So I sailed my tired old boat over three hundred miles of open Atlantic Ocean, single-handed, through three days and two nights, in December, during record-breaking cold. I'm pretty proud about that. It certainly puts back some of the confidence that the bridge incident removed. It also represents my longest passage so far (in time and distance) as well as my first single-handed offshore passage. Finally, a day (actually 3 days) where everything fell into place, for the most part. My plan WAS to reach Georgetown, anchor, have a beer and consider my options for the next leg. I'd have to map out my itinerary too, so that dad could make plans to come aboard. I had so far been reluctant the make a prediction about my ETA in Florida, because I was never really sure how far I'd get each day. Upon leaving Oriental I still had about 600 miles to go until St. Augustine, but I hadn't really been making the 50 to 60 miles per day that I had hoped. The major decision now was whether to continue down the ICW to Charleston or to head out into the Atlantic via the Winyah Bay Inlet and re-join the ICW via the Charleston Harbour Inlet. This option would actually add about 10 miles to the trip, but would almost certainly be faster, but more importantly, would almost certainly be a more enjoyable sail than another day listening to the motor burn my money. It also included the possibility of continuing further to Port Royal Inlet or even Tybee Roads Inlet to the Savannah River in Georgia. So once again, I was up before dawn and on the move as the sun came up. I had to let my dock lines thaw out in the sun before I could coil them up to put away. The tide was at high slack, so there wasn't much current to speak of so good time was made up to the only opening bridge of the day, which I hit at exactly the right time, for a change. As I entered the Waccamaw River, which constitutes the biggest portion of this section, the flood tide was just coming to an end. Because this end of the river is so far from the ocean, the strength of the current was minimal and it gradually turned to an ebb by early afternoon. It was even kind of pretty. Lined with mangroves and mostly devoid of civilization (in stark contrast to the Grand Stand), one got the illusion of travelling in a warm environment (not supported by the actual temperature). Then things got really good, the current got stronger and stronger all afternoon (in the right direction) as the river drained on the falling tide, the sun warmed the air in the cockpit to a balmy 15 °C, and the wind picked up just as the river widened and deepened enough to unfurl the jib and motorsail the last 10 miles to Georgetown. I had already covered the 50 miles planned for today by 2 pm! So it occurred to me, why stop? The forecast was perfect for ocean sailing, and had been so for days and the timing worked out much better than leaving in the morning, putting me in Charleston early in the morning rather than just after dark. And I'd gain a whole day by sailing through the night. Perfect. So off I headed to sea. The tremendous tide and wind shot me out the shipping channel at speeds as fast as 11.5 mph (a new record for Bacon), and I was in the Atlantic, under sail, on my way south long before sunset. I didn't have to make a destination decision just yet, as all points south required me to round Cape Romaine. By the time I'd done this, I'd given some thought to my options. Again, everything fell into place nicely. If I steered for Tybee Roads, I would arrive at the sea buoy around noon the next day. This seemed to be a better plan than entering busy and unfamiliar Charleston Harbour in the pre-dawn darkness. Besides, fortuitous geography put the Charleston entrance and the Port Royal entrance directly in my path, so I had two options to pull the chute if I decided I'd had enough. This would really make up some time, and literally skip the remainder of South Carolina, which is apparently all bogs, swamps, forests, strong tides, and shoally inlets anyway (seen enough of all that already). The course to Savannah put me on a dead run so I set the sails wing-on-wing with the main on a preventer and the genoa on a pole. This is a great set for night sailing because there is no trimming to do, the boat rides perfectly flat, no spray, no crashing waves, and virtually no noticeable wind in the cockpit. Can't even accidental gybe - idiotproof. Sailing in the ocean is a wonderful change from motoring in the ICW. Once the sails are set and the autopilot engaged, there is really very little to do as long as the wing and seas hold true. This cold front brought in some very steady and predictably northwest and north 10-20 knot winds, so sailing was a breeze (pun intended). Coming from offshore the sea has very little fetch to accumulate swell, so the relatively brisk winds were accompanied by relatively gentle 2-4 foot seas. Even better, the waves follow from behind at a speed just a bit faster than the boat so each one gives you a little push as you surf down the face. This can make steering difficult as the boat tends to corkscrew in the troughs, but that's the autopilot's problem. Out in the ocean, things happen on the scale of hours, not minutes, so your constant attention is not required. You can leave the helm, go below decks, prepare a meal, read, go to the