Nov. 2 Got the tender launched and Monaise picked us up at the yacht club. She had a tree branch across her driveway and John was the lumberjack for that project. Afterwards, we all met my mom for a farewell lunch at IHYC. Monaise then took us to see her possible new apartment and dropped us off. We later had a friends of hers on board to see the boat and have cocktails.

Nov. 3 John’s birthday! and time to finally head south. We left around 11 am to catch the good tide through NYC. We expected a lot of debris in the water but luckily saw little. The tide spit us out the Sand Hook channel and down the coast of NJ. The weather was windy but the seas were on our stern and pretty low. We slowly got into passage mode sleeping, eating, and playing card games or reading. These are the times my “activity bag” gets a workout! By the next morning, we were off of Cape May and the Delaware river entrance.

Nov.4-5 We proceeded southward at a good clip with relatively benign conditions. The wind and seas stayed off our stern. Watching movies on my computer passed the time during night watches. Not much traffic out here. Off of Hatteras, we were able to get cell phone reception and even the internet so we made a few quick calls and sent a few emails to friends and family to let them know we were fine. This was not something we were used to being able to do on the “high seas”. Finally, we turned NW to go to Beaufort, NC and had the bumpiest ride of the passage. Luckily it was a short ride of only a few hours. Coming into Beaufort at night is a bit of a challenge because of all of the lights. It is hard to pick out which ones were next in the channel but we finally made it inside and anchored off of the Coast Guard station. We had come 469 nautical miles in 61.3 hours with an average speed of 7.63 knots which was a record for us!

Nov. 6 This was a catch up on sleep and tell everyone we were safe day. 

Nov. 7 It was still gray and windy but still from the north so we headed out to do an overnight to St. Helenas sound just south of Charleston. We left around 5 am to be able to get a favorable outgoing tide and we did but soon realized the seas were still too uncomfortable to go the distance. A few hours out, we changed course and headed for Wrightsville Beach instead which would be a day trip.A group of spotted dolphins joined us for about 20 mins which I always love. The spotted ones are more playful and jumpy than the regular gray bottlenose species. Around 3pm, we arrived and anchored inside in the protected anchorage behind the houses that line the beach there.

Nov. 8-9 The sun was out! This time we waited a bit for the wind and seas to go down before leaving around 11 am. The wind was still on our back but the seas were a bit lumpy. We carried on knowing the conditions would get better by morning. A dawn, I crossed the channel leading to Charleston while dodging a rather large tanker coming out the channel. It was nice having a bit of light to see what was going on around me!

By the middle of the afternoon, we were up the Coosaw river almost to Brickyard Creek where we were going to spend the next few days. We had done this last year, visiting Alan and Cathy Rae, but this time we anchored off in the channel near their house. There were several boats already settled in which meant it was time for a party! Their neighbors had everyone over for cocktail so we got to meet some new cruisers and see some we already knew from the Bahamas over the years.

Nov. 10 This was our 22nd wedding anniversary! Cathy leant us her car and we went to the grocery store and did some other errands. Lunch was at a good Mexican place with margaritas. For dinner, we went out to a restaurant in Port Royal with the Raes and one other couple. As an appetizer, we all had fried dill pickle chips which is a local delicacy and quite tasty. It was a fun evening for our anniversary celebration.

Nov. 11 Quiet day on the boat. We went ashore and exercised- John walked and I rode in circles around him on Cathy’s bike. 

Nov. 12 The Raes and ourselves drove to Bray’s Plantation to see my distant cousins the Fosters. We had seen them last year on our way south and wanted to show the Raes their house and the plantation. We all got the 25 cent tour and had a good lunch to boot. Back home, we just watched a movie as we were full from lunch.

Nov. 13 Time to move on and the weather was calm enough to go outside down past Beaufort, SC and all the way to St. Catherine’s island where we anchored in last year’s spot. 

Nov.14 Spent the day anchored off St. Catherine’s island entertaining ourselves and staying warm and dry.

Nov. 15th We went on the inside down the ICW to the bottom of St. Catherine island and then outside down to St. Simons. Coming into the channel for Golden Isles Marina at low tide, we saw 6.2ft below us which meant we were pushing mud! Finally, closer to the marina, we got enough depth to anchor for the night.