May 21 and 22... Fernandina Beech Fla. To Charleston SC.

Hearing nothing on the weather that would cancel our departure, we were underway before 8am. The wind was from the SW at about 18 knots and we had a perfect sail until about 11am when it backed a little and dropped to about 14 knots. At 1 pm there were thunder storms in the area and the wind went to light and variable.... to brisk depending on where the nearest cell was located. We motored most of the afternoon and had a little rain, but missed the storms completely.

During the previous night the open ocean had been wild with reported winds of 40 knots and waves of 12 feet. There were a number of boats in trouble. Most ended up being fine but one needed Coast Guard assistance. Their sails were shredded and their engine was not working. The boat in question was dead in the water about 60 miles off shore. Throughout the day we listened as the Coast Guard and Navy fliers came to the rescue.

By dinner time we passed the cold front that was the cause of the bad weather and wind shifted to the west but remained light. We altered course to the east a little to avoid unlit maker buoys and boat traffic before dark.

Kathy and I took turns at the helm throughout the night ... the wind went back to SW and picked up to almost 20 at about 1am so I put out the jib and was going faster than I wanted so switched it with the stay sail. At dawn (and it was a beautiful sunrise) we turned west and aimed for Charleston which was abut 20 miles away.

Just off Charleston I retuned to the cockpit to give Kathy a break and noticed that we were dragging a fish on our hand line. After getting it aboard we identified it as a King Mackerel of about 12 pounds. We didn't have the freezer space to keep it and the meat was reported to be a little oily so he went back overboard to die another day.

We worked our way through the ship traffic of Charleston Harbor without incident and arrived at the Cooper River Marina, where we had reservations, at about 10 am.

After checking in and eating some lunch, our first chore was to pump up the dinghy to see if our most recent patch job had held and to get it off the foredeck. As Kathy pumped I sprayed soapy water on the suspect area ... and was happy to find no bubbles.

In no time the dinghy was back on the stern where it belonged. .... and yes it is well past time to purchase a new inflatable but the Bahamas were not the place. We know what we want to purchase and will probably do so when we get to the Chesapeake...

With all the fresh water we wanted for the first time in 6 months, I started the process of spraying multiple layers of salt off Sapphire. I spent a couple of hours scrubbing while Kathy washed two loads in the rarely used marina laundry.

Our plans are to leave the boat here for a few days and drive across the state of South Carolina for a short visit with our friends Scott and Meg. I called the car rental placed to have them pick us up but found that we were beyond their pick up range. So we ordered up a cab for tomorrow am to drive us the 4 miles back to downtown Charleston.

I marinated and grilled a flank steak for dinner which we had with some wild rice and a medley of vegetables that needed to be out of the refrigerator before our long weekend.