We were quite tempted at Wrightsville Beach to head offshore at Masonboro Inlet. We watched Southern Passage, a tall masted catamaran, head out from there, but we stuck to our plans of heading offshore from the Cape Fear Inlet. As I noted in our last blog, the tides worked well for us and we probably gained an hour with the Cape Fear Inlet route.
When I wrote Monday night, we had only let a little out on the jib, more than a T-shirt, but not by much, and we were making five knots. The wind subsequently died and we were at the mercy of disorganized seas with no wind to stop the rock and roll. At dusk, the wind came in from the north at about 30 knots, a little more than forecast. The stiff wind and new direction made it a little more rowdy during the night and we saw up to 8.4 knots. It took several hours for the seas to surrender to their new marching orders. "Windy" did well for the most part, but needed some assistance to surf the conflicting seas. Myron mentioned that it was probably just as well that we could not see the seas. I recalled that comment when I came up for my watch Tuesday morning and witnessed the seas breaking white all around. When dealing with collision avoidance with vessel traffic off of Charleston, the cargo ship captain said he spotted us among all the white caps. During his night watch, Myron was disappointed that Windy was not driving Hold Fast better, requireing Myron to hand steer. Come daylight, he discovered that the pin from one of the pulleys was gone and all Windy's input was never making it to the rudder. The pin was replaced and Windy was back at work in short order. It was a good thing too because we were having quite a run, regularly surfing at 7 or 8 knots, occasionally seeing 9 knots, and at one point I surfed at 10.6 knots. That sort of action was fun, because it was during daylight.
On Tuesday night we lost the wind again, then it filled in from the NE, at first 15 knots later excelling to 30 knots, producing the unfortunate affect on the seas. The good part about the high winds is that we made better time than planned. We could see St. Simon's Island at sunrise on Tuesday. After a wild ride into St. Simon's inlet, during which time we saw Southern Passage heading out (they must have beat us by a day), we poked around the planned anchorage about 12 noon. As much as we wanted to stop, take a hot shower and scarf down a good meal, the anchorage was not agreeable to either of us because it was rough and had poor holding ground. We both agreed to press on another five hours to Cumberland Island, even though that meant working through the St. Andrews Sound in dicey seas. It was only a short amount of pain to gain a really fun romp down the beautiful Cumberland River. We are transforming Hold Fast back to the anchor arrangement verses her offshore set up, pining for our hot showers and salivating for our dinner. Hold Fast is covered with salt from the rowdy ride. We were so pleased to have the hard top and enclosure during our cold and wet ride.
I think tomorrow will be a day to take a break and go for a walk on the island. We have not been off Hold Fast since we left Bath last Wednesday, October 26th.
We cannot express how excited we are to be so close to Jacksonville.
Love to all,
Dena
Posted via Ham radio.
{GMST}30|45.674|N|081|28.410|W|Anchored Cumberland|Cumberland{GEND}
