Off Shore!

Thursday April 25th
Off Shore

It would take us at least 4 days to reach Charleston via the ICW, but we were getting the feeling from Kylie's emails that the new baby may not wait for us. So as we made our way thru Brunswick Harbor Thursday morning we decided to head straight for Charleston, offshore in the Atlantic. That way we would be at the IOP in 24 hours. This will be our first overnight together (Nick and I did an overnight leaving from New York back in September 2012) and the longest single run for Tide Hiker - about 22 hours and 165 miles.

The weather forecast looked good - clear skies and light south winds until about midnight when a weak cold front was expected to pass through, bringing 10-15 kt northerlies. We could live with that, plus we had a couple of "bail-out" entrances on the way. So out we went.

The navigation was pretty easy. Take the Brunswick channel out to sea a few miles and turn left to 39 degrees and continue for 125 miles to the Charleston light. It was a perfect day with a light breeze from the south and long low swells from the east. We settled down for a long day.

We were passing thru a Right Whale Protection Zone and we would have loved to see a whale so kept a good lookout with no luck. All we saw was schools of stingrays swimming a foot or so under the surface. The currents were interesting. We usually cruise at about 7.1 kts and thru the day we observed Tide Hiker doing as much as 7.6 kts and as little as 6.5 kts. Obviously there were currents offshore. It also affected navigation - the target course was 39 degrees true - but at one point we were actually steering 54 degrees magnetic - 7.5 degrees of magnetic correction and 7.5 degrees of current "set".

RPH at night

The sun set at about 7:30 PM but it was quite light until after 8 PM. A full moon rose in the east within an hour and so our idyllic conditions continued as we ticked off the miles. We were both relaxed, reading and eating as we kept an eye on progress. Deidre made dinner shortly after 8 PM and we checked the weather. The numbers all sounded the same, but for some reason it just "sounded worse". Nevertheless we decided to continue and started our watch shifts at 9 PM. I was the first to bed and relieved Deidre at 10:30 PM.

All was "going smoothly" until 1 AM when I woke up to feel the boat pitching around and throwing a bit of spray. I relieved Deidre at 1:30 AM and found sea conditions deteriorating fast. The moon was gone behind clouds and the wind was up, in my opinion way over the 10-15 kts forecast. The waves were "short and building" and Tide Hiker was starting to really buck. Things in the boat stared to get thrown around (including the crew) so we spent some minutes securing everything in sight. The wind and weather was now on our bow so we backed off the engines and slowed down. Deidre went below to bed to try and get some rest. It was going to be a long night.

The next 5 hours were rather unpleasant. I was hoping that when the front passed the winds and seas would settle down, but that did not happen. Tide Hiker seemed to deal with the conditions OK, but anything lose on board became a problem. There was a lot of crashing and banging. At one point during the night I crawled onto the forward deck and added lashings to the anchor and anchor chain. We could hear cans and bottles crashing around inside the frig. Deidre started feeling sick and we were both eating ginger.

The night was pitch black. We were about 15-20 miles off shore and could not see any lights. We had seen only one other boat all night, on one of Deidre's watches. She had watched the boat approach on the radar from 10 miles away and then pass 100 yards from us. It was a sailing boat, but we could not make radio contact, (probably saving batteries - sail boaters are like that!)

Slowing our speed delayed arrival at the Charleston light by about an hour. It took so long for the channel and city lights to appear that I started to wonder if we had drifted off into another dimension. It is such a weird feeling to be so totally alone in pitch black for hours on end. I kept on saying to myself "Trust the instruments" because there was just nothing else to relate to and confirm our location - sort of "sensory deprivation" at sea. Plus we were tired and stressed.

As we approached Charleston I called the Coast Guard to ask for advice. They said "Stay in the channel!" Now that was a great bloody help. On the radar we could see a large ship approaching the channel and I called them on the radio to hear another human voice and (in effect) tell them "I would let them go first!" He was a nice guy (English, of course) and I was happy to follow them in. There is a semi submerged groin on either side of the Charleston entrance, and several boats have missed the entrance and ended up "on the rocks" so we were very careful. But all went well.

It's a long way thru Charleston Harbor and up the ICW, so daylight was seeping in as we approached the IOP. It was still blowing pretty hard and I knew we would need help slipping the boat, so we called Ryan and asked him to meet us at the slip, which he did. Turned out the marina was well protected so the wind was not a problem. Kylie joined us as we secured the boat and shut down the engines. Then Deidre and I kicked them off and went to bed.