May 5th

May 5th. All the weather sources that we can check are all predicting big time winds for Sunday afternoon through Tuesday. It’s supposed to be a Northeaster with anywhere from 25 to 35 knots of wind with gusts into the forties.

We’ve made the decision to make a 75 mile day of it and get to Beaufort, South Carolina. We passed by on our way south without stopping and it’s supposed to be quite beautiful. If we’re going to be trapped somewhere for a couple of days we’d like to be somewhere we can still get out and do something.

I took the dogs to shore at 0615 and were back underway at first light. The number of flies in Georgia is just amazing. What’s even more amazing is that the flies disappeared once we crossed into South Carolina. Don’t question small miracles.

The day seems to take forever as there’s no discernable wind and we’re motoring back and forth, east and west as the ICW winds its way northward. We do hit the tides just right and throughout the shallowest parts of our trip we arrive at either a rising or full tide. I was able to get the main up for an hour or so and with the couple of knots of wind we gained about 3 tenths of a knot of boat speed.

When we were crossing the Port Royal Sound we were able to get the genoa up for a full knot boost, for an hour. We arrived in Beaufort at 1820 hours just after the marina closed so we took a spot on the fuel dock for the night. We’re taking a slip for the next few days while we wait out this wind storm.