This passage was an interesting one, and this was another case where the forecast and actual conditions were not in alignment. As we approached the Saint Augustine inlet, I did NOT like the looks of things out there. But our choice was to go or not make Charleston this weekend. We left our slip just before high slack, and the wind had a strong easterly component. Once the ebb tide started running, we’d have been facing wind against current and an already rough inlet would have been dangerous in those conditions. As it was, we saw gnarly waves the farther out we got, with at least a couple 10’ers in there. The period was short and they were directionally confused. Poor Chris got soaked at the helm but handled the boat like a badass. But I’d be lying if I claimed to be anything but terrified.
We’d decided not to stop at the fuel dock before we left – by the time we fueled up, we would have missed slack and the inlet would have been nasty. We had around a half tank left, but we were already on the spare tank and had nothing in our jerry can.
As we got some separation from the inlet and got farther out to sea, the sea state settled a little along with my nerves. Squalls continued to roll through, but conditions were more comfortable and settled throughout the day. We had to dodge a couple squalls that looked like they could be nasty, and this passage has us seriously considering adding Sirius XM Weather in the offseason. (I also find it ironic that I now consider summer to be “the offseason”.)
Chris woke me around 0030 to take over the watch, and it was almost a flat clam. There was a pod of dolphins matching our near-glacial pace, and it was so quiet that you could hear them break the surface and hear them breathing clearly. It was incredible how peaceful it was. had to sail as much as possible so we could save fuel so we could run the engine to charge the batteries when needed and motor in the channel. It clouded over shortly after I took over, but late in my watch, the moon found a distant break in the clouds and illuminated the water. Since the moon itself wasn’t visible, it looked like that patch of ocean was being lit from below as it shimmered a beautiful green.
When my boat speed dropped to a knot or less, I turned on the engine since the batteries needed a charge anyway. I was sad to have to furl the sail and interrupt the still, silent night. It remained calm for the rest of the day, but enough breeze filled in that we had a beautiful sail, more than making up for the sloppy conditions the day before.
By the time we got to the inlet, it was mostly dark. There was a freighter coming in, so we had to gybe around for a bit to avoid them. We’d been sailing downwind, so I didn’t realize how much the wind had come up, and it definitely caught me off guard. I was overtired and overreacted, letting stress get the better of me. Once the freighter passed, we headed in, and I was forced to turn my attention to buoy spotting. Even though I’ve been in and out of Charleston several times, I was having a hard time getting my bearings when it came time to drop the main. I tried taking down the sail rather than being at the helm, and it reminded me of an important lesson – when things are stressful, stick to what you know. While dropping the main isn’t exactly rocket science, I’d not done it on Windara. I really needed to go forward and loosen the lazy jacks, which I didn’t, so Chris ended up having to deal with it anyway since the sail only came halfway down.
The anchorage in front of the Yorktown was exposed from that wind direction, but we know there’s good holding and that the bottom is generally clean there. The other anchorages are known for debris, and the last thing we wanted to deal with was getting a diver to free our anchor in the morning. There were four other boats already anchored, but there was plenty of space for us. I thought briefly about asking Chris to handle the anchor as I hadn’t anchored in those conditions before, but I’d been anchoring all season, and hadn’t I just learned my lesson?
The battery was dead on the headlamp I’d grabbed, and I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal – the green bow light is relatively bright, so I’d use that to watch the chain. That turned out to be a bad call – I couldn’t see the markers clearly. I also forgot to ask depth, so I wouldn’t have known if I had enough chain out anyway. On our first set, I just let out the anchor until I thought it was on the bottom and then let out a bunch of chain… and then some more. I have no idea what I had out, but I could tell we weren’t set. I hauled and had Chris come back around. The second time, I asked the depth, paid out the chain more deliberately and concentrated much more on watching for the marks. I let us swing around until the chain was basically coming straight off the bow and taut, and then paid out more. I was pretty confident we were holding, but it was hard to tell as we hunted in the gusts. I set the snubber and we sat watch in the cockpit for a while to watch with an anchor alarm set before we felt confident enough in our set to go get some sleep.
