Oct 27
We arrived offshore of Charleston about 6:30 a little ahead of schedule so it was still dark (the sun doesn’t rise until 7:30 am here) so we just hovered 3 miles off the entrance. The chart showed a rock jetty just under the water on either side of the channel 3 miles long so we didn’t want to tackle that in the dark. Once the sun came up, we ventured in and anchored in the harbour and took our dinghy to shore.
Oct 26
We pulled up anchor at 7:30 and headed out for the ocean on our way to South Carolina. We decided to go offshore for two reasons. It is good practice and secondly the ICW is becoming very tedious watching the charts and the markers and the depth sounder holding our breath and hoping that it hasn’t shoaled in along the edges where you have to go sometimes to let large boats pass by.
The winds were North West 20 knots so we had a beautiful sail all day and night. We stayed 10 miles off the coast to avoid all the shoals. We could not see land but we could always see the mast of Voyageur XIV who also went offshore but chose a different course. About and hour into our journey, we were joined by 5 or 6 dolphins who played in our bow wake for quite some time crossing back and forth in front of the boat and hovering beside us. They were fabulous.
The passage went very smoothly. The only challenge we had was keeping warm so we did 1 hour shifts all night instead of two hour shifts so we never got too cold.
Oct 25
We left Wrightsville Beach at 9:00 with John and Judy or Voyageur XIV. It was 37 degrees Fahrenheit so we had about 4 layers of thermals on under our foul weather gear. We passed lots of fishermen as usual along the shores of the ICW. The shoreline is mostly sand and grass now. We anchored outside South Port in Dutchman’s Creek for the night.
Oct 24
We decided to stay in Wrightsville Beach for another day. We took the dinghy into shore for a walk along the beach and stopped for beer and nachos at a local pub. It is a small summer community so it was a little quiet but very nice.
Oct 23
We arrived in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It was raining so we stayed on board at first and did some planning for our next offshore trip in two days. It takes a bit of planning because we want to leave the South Port, North Carolina in daylight and arrive in Charleston, South Carolina in daylight. We knew it was 135 miles so we had to estimate our boat speed based on the forecast wind speed from the weather report and take into account the tides and currents at South Port where we will be departing and the tides and currents at Charleston where we will be returning. When it stopped raining, we decided to walk to the library to use their internet connection to get our email. We thought it was only 20 minutes walk but it turned out to be 5 miles. When we got there, it was closed but luckily the nearby Starbucks had a connection.
We arrived offshore of Charleston about 6:30 a little ahead of schedule so it was still dark (the sun doesn’t rise until 7:30 am here) so we just hovered 3 miles off the entrance. The chart showed a rock jetty just under the water on either side of the channel 3 miles long so we didn’t want to tackle that in the dark. Once the sun came up, we ventured in and anchored in the harbour and took our dinghy to shore.
Oct 26
We pulled up anchor at 7:30 and headed out for the ocean on our way to South Carolina. We decided to go offshore for two reasons. It is good practice and secondly the ICW is becoming very tedious watching the charts and the markers and the depth sounder holding our breath and hoping that it hasn’t shoaled in along the edges where you have to go sometimes to let large boats pass by.
The winds were North West 20 knots so we had a beautiful sail all day and night. We stayed 10 miles off the coast to avoid all the shoals. We could not see land but we could always see the mast of Voyageur XIV who also went offshore but chose a different course. About and hour into our journey, we were joined by 5 or 6 dolphins who played in our bow wake for quite some time crossing back and forth in front of the boat and hovering beside us. They were fabulous.
The passage went very smoothly. The only challenge we had was keeping warm so we did 1 hour shifts all night instead of two hour shifts so we never got too cold.
Oct 25
We left Wrightsville Beach at 9:00 with John and Judy or Voyageur XIV. It was 37 degrees Fahrenheit so we had about 4 layers of thermals on under our foul weather gear. We passed lots of fishermen as usual along the shores of the ICW. The shoreline is mostly sand and grass now. We anchored outside South Port in Dutchman’s Creek for the night.
Oct 24
We decided to stay in Wrightsville Beach for another day. We took the dinghy into shore for a walk along the beach and stopped for beer and nachos at a local pub. It is a small summer community so it was a little quiet but very nice.
Oct 23
We arrived in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It was raining so we stayed on board at first and did some planning for our next offshore trip in two days. It takes a bit of planning because we want to leave the South Port, North Carolina in daylight and arrive in Charleston, South Carolina in daylight. We knew it was 135 miles so we had to estimate our boat speed based on the forecast wind speed from the weather report and take into account the tides and currents at South Port where we will be departing and the tides and currents at Charleston where we will be returning. When it stopped raining, we decided to walk to the library to use their internet connection to get our email. We thought it was only 20 minutes walk but it turned out to be 5 miles. When we got there, it was closed but luckily the nearby Starbucks had a connection.
posted by tobogganride at 6:16 AM
1 Comments:
Well this is the first time I've come to your site even though Peter gave the url quite a while ago. Your trip sounds fantastic so far and the pictures a wonderful to see!
I look forward to reading the next installment!!
Dan
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