Cruising is more than a travel log. It has been a year and 3 months since we left San Francisco. My ideas about cruising have changed. I think I figured that my days would be filled with one exciting adventure after the other with little down time for other things.
I would say that cruising is more like “regular life” with a few amazing things thrown in. Last Wednesday and Thursday we had some truly amazing and beautiful things happen. We were sailing from Charleston, South Carolina to Brunswick, Georgia a distance of about 130 nm. Our previous sail had been from Beaufort, North Carolina to Charleston and had been pretty miserable. We left about midnight as the weather predictions said the wind would start off light and southwest but in 24 hours the wind would change to northwest and build to 15 – 20 knots. The trip is a long one, about 200 nm, (38 hours). Well the wind indeed did pickup but did not change directions. So instead of a nice following wind we had a wind right on the nose. The weather report did get one thing right, the wind speed picked up and was 20-30 knots. The sea was very choppy and we bashed in to the waves. Atsa was under power and not making good head way against the wind. We were going at most 5 knots. But as we bashed into the waves our speed would slow to 2 knots, sometimes 1 knot! I was sure we were never going to get there. I was seasick the first 24 hours which didn’t help things. If any of you have ever experienced the mal de mer, all you want to do is get off the boat. Make it stop . Fortunately for me I only get seasick now when the sea is rough and even then it only lasts 24 hours (the world’s longest 24 hours). Finally we got to Charleston and visited that beautiful city.
Charleston : We took a horse and carriage ride.
Ohhh, I started out talking about amazing and beautiful. Well the next trip, which I anticipated with great trepidation was from Charleston to Brunswick. The wind was northeast, so it was behind us,already an improvement. It was a pretty good wind too, averaging about 12-15 knots from early morning (we left at 7:30m AM ) until we were almost there and then picked up to 20 knots. About noon we really new things were going right. Four beautiful dolphins came and swam in the bow wave for over 20 minutes. Both Hartley and I stood on the bow and played with them. We waved our arms and the dolphins would turn on their side and look at us waving our arms. I am sure they knew we were crazy.
Dolphins playing at the bow
The classic dolphin jump
That night was beautiful and clear. The stars were sharp and twinkling. My favorite constellation, Orion, was sparkling. ( Orion is one of the few constellations I know, I am working on more). The moon was just a sliver as it was just starting its new cycle. The water was incredible. It had what looked like balls of light. As the boat went through the water it must have disturbed these sea creatures and they lit up like Christmas lights. You could see 6 or 10 of them together one after the other and then there would be a break and then you could see some more. They weren’t little like Christmas lights though, they seemed to be about baseball to softball size. When one went off it started a chain reaction a bunch more would light up. I don’t really know what they were but I think they were ctenophores which are kind of like jellyfish. There are many different kinds of ctenophores and we couldn’t see anything but the lights, but that is my best guess.
Since I am talking about trips maybe you wonder why we leave at midnight , 7:30 AM , 11AM etc. It all has to do with when you want to get where you are going. The rule of thumb is never go into an unfamilar port in the dark if you can help it. Navigational aids are red and green. Some are lit up at night and others are not. In general when you enter a port the red ones are kept to your right (starboard) and the green ones to your left (port). So at night if they are lit you have a chance of seeing them, but also you have a chance of seeing lots of other things too, like red and green traffic lights. Nothing is more frustrating and scary than to be focused on the red light ahead, feeling confident you are going the right way when all of a sudden it turns to green and you realize it is a city stop light! More commonly though as you turn into a busy city port it is just a maze of lights and there is little hope of picking out your red and green from the sea of all the other lights. Thank god for GPS.
Well we are almost ready to take a little break for the holidays. We are currently in Port Canaveral and will leave tomorrow for Lake Worth, which is on the east coast of Florida, where we will leave the boat for about 6 weeks.
Visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Canaveral
Hartley at the Kennedy Space Center
We will go by car to Fort Myers on the west coast of Florida and visit my mother and brother. We need to do our yearly doctor visits , see the dentist and get Hartley started on physical therapy for his thumb.He had an injury to his thumb up in Connecticut and now it should be healed enough to get it moving again.