Finally sailing back into Florida waters

C'est la Vie sailed back into Florida waters this afternoon.

For the first time since we began our voyage south just over a week ago, NOAA dropped the small craft advisories for the Atlantic waters in our area (NOAA considers any vessel under 65 feet a "small craft".) 

We began the day in Tea Kettle Creek.  By late morning we were approaching the Brunswick Bar Channel, and after listening to reports from other sailing vessels on the outside, we chose jump out for the afternoon leg to St. Mary's River inlet.

The offshore stretch proved more lumpy than expected, but it did knock and hour off our travel time and afford us the satisfaction of sailing back into Florida.

Tonight we are tied up at the Ferandina Beach Harbor.  Tomorrow we plan to return to the ICW and hopefully make St. Augustine or beyond.

Cruising the Georgia ICW

Our sprint down the ICW has now extended down into the infamous Georgia waters.  Land of the 9 foot tidal ranges and meandering, ill marked channels.  By moving dawn to dark we are continuing to cover about 60NM per day.  Sometimes we.even pause to enjoy the sunrises.

Worlds largest single masted sailing vessel.

What has a beam nearly twice C'est la Vie's length and mast that would reach end zone to end zone on a football field?

Marabella V, the worlds largest single masted sailing vessel - of course.  We passed her tied up at Thunderbolt Marine this morning. We saw the mast from Tybee Rodes, but thought it was a cell tower.

We are currently motoring south through the Skidaway Narrows.

Beaufort not Beaufort

Made good time yesterday covering 66NM,  by getting lucky with the tides and running dawn to dusk. 

We pushed hard to make the 11 am opening of the Ben Sawyer Bridge.  Passing the bridge, which only opens on the hour, provided us access to Charleston Harbor.  We made a quick transit of the harbor motorsailing under a full genny.  Unfortunately this would be the first and last time we set the sails on Sunday.  The remainder of our afternoon was spent motoring with a pack of sailboats southward in the ICW.

The daylight faded into a gorgeous low country sunset as we found an anchorage in the upper South Edisto River. 

Myrtle Beach to Cape Romaine via the ICW

We continue to make progress south via the ICW despite gale warnings posted for the southeastern seaboard.  Yesterday's run Myrtle Beach to Cape Romaine covered 63NM.  The day started in the morning darkness.  By the time we had good visibility we were down in the beautiful Waccamaw River stretch of the ICW.

By mid afternoon we were making 8+ knots motorsailing down Winyah Bay under a full genny in stiff  north breezes. 

Making the turn west back into the ICW and Cape Romaine NWR, we furled the genny and motored the remaining 15NM to our anchorage at Five Fathom Creek.  During the last stretch Bud prepared a wonderful loaf of bread.



Out in the marsh grasses, Five Fathom Creek is a bit exposed, but the soft clay bottom provided good holding in 10 feet of water.  My only hesitation for endorsing the anchorage would be the shallow approach.  While well marked we still observed depths of 6 feet at mid-tide.  According to our resources the tide range in the area is around 5 feet.  This could make access at low tides impossible.

This morning, we were running before sunrise this morning and plan to anchor south of Charleston this evening.

Hemmed into the ICW by weather

Foul weather off the southeastern seaboard has kept our travels thus far in the ICW. We are making the most of the daylight hours and have managed to reach Myrtle Beach, SC in two and a half days of travel.  If we can continue our pace we will pass thru Charleston over the weekend.

Based on current NOAA forecasts the earliest we can hope to run offshore will be Wednesday.  Perhaps a Port Royal Sound to JAX or St Augustine passage will be in our future.
 
If anyone is seeking additional information about our travels, I am posting more updates and images to Google+.  Posting from my phone to G+ is easier than posting blogger updates.  Perhaps "the Google" will link these two formats soon?  For now search for Jeff Lovett on Google+ if you are interested.

South Bound

After lunch with Anne and; my family,  Bud and I cast off from Bock Marine and began our journey south.  We unfurled the new genny while still in Core Creek.  The winds were inconsistent so we motorsailed down Bogue Sound.  We covered 30nm today and are currently anchored in Swansboro, NC.

Back in the water!

The last few days are a blur.  Most of the time and effort has gone into finishing up the rigging and trouble shooting various issues that have arisen from our summer projects (i.e. a tang on the backstay rubbing on the aft halyard sheaves, a kink in the new hose connecting the galley sink to the fresh water tank, etc.)

We finally launched on All Hallow's Eve...

Today we wrapped up our troubleshooting - I hope.  We also, rigged the mainsail and the Dutchman furler.

My father, Bud, who will be crewing for the return trip to Florida, arrived today.  We hope to complete provisioning and some last minute projects tomorrow morning and shove off by mid-afternoon.

With any luck our blog will now transition from documenting projects to a travel log.  Stay tuned!