Hello from South Carolina
We are approximately 536 NM (as the crow flies) from Norfolk
and taking a break, catching some mail, restocking the shelves and planning our
next move. Lady’s Island Marina is a pleasant small marina on a small Sea
Island. It is connected to Beaufort by a swing bridge.
Last night we were swaying side to side in the North
Atlantic off the Port Royal Sound inlet. We arrived after sunset, dropped
anchor in the dark North Atlantic, still 5 miles from shore. Around 11 PM we had
a good soaking rain come through which tamped down the exuberant rolling waves,
and I finally drifted off to sleep. Around 1 PM the full Super moon shone
through the clouds and my hatch. I went outside and saw an eerie site. The
ocean was still, lit in suffused cloud moonlight, silent, horizon merging water
and sky. The stillness did not last
long 3 AM had us pitching instead of rolling and by 7 AM we were glad to be off
the hook and on our way.
***When the moon turns full on Monday, Sept. 8 at 9:38 p.m.
EDT, it not only will become the last super moon of
the summer, but also this year's Harvest Moon -- which is a full For
several nights around the time of the Harvest Moon, the moon rises around the
same time that the sun sets, giving the moon a reddened, swollen, pumpkin-like
appearance. According to NASA, the name comes from the days before the
invention of the light bulb, when moonlight helped farmers reap their crops at
this time of year.
On
average, the moon usually rises about 50 minutes later than it did the day
before, but in the days around the autumnal equinox, that difference decreases
to about 30 minutes each night.
9/8--We left Jekyll Island at high tide-- a Full Super Moon
exceptionally high tide. Our first challenge was the bridge, all ICW fixed
bridges are supposed to have a 65’ clearance but we are finding that is not the
case. We have twanged our antenna once and really did not want to knock
anything loose. Everyone on the dock watched waiting for us to hit, but we slid
on through no problem.
Along with a super high tide there is a low tide and we soon
found navigating in the Mackay River a challenge. Where the charts showed 10’
we quickly realized we had 5’. We draw 5’6” so this was a problem. We
eventually bumped and bumped hard. We still had 2 hours of low tidebefore it
would turn and eventually float us free.
Another sailing vessel going south commiserated with us, saying further
north he went over a lot of “skinny water”. He rounded a bend we had traversed
and was stuck fast. To add misery we had one heck of a storm growling all
around us. We finally floated free, moved off in too deep water and dropped
anchor. There were no boats, no lights, and no houses anywhere around us….
UNTIL 1 AM a full moon shone through the hatches and a
bright light was fast approaching. A tug pushing a big barge. We had no time to
react, the barge went on around us…We eventually got back to sleep, waking to
find gray skies but good conditions to move outside and not have to deal with
the vagaries of the ICW and super tides.
We had a challenge getting out to deep water, motoring well
pass the 3 mile limit. A few shrimp boats passed us buy, one good rain shower
washed our decks, but there was not enough wind to sail, so we motored the 60+
miles and a glorious sunset.
Finally in SC
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| Leaving Jekyll Island |
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| I love seeing all the birds sharing a sand bar |
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| Pelican keeping watch on a range |
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| Bridge over Brunswick River |
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| we could hear the thunder and just sit watching this storm approach |
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| Morning on 9/10 still clouds but we are headed out to sea |
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now this is a super tide, this pole should be 8'above water at high
tide |
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Out in the North Atlantic, 5+ miles from shore, we are going
to get wet |
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| can't beat this sunset |
