Four-day Marathon
By Jon. Filed in Uncategorized |
We picked up anchor at about half past noon on Tuesday, November 24, leaving the quiet South River, a tributary of the Neuse River north of Beaufort, NC. The Neuse River empties into Pamlico Sound, inside Cape Hatteras. We motorsailed up the Neuse and into Adams Creek, following the Intra-Coastal Waterway into Beaufort. We didn’t stop there – we just continued out Beaufort Inlet and into Oslow Bay towards the Atlantic. I posted our last blog entry as we exited the inlet. Next stop: Florida!
The winds started out fairly light – about 8-10 knots from the northwest, so we motorsailed. We passed through Frying Pan Shoal off Cape Fear, NC at a little past 03:00 on Wednesday morning, 11/25. The shoal extends well out into the Atlantic – more than 30 nautical miles past the tip of Cape Fear. In times past, without modern electronics like depth sounders and GPS plotters, many a ship met its end near there…
Sometimes the shortest distance between two points isn’t a straight line, The Gulf Stream, which heads north in the Atlantic at about 3-4 knots, was something we wanted to avoid, so we generally stayed within 50 miles of the coast. It passes fairly close to Cape Fear – only a few miles from the end of Frying Pan Shoal.
By 11:30 Wednesday morning, the wind picked up to over 15 knots, so we reefed in our sails (that is, we shortened our main and mizzen sail to make them smaller, reducing their area in order to slow the boat down to keep it controllable as the wind continued to build). We were now about 57 nm due east of Charleston, NC. We continued on, passing Hilton Head Island, Savannah GA, Jacksonville FL, St. Augustine FL, Cape Canaveral, Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Key Largo, and Islamorada.
We stood 3 hour watches during the day, and 4 hours at night. Shawna would go catch up on some sleep below, while I maintained watch in the cockpit. Then we’d switch off. We let Raymond do most of the steering (“Raymond” is our Raymarine autopilot). Shawna even cooked a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, using our pressure cooker. This was our second Thanksgiving in a row under sail, and Shawna’s third in a row (she helped our friend, Jonathon Green, deliver his boat “Saskiana” to the Caribbean over Thanksgiving in 2007).
We saw dolphins, a school of dorado, a couple of turtles. Dolphins are always playing with the boat, surfing its bow and stern waves. On one watch, Shawna saw one jump clear out of the water across our bow! Was it a Delphinidae version of a dare?!!
We pulled into Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, Florida at a little past 2:00PM on Saturday, November 28. Just a little more than 750 nautical miles (almost 855 statute or land miles) in four days. We averaged about 7.4 knots (8.4 mph). It was mostly motorsailing, but occasionally when the winds were sufficient, we shut down the engine and enjoyed the quiet sounds off the hull of Beausoleil gliding through the waters of the Atlantic, the Straights of Florida, and Hawk Channel on the south side of the Florida Keys. Yes, it does take you to another time and another place. It’s why we’re here.
We leave today for an overnight stop in Bahia Honda (where we saw the hammerhead “Ol Moe” last year), and then on Sunday do our final daysail over to Key West where we’ll spend the winter.