Departure at Last

Tues Dec 20, 2014

Little River, SC

Well here goes.  I have to decide to tell the pretty version or the truth.  We got started off with a whimper. We lost power  before we left the dock.  I am not sure what was behind it but after an hour and a half we seemed to have resolved the problem and were off in a cold dreary overcast sky.  Probably the worst departure we have ever done.  Had trouble getting out of the slip and we have done that often flawlessly.  Dropped my phone trying to hand his and shattered the glass on the front. Everything was starting wrong.   

Once we were out of the ICW the sailing was really good for a while.  We were making 7 sometimes 8 knots. But we were freezing our buns off with the surround.  Thank goodness for Jack's canvas or we would have frozen.  At some point we set a course that caused us to have the wind directly on our stern which left us wallowing side to side.  That continues from late afternoon through the night.  I have never gotten sea sick so I was ok but standing or walking was a challenge.  Dinner was one pot, one hand to hold the pot on the stove and one to keep me upright. At some point we decided to sail with just the main and motor both to improve speed over ground and give some heat below deck. Only helped the temp a little, Was mid 50s pretty much all the afternoon and night inside the boat.  Lots of blankets and warm clothes.  

While both of us have crewed on over night sails this was our first over night sail by our selves. It was sail alone most of the night with the same wishy washy seas.  We had a couple of tense moments. One when Lee was on watch and one when I was.  He heard an alarm but could not find the source, so he woke me up to help hunt it.  I found it and it was just the remote for the auto pilot. I was coming in to a shipping lane near Charleston and I saw several large ships. It was also an anchorage area. I watched carefully and concluded one of them was anchored and another would be on its way before we reached it, but then I started seeing lights all over. It looked like fireflies celebrating christmas.  I couldn't tell what was going on.  I woke Lee up and had him come on deck  About that time Mark came on the radio and explained there were several sets of red and green lights marking different entrances to the shipping lane.Oddly those lights did not show up in the chart plotter. 

Cliff note version  Lousy start, COLD dreary weather, only some nice sailing.  Things sliding and falling every where.