Outside Passage to Florida

The morning we left Beaufort SC the sky was looking ugly, with a solid bank of dark clouds behind us. We contacted friends on “Star Chaser” who were taking the outside route and they assured us that it was “nothing to worry about”. And although we were now actually moving, we STILL hadn’t yet decided whether our route would be inside or out.

The weather forecast was: daytime and nightime winds from the North at 10k-15k gusting to 20k and waves of 3’-4’. The forecast for our arrival time in Florida, 24 hours later however was for waves of 3’-5’ and winds from the North at 15k. These numbers were a little steep for our liking but not impossible for us to manage. We had experienced similar conditions traversing the Tongue of the Ocean in the Bahamas and had been able to handle it--but that was in daylight. And since forecasts are notorious for being wrong one is always taking a chance. And so Vince said, rather reluctantly, “I guess we’ll just have to go through Georgia--I know it’s what YOU want to do.” But at that point I actually didn’t care one way or the other. Perhaps it’s because on this trip I”m on medication to calm my nerves--whatever--but I told him that and said it was completely up to him. If he wanted to go outside, I was OK with it. The look on Vince’s face said it all. He brightened right up and I knew we were doing something he really wanted to do. And so we decided to head on out and see what it was like “out there”. If it looked bad, we’d turn right around and come back on in. He’d done this route with Hugh McCully last time and it was a piece of cake. We’d managed similar conditions before too and so he really thought it was going to be fine. And we headed on out.

Initially, we felt we had made the right decision. Once out there, the winds were not nearly as high as predicted--actually less than 10k and the seas were comfortable swells of 2’-3’. Darkish clouds were still following and it was very cold. But other than that, no problem! We dug out our foul weather gear and bundled up with hats and gloves and made ourselves quite comfortable. But as the day turned into night, conditions steadily deteriorated as both winds and waves increased in their intensity. And most scary of all for me was, as evening fell, looking around in all directions and realizing that there were no other boats within sight and that we were all alone.

At 8:00pm we began 2 hour shifts with one of us keeping watch while the other one tried to sleep. The wind had increased to a steady 15k-20k and the waves were 3’-5’. Not looking good. I put on Sirius radio and listened to CBC and a 60’s channel to keep myself from thinking about what was happening all around me as the boat bounced up and down and rolled sideways and the wind whipped the sail into a frenzy. I sang along with all of the songs and counted--one song takes about 3 minutes. My watch is 2 hours. After 40 songs, my agony would end, and I could hide away down below and pretend that nothing was happening. And it only got worse. The winds and seas were propelling us along at such a speed that we had to shorten sail to slow ourselves down. We didn’t want to zoom pass the entrance to Cumberland Sound in the darkness and knew that we couldn’t safely enter until daylight--so that was an added concern. Towards daybreak the winds were so strong that we were afraid the small sail we had up was in danger of blowing out. But when Vince tried to pull it in, he almost couldn’t do it! It took all of his strength to get it to move inch by inch untill it was finally furled. The other looming problem was that we were going to have to turn the boat in at right angles to the waves for the last 3 hours of the passage into Cumberland Sound and although Vince assured me he’d be able to handle it, the waves at that point had increased to 5’-6’. They were coming at us broadside to the boat and I was terrified that we’d be keeled over. We were both tethered into the cockpit as we made the final turn in and Vince fought it the whole way. At least it was now morning and we could finally see the shore. That helped. But it was really terrifying.

AT 7:00 we passed through the channel entrance and both wind and waves gradually subsided. It was SUCH a relief to limp into Fernandina Beach! We tied up to a mooring ball in the anchorage in front of the town and made our way down into the cabin to find it “trashed”. But we were too tired to do anything about it. Instead we pushed our way through the mess and crawled blissfully to sleep. And when we awoke we both had huge grins on our faces all the the rest of the day thinking “We made it! We’re actually here! No Georgia!