March 23-26 Lucaya to St Augustine, FL to McClellanville, SC

While at the Marina in Lucaya, Brent met Wendy & James from Ontario.  We enjoyed talking to them a while; Brent & James bonded over swapping recipes for homemade kimchi, sauerkraut snd yoghurt.  They were kind enough to get up to help us get off the dock very early the next morning. The cruising community is full of interesting people who look out for one another.

Leaving Lucaya is our departure from the Bahamas.  The sails are up immediately outside the Lucaya inlet and we are reaching for the Gulf Stream in perfect conditions.  This is the weather we have been looking for.  We had 30 hours of sailing ahead of us, but it was just about as stress free a passage as it comes.

I always enjoy seeing the flying fish skimming across the water. It's fascinating how far they can travel bouncing from one wave crest to the other in a panicked run for safety. But then there's one on every trip that flies the wrong way- we've found them in our dinghy and on the trampoline. For some reason it always reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Eh, musta taken a wrong turn at Albequerque".

Sailing through the night has its challenges. We manned the helm in 3 hour shifts, grabbing what sleep we could  between watches. There was no traffic other than one freighter and a cruise ship far on the horizon.  Without any moon the sail trim can't be seen  so we juggle a flashlight to see the sail while still having hand(s) free to adjust the sheets and watching the instruments to see what effect the adjustments had. But it's satisfying to get the extra speed from a well trimmed sail.

Just after sunrise Brent was setting up the generator on the foredeck when suddenly we were surrounded by a huge pod of dolphin. Mamas with calves, pregnant females, oldsters with scars from many years of ocean life, and what must have been the teenagers competing to see who could leap into the air most joyfully.  Brent said on the bow he could hear them chirping and clicking to talk to each other. Inside the saloon Sam could smell and see them. She was desperate go on deck, but I was pretty sure she'd jump in to herd them, so she stayed at the helm with me.  

Lois trying to catch a photo of the dolphins 

There's been an item in the news recently about a massive colony of sargassum (seaweed) in the Atlantic Ocean headed toward  Florida.  We saw many patches of sargassum 15-20 feet in diameter. It's perhaps 12-18" thick, floating on the surface, a yellow-brown color. It's obviously very healthy, judging from the fresh leaves reaching out of the water to soak up sun. We could see schools of little fish swimmig underneath.  Impossible to navigate around all the patches, we were concerned about it clogging up systems onboard, but other than a little on the motors we seem to have escaped impact.

We arrived at St Augustine around 5pm.  We picked up  our mooring ball in a smooth display of salty sailorcraft, and then we were settled and downshifted from the heightened awareness state of being on passage.  

As usual, since we have a shallow draft our mooring ball is in the row closest to the sea wall, convienent to dinghy under the Bridge of Lions to the marina facilities. It's also on the circuit for the tour boats that cruise the harbour every evening blasting music while showing the tourists the sights.  We are used to it by now.

We did laundry in machines!  No buckets of water or hanging on the lifelines to dry: what a luxury.  A walk across the bridge took us to a favorite burger joint.  

We had planned to stay a week waiting out weather, but the morning of Day 3 the forecast had changed and we had traveling weather.  Off we went on an overnight run headed for South Carolina.

We knew the winds wouldn't be brilliant, ranging from 5-12 kts. We figured we'd do a lot of motoring,  but at least according to the routing software we wouldn't see storms or big gusts. 

And then.......We were on the final approach to Five Fathom Cut (near McClellanville)  at dusk when we got caught by a very sudden squall with 40 kt winds and correspondingly big waves.  Brent handled the tense situation beautifully. Rather than continue moving toward our  destination and the lee shore, he turned us out into the ocean in a direction that allowed the boat to move with the waves instead of against.  

It was all passed in about 30 minutes and we turned for the entrance off the ocean.  After the squall the wind dropped to 15 knot by the time we gained the narrow pass.  More importantly, the wind shifted to the west which deprived the wind of the opportunity to make large waves coming across the shoal that lay just west of us.  We had a completely no drama run through the pass which 30 minutes ago was awash in 6 foot seas.  

Five Fathom cut is one of our favorite ways off the ocean.  The cut is fully five fathoms deep, and once through the narrow entrance there is ample width to cruise through the marsh.  We have anchored in this marsh in the past, which is spectacular for spotting birds and dolphins.  But today we are going all the way through the cut, across the ICW, and into the tiny village of McClellanville. 

By now the sun had set, but there was just enough lingering light to see as we retraced our tracks in the GPS to get to the marina dock. Several people from other boats along the dock came out to help us tie up, and that's always welcome.  In just a few minutes we are settled and done with another 200 plus mile offshore passage.

In the last 5 days we have covered about 2/3 the straight line distance home.