Brunswick Harbor, GA

Friday December 2, 2016 (And some of Saturday)
31 06 00 N
81 27 00 W

Planned an easy day today, about 30 miles to Beaufort, SC, in anticipation of heading out into the Atlantic on Saturday and running 160 NM overnight to St. Augustine, FL. But as we made our way south to Beaufort we checked the weather forecast only to discover that the weather in the zones we would be crossing was deteriorating and we could expect "6 footers" on Saturday and Saturday night. So instead we decided to just keep on going past Beaufort and get as many of the Atlantic miles as we could before the weather changed.

This tug was pulling a whole train of barges loaded with dredging gear

Heading south in this section of the Atlantic we had several "bail out" entrances to choose from:
     Brunswick                  71 NM       10 hours    2 AM
     Cumberland Island       92 NM      13 hours    5 AM
     St. Johns River          109 NM      16 hours    8 AM
     St. Augustine             135 NM      19 hours    11:30 AM

We made it to the sea buoy off Beaufort (The entrance is officially called Port Royal) at 4 PM and at that moment decided to head for Brunswick. After all, its not a race! (Really?)

The Atlantic was quite pleasant as the sun set - maybe 10/15 mph winds and 2' to 3' waves on our stern. Easy-peasey. The last time we were in the Atlantic at night we had Cavara for company. Tonight we were by ourselves and its a funny feeling to being alone and totally in the dark 15 miles from the coast with just an inch of fiberglass between you and a bad ending. But Tide Hiker was running well and we were comfortable listening to the audio book "Victoria" as we chugged along.

Sunset arrives early these days

We only came across one 6 footer and it took us completely by surprise. Deidre was watching TV and witnessed all the stuff on my desk fall onto the deck, and the freezer door of the refrig open. I was in the pilot house with a fresh glass of red wine - that tipped over and stained everything on the table, but since the table had baffles nothing reached the floor.  Otherwise the wind picked up a bit but Tide Hiker took it in her stride. (Its was too dark to actually see the waves.)

We both took a turn on the couch for a couple of hours. Deidre woke me as we approached the Brunswick channel - looking like a long airport runway. It took us over an hour to make it into the harbor and drop our anchor in an out of the way corner. We were in bed by 3:15 AM