the craziest bioluminescence we’ve ever seen! The normal stuff looks like little green sparks shooting out in our wake and bow waves. This was everywhere around us, cresting waves would set off a bowling ball sized light show. Under the water our props were shooting light torpedoes behind the boat. IT WAS AWESOME. And it ended as soon as I took over.

Above me, there was the tiniest break in the clouds and I could see stars. However, in front of me was a wall of black. We’d done a good job of dodging storms, but there would be no dodging this one. In front of me was 180° of the blackest black I’ve ever seen, I was staring into a void of darkness. Vantablack wishes it could be this dark. I had to turn off my tablet chartplotter, even at it’s dimmest setting it was blinding me.

I stared at it for about an hour, my minding running wild with a hundred unlikely but still kind of likely scenarios. I thought about the storm at the beginning of the night, which looked like friendly rain but at the last minute spewed lightning at us. I thought back to our first trip in this boat, almost the exact same route and right around this time a gale kicked up and put us in the worst conditions I’ve ever sailed in. In short, I got in my own head. I knew I was too tired for a second night at sea, and here was the anxiety manifesting itself in my exhaustion. I woke Kyle up. He asked me if I would be able to sleep, then sent me to bed. He took the helm and soon the rain started.

It was fitful, but I did sleep, and as the black turned into gray I took over and he passed out. When he woke up, I had altered course for a blip that had barely shown up on AIS. The rain had obscured all visibility and AIS signals, so I was trusting that the cargo ship I had seen was real and neither of us would be able to see the other in that rain. We passed by a few miles apart as we lost our last little boost from the Gulf Stream.

With daylight, the skies cleared up into friendly, puffy clouds again. Suddenly AIS was busy with all manner of vessels entering Charleston harbor. As we got back into cell service, Kyle texted our broker to check on our dock availability. We were told a boat was leaving on June 1st and we could have that space, so we anticipated anchoring for a couple nights while we waited for that to open up. Unfortunately the boat had decided they may need 2-3 weeks so suddenly we were scrambling for a plan B.

We ended up motoring around Charleston Harbor for an hour or two before anchoring, we lived at Cooper Marina for a year and we’d love to go back but they only had space on the “outside” (which can be subject to dangerous cargo ship wakes) and Patriots Point was another good option but their long-term slip rental guy was out until Monday.

We dropped anchor and I fell into a deep sleep. I woke up and started catching up on news, and I wash shocked to read that there were peaceful protests in Charleston today that eventually turned into riots, and there was a lot of broken glass on King Street and a few fires, leaving the whole city under curfew. We’ve been offshore for just a few days and somehow the world has turned upside down.

5.31 – Sunday

I know this post is pretty long, so I won’t take it too much further, but I had recognized our “buddy boat’s” name from Instagram so I looked them up and sent a message asking if they had made it to Beaufort. I’m only mentioning this because her response was “ummm…how did you know we were headed towards Beaufort?” Crapcrapcrap, am I being weird and creepy? “Uh, you called us? On VHF? And we had a good chat about our plans.”

“Oh, that must have been my husband, he’s so good about hailing boats around us!”

So we’re not weird creepy people. I mean, we might be, but not in this instance.

And as for their location, they had decided to turn in at St. Augustine, exactly as we probably should have done. We may be too stubborn for our own good, but we made it to Charleston! Our final hurrah on this boat: one last ocean passage. The ups and downs, the stress, the joy. It’s amazing how far we’ve come!