bathroom, fix some things, change clothes, even sleep. It's very relaxing. There isn't a lot of ship traffic this close to shore so really, piloting becomes a matter of periodically scanning the horizon for ships, checking the course, checking the sail trim, checking position and speed, and re-calculating ETA. The half hour or so in between those checks is free time. So I used some this time to read ahead about my possible destinations, since up until now, they had still been days away in the future. I hadn't even cracked that section of the guide books yet. By the time I passed the Charleston Inlet, I had determined that my better-than-anticipated speed would put me at Tybee Roads at the maximum ebb. That's not good. Motoring back in to the ICW would be a battle. I'd be to the sea entrance in good time, but would spend the rest of the day getting back in off the ocean. How would it work out if I went to the next good inlet, I wondered. So I did some reading, and determined that the next stop on the tour would be the St. Simon's inlet, near the south of Georgia. That's another big bite, and I was still a long way from being done chewing and swallowing what I'd already bitten off. It would mean sailing all through the next day and into the night, but boy, what great progress. By now I'd already had a good dinner and had determined that sleep was not going to be a problem, even in the cold. I found that if I snuggled up in my sleeping bag on the cockpit cushion, I could stay warm, grab a few winks, and still maintain an adequate vigil as my boat hurled me through the night all on its own, peeling off the miles hour after hour. Furthermore, the course to St. Simon was only 10 degrees of my current course, AND the wind had veered by about that much so I didn't even have to change my sail set. No-brainer. Off to St. Simon we go! So long South Carolina, so long most of Georgia, bye-bye latitude. Maybe it's warm somewhere down here. I discovered that another bonus of ocean sailing is that it provides significant relief from the biting cold. As I listened to the NOAA weather broadcasts, it was all about frozen water lines, tropical plants, and homeless people, with wind-chills in the teens (Fahrenheit) - on land. Out in the ocean, it was just a frosty few degrees above freezing. Not bad. No worse than any other night this week. As the sun came up I was treated to a spectacular sunrise out over the Atlantic with absolutely nothing else in sight. I was about thirty miles offshore, but could have been a thousand. It was a bit unsettling during the night to not see anything but darkness and stars. No moon, no nav aids, no boats, not even lights on shore since land was well below the horizon in all directions by now. But daybreak was beautiful, and the sun warmed the cockpit rapidly. I treated myself to a delicious bacon omelette breakfast and started thinking about how to spend my day off. It was like a Sunday morning at the cottage. As I passed the Tybee Roads entrance I did encounter a large container ship crossing my path as it made its way back to China for another load of crap for the Americans. The process of colliding with a large ship on the ocean takes place over the course of about an hour, starting with spotting a small speck on the horizon, then identifying it as a ship, then determining if it's getting closer, then assessing if a collision is possible, then imminent, then taking evasive action, if necessary. Well, all that played out while I was cooking breakfast, until finally I had to turn off the stove and do something to avoid being run over by a ship. One disadvantage of the wing-on-wing sail set is that it does not allow for any course other than straight down wind at full speed. I'd have to gybe to duck this ship. I tried hailing the ship several times on the VHF, but the captain must either have been sleeping or did not speak English well enough to recognize that it was he that I was hailing. Once the ship got close enough to read the lettering, I hailed it by name. Then he answered. Despite the language barrier, we did, ultimately determine that yes, we were on a collision course. He then offered to change his course to duck me! How about that. Thousand-foot-long, billion-pound, 25-knot, mega freighter steps aside for little old Bacon. Nice. Gonna' be a good day. Hmmm....I wonder what Florida's like this time of year. I'm already halfway there. Time to break out the next guide book. Turns out that Florida has a number of very good inlets, and low-and-behold, the first few aren't THAT much further than St. Simons, and on the same course. Didn't really want to negotiate St. Simons in the dark anyway, and St. John's River is really easy to navigate, and the ICW is just a few miles inside, and there's lots of marinas right there, and the timing would mean a daylight arrival on a rising tide. I'd already done one overnight, I was well rested and the wind, waves, temperature, boat, and sprits were all holding up quite well. Why not? Then I'd be there. In one fell swoop, I'd be in Florida! Boom, just knocked off 380 miles of ICW travel. That represents about eight days of travelling! I could pick up dad. Won't he be surprised. So, slight course change, same sail set, and we're headed for Jacksonville. The Georgia ICW is not supposed to be very friendly