Running out of verbs. How many ways can we watch/wait/update/examine the weather? Will we make Thanksgiving in Charleston? What’s next?
Floating Leaf has been happy with the down time. She's been making Tiny Quilts left, right and center.
She also finished the rain flies.
And we’re following a suggestion from Bye Polar. We bought some kitty-litter crystals (which are essentially desiccants) and sewed them into little bags that we can put into lockers to absorb moisture. And any cat pee that winds up coming aboard.
I’ve been doing mostly nothing. What I realized yesterday is that I should have ordered a new fuel pump because we’ve had plenty of time to install it while we’ve been waiting for weather. What started out as a two or three day stopover has blossomed into a destination.
Weather
Here’s the local news for the weekend in AMZ252.
Gale Watch
Hazardous Weather Outlook
...GALE WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING......
Synopsis...AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT WILL MOVE THROUGH FROM THE NORTH LATER TODAY. HIGH PRESSURE BUILDING IN FROM THE WEST WILL BRING INCREASING WINDS AND SEAS TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY. THIS HIGH WILL MOVE ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA MONDAY. GULF COAST LOW PRESSURE WILL APPROACH FROM THE SOUTHWEST TUESDAY BRINGING STRONG...VEERING WINDS THROUGH WEDNESDAY.
That’s epic: “strong…veering winds through Wednesday.”
However. There’s this nugget of non-horror in the local forecast.
Mon: NE winds 10 to 15 kt with gusts up to 20 kt. Seas 2 to 4 ft... Subsiding to 2 to 3 ft in the afternoon.
Mon Night: NE winds 10 kt. Seas 2 ft.
Here’s the forecast for AMZ350 down near Charleston.
Mon Night: E winds 10 to 15 kt. Seas 3 ft. A slight chance of showers in the evening...then a chance of rain after midnight.
Tue: E winds 10 to 15 kt. Seas 3 to 4 ft. Rain.
So. It’s a possibility that we could leave Monday with a reef in the main, arriving Tuesday in not horrible conditions. We might just barely squeeze into Charleston in time for Thanksgiving.
The Trip South
Back in Looking Down the Road, I outlined a possible trip south via Okracoke. A trip that we declined, electing to stick with a route we were more familiar with because we anticipated some right bad weather. And we were comfortable in the known anchorage of Mile Hammock Bay.
Heading S to Charleston, the ICW isn’t too bad; no worse than the Beaufort to Wrightsville stretch, just a bit longer. From Charleston to St. Mary’s, however, the ICW is almost impassable for a deep-draft boat. It requires careful assessment of the tides to make progress each day. More careful that we think we’re capable of.
We ran aground hard at mark G121 just a few miles from here. That makes us a little worried about the ditch.
Looking south from Charleston, our journey might shape up like this:
- Day Sail Charleston to St. Helena. 35 nm; 6 hrs. Doable in one day. Anchor up S. Edisto River in Big Bay Creek; or up Morgan River, S of Morgan Island.
- Short motor the ditch to Beaufort. The N side of Morgan Island is the ICW (mile 520) which goes past Beaufort. (mile 536).
- Day Sail S from Beaufort to Port Royal Sound. 15 nm to ocean; 12 nm around Hilton Head Island; 5 nm up to Bull Creek behind Daufuskie Island. 32 mm; 6 hours.
- (S from Daufuskie to 2W (17 nm) then up Wassaw Sound?)
- Day Sail S From Daufuskie to Sapelo Sound. 40 nm; 7-8 hour day. Up Sapelo to Blackbeard’s Island.
- Day Sail from Blackbeard’s Island to Doboy Inlet; Back River. 10-15 nm; 2-3 hr.
- Day Sail from Doboy to St. Simon’s. 20 nm; 3-4 hr.
- Day Sail St. Simon’s to St. Mary’s. 24 nm; 3-4 hr. We did this north-bound last year.
- Day Sail St. Mary’s to St. John’s River (Pablo Creek). Ideally up to Jacksonville to wait for our Holiday trip out west.
It’s a day trip back and forth from Jacksonville to St. Augustine in case we need a change of scenery.