Heading Home: Charleston to Beaufort NC May 13 - 15

Charleston SC to Beaufort NC with Captain and Crew

Monday May 13:  I cleaned up the boat, did laundry and Bob caught his taxi to airport.  Dwight arrived around 4pm and we took the trolley to nearby market for provisions.  Chet’s flight was delayed and he didn’t arrive till 7pm.  After looking at the weather we decided to leave Charleston at 8:15pm.  It was a rough departure off the dock, but did make it without overly scaring the fellow boaters that were anxiously ready to fend us off.  The harbor was very busy with tankers coming and going, some needed to blow a horn at us, just as the AIS went out, but it did reboot fairly quickly, thankfully.  The night started out clear, 3’ chop, 10-15kts, then turned nasty.

Tuesday May 14:  At 5am the wind was 32kts on the nose.  6 -9’ seas with short intervals, boat speed about 2.1kts, I put out the jib and headed towards land away from Beaufort toward Cape Fear.  The wind and sea started to subside late afternoon and entry into Cape Fear was good.  By the time we got to an anchorage on the other side of snow’s cut it was very dark and we had run aground a bit, I was at the the helm. Once we got to the anchorage we did anchor twice to make sure we held in the thick black mud.  

Wed may 15:  We left our anchorage at at 6am heading for the first lift bridge in Wrightsville.  

As we went by Mile Hammock Bay the military was speeding around in boats and helicopters.  

The  wind picked up to 33kts from the SW, and a with full jib up, we were going 9kts, can you say weather helm! 

 Coming into Beaufort  NC with a 30kt wind was exciting and the docking was less than perfect, but, we were pinned on the Beaufort city dock so we didn’t have to worry about going anywhere anytime soon.  

We all went to dinner at Clawsons in downtown Beaufort.

Since we will be doing the ICW to Norfolk,  Chet will be heading home tomorrow am.