Home to Key West

The trip from Charleston to Key West, continually interrupted by spinoffs from the tropicalstorm, now a hurricaine, in the northern Atlantic, delayed us by at least a week, as we hopped in and out of harbors, idly awaited better winds at anchor, and motored down the Intercoastal. Finally on November 9, 2011, we reached Miami and raced through the city to get to our anchorage in Key Biscaynne before sunset. We'd often sailed past Miami, but this was our first venture through the cty and we found the sights intriguing; freighters being loaded, ferries and pleasure craft swept by, and buildings and statues rose up before us.

 

From the anchorage, we could see Miami glistening inthe night, and again in the rosey haze of the morning sun. Two more days of travel awaited us, long days with gusty winds from behind, shifting and bursting from 10-25. We anchored one last night in the keys, near Long Key, just beside the Channel Five bridge, before arriving home again in Key West, greeted by friends and ready for the sunsets in Key West. Off the boat until January, we go to our other lives, this time Christmas in Illinois and an adventure (on land) in New Zealand.

North Edisto River to St. Augustine Heavy Winds and Rough Seas

October 30th, we rendezvoused with Buddy Boat, Sand Castle, and anchored in Steamboat Creek, off the North Edisto River. The plan was to leave at first light. Our anchorage was nestled in a marshy tidal creek with nothing visible, except the marshy grasses, trees, a distant dilapidated barn, and a gazebo, a pretty anchorage.

Morning weather brought bad news of storms and heavy winds off shore, so we decided to motor on to Beaufort throught the Intercoastal. By the time we arrived, the weather forecast was more benign so at 3 pm, we left via Port Royal Sound and were instantly sailing in an 18 knot wind, directly behind us. This was another night of remembering that weather forecasting is never an exact science. The winds increased through the night and by midnight we were experiencing steady 25 to 30 knots winds with gusts to 34 and 7-9 foot waves and averaging 8.5 knots over ground with the just the jib. Wind Dancer and San Castle were not alone out there, at least a half dozen boats traveled southward with us that night, visible both by their winking mast lights as they dipped into troughs and soared over  wave crests and their blips on the radar screen.

Two experiences marked the passage. At about 4 am, a strange light appeared, moving oddly up an down and even directly into our eyes. Checking the radar, we realized that the lights belonged to a boat moving directly across our path. The night was pitch black, the moon had set (more on that later). The closer the boat came to us, the odder it seemed. We couldn't see any navigation lights, only a powerful white spotlight raking the seas, flashing into our eyes and up again skyward. Suddenly, we were aware of a huge black shape on the horizon, visible only as an absense of light. The object moving toward us, a little to close for comfort,  was a tug, pushing an enormous unlit barge. There was the explanation of the spotlight, which was a warning. We veered off sharply to ensure that we came no closer.

Back to the moon. I had the 1 am to 4 am watch and was seated behind the wheel, feeling only slightly unnerved as we screamed through the night at hull speed on a vehicle with no brakes and limited manueverability. I had been keeping my eye on the other boats and radar images to insure that that all was well. Suddenly, I saw what appeared to be a sailboat with a pale red spinnaker bearing down on us from out of nowhere! We were on a collision course! I yelled at Rick to come up on deck and grabbed the wheel, prepared for evasive action. Within seconds, I realized, somewhat abashedly, that the red spinnaker was the crescent moon setting in the west and there I stood,  on deck, hands on the wheel, preparing to change course to avoid a collision with the moon. Such are the things that happen in the lonely dark hours of the midwatch on an overnight sail.

We survived until morning, but decided to duck into the easy Jacksonville, Florida entrance and finish the day by motoring to St. Augustine. The entrance was not difficult despite waves so large that we lost sight of our Buddy Boat between them, and despite the fact that an inbound Coast Guard Cutter passed us in the channel and a small freighter passed us outbound. We slept peacefully that night tied to a mooring ball in the St Augustine City Marina.

Why A Man's Work is Never Done

While anchored in the Rhode River, in Maryland, Rick noticed one end of the radar reflector had come loose. In order to fix it, he had to climb the mast to the first spreader, an irritation, but not too time consuming. Once there, he noticed that the cotter pin securing the upper stay was broken. That required a little additional work. Might as well check the other stay. So he swung over to inspect it. That cotter pin was missing entirely. While watching him from below, I noticed a string floating through the air. It seemed to come from the top of our spinnaker halyard.

So, let's check that out, even though it required climbing on up to the top of the mast. The stray string proved to be a broken messenger line, not a problem now, but could be if we decide to add additional halyards in the future. Rick also checked our VHF antenna, which we had noticed drooping sadly. Hmm.... the housing that holds it to the top of the mast appeared to have rusted most of the way through....more projects for the future.  No, there is never a "single" project that takes minutes to repair. One ALWAYS leads to another and another and another.......

Beaufort, NC to Charleston

Exciting start to our overnight transit to Charleston, 20 knot winds, 5 foot waves and two warships in the Beaufort channel. Wind Dancer earned her name as she danced from wavetop to wavetop. Six hours later, the wind dropped and dropped and dropped. By morning we were motoring on glassy seas, our wake the only disturbance on the watery surface. Not much value to a sailor, but the beauty of the sunrise, the chance to see the Atlantic as she is rarely seen, was priceless.

We stayed in Charleston for 3 days and experienced winds that were to plague us the rest of our journey to Key West. A stationary tropical storm continued to spin out waves of Northeast winds. During the Charleston stay, where we anchored in the Ashley River, across from the City Marina, in 18 feet of water, two unoccupied boats broke loose from their moorings and marched backwards through the anchorage, narrowly missing the catamaran behind us. One, a two masted ferro cement ketch, was resecured by the Coast Guard near the Ashley River Bridge. At sunset we saw a man silohetted against the skyline, and presumed the owner had come to check on his boat.  The morning revealed an alternate purpose as we observed the two masts of the sunken ketch angling from the water. Another boat, a derelict with the mast lashed to the deck, swung into a previously sunken boat, causing its  mast to splash into the river, and float to a spot just beside our boat, where it sank.

Our Charleston Anchorage

We did solve the mystery of the leaking shaft seal here after a consultation with Jean Michael, who works for the Benetau dealer in Charleston, confirmed Rick's suspicion that there are two rings to the seal and he needed to insert the applicator deeper into the second ring. Happily that solved the problem.

Charleston is also the home of an assortment of wonderful restaurants, museums, and stores and good friends Charlie and Jennifer  Black, two talented artists, who were with us on our tour to Madrid.We met them for lunch at one of those wonderful restaurants, and afterwards toured an interesting antebellum estate.

The house was particulary interesting for the slave quarters visable in the picture. The quarters were small one and two room "apartments" which opened out into a common hallway on the second floor of the building which housed the kitchen and laundry.