for deep-draft sailboats anyway. Ya' know what is though? The ocean. It is glaringly apparent that this is what this boat is designed to do. Bacon actually seems happier when sailing than when motoring. Motoring is a chore, sailing is a ride. It's amazing how quickly things can change though. I guess if this trip has taught me anything, it's that. In fact, I should probably learn to expect it. If things are going really well, something bad is about to happen. So as I am sitting in the warm afternoon sun, enjoying the fact that despite a drop in wind we're still making excellent time, literally typing up this blog entry about how good things are going, it happened. Suddenly the autopilot sounds different. That, and the wheel's not moving. And the boat is sailing in a large arc back toward where we came from. Uh oh. So I grabbed the wheel and get us back on course and began to assess. The autopilot motor is turning but nothing's happening. Also, the wheel is very hard to turn. This could be big trouble. Maybe that crab trap rope that's still snagged in the rudder from Delaware has finally cause a steering failure. A little more investigation revealed that it was the autopilot itself that was jamming the steering. Luckily (?) I've had trouble with the autopilot in the past (as recently as yesterday), so I now knew how to quickly get it disconnected from the steering. However, to do so, requires removing the steering wheel. This might be a challenge while under full sail wing-on-wing out in the Atlantic. I guess there's nothing to hit if things go badly. So I loosened the big nut, got the boat on as steady a course as I could, locked down the helm, pulled the wheel, frantically jiggled the autopilot from its poorly designed mount, tossed it on the cockpit sole, got the wheel aligned and back on, and then unlock the helm. All in about ten seconds. Would have made an Indy pit crew proud. I've got steering again, but no autopilot. Then the gravity of that fact set in. The relaxing luxury that that I've been enjoying has been due in no small part to the fact that the autopilot has been doing all the steering for over 24 hours now. I can't even fix it, ironically, because I have to steer. Now my scale of hours has been reduced to seconds. Sailing downwind in a following sea requires constant steering correction. Upwind you can balance the helm and leave it alone. Downwind, requires large turns of the wheel as the boats corkscrews down each wave. I literally can't let go of the wheel. If I do, within seconds the jib will be back-winded or the main will be gybed against the preventer, each one causing the boat to turn harshly, almost beyond the ability of the rudder to correct it. It's actually really hard to drive straight in open water. With no visual reference, you can't tell if the boat is turning, or which way. It's very disorienting. You have to sit and stare at the compass. What's worse, is that it's about to get dark, and I've committed myself to another 10 hours, at least, of sailing. No more sleeping, no more eating, aside from whatever I can grab in a few seconds from the fridge, no more reading, no more anything except chronic staring at the compass. This won't do. I won't be able to sail on a dead run without being able to see the sails. Gotta' gybe the main, and put her onto a broad reach. Probably won't be able to hold my intended course, but the steering will be much easier. The problem is, to do that, I've got to go out onto the foredeck to release the preventer. Now another grim reality sets in. Not only did the autopilot provide me with the luxury of leaving the helm, it is an absolute necessity when leaving the cockpit. So now the foredeck work goes like this: set as steady a course as possible, run over and open the canvas, run back and fix the course, run over and clip in, run back and fix the course, run out onto the deck and do something for a few seconds, run back in and fix the course, then repeat until whatever needed to be done gets done. It's exhausting. It took me almost an hour to get the main down. This was a decision I made when it became apparent that the broad reach I wanted was too close to a run and the main was starving the genoa. Besides, there was also the very real possibility that at some point during the night I would dose off and let the boat sail by the lee and accidental gybe the main and break something. Safer to have it down, and to get it down in daylight. At least with the jib alone I have some options that I can exercise from within the cockpit if the wind picked up or shifted, or something else went wrong. Furling, reefing, tacking, and gybing are all pretty easy under jib alone. Besides, I've learned that Bacon generally happier under jib alone on a broad reach anyway. That's how we did the whole Jersey shore. Fortuitously, the wind had backed a bit so the broad reach ended up being the right point of sail for my course anyway. I wouldn't have to gybe back and forth as I'd expected. By dark, the wind had dropped, so I fired up the motor to keep the boat speed up and motorsailed through the evening. The motor actually stabilized the steering quite a bit, so eventually I got to the point where it was steady enough to be able to let go of the wheel for a minute or more to attend to whatever needed attending to. By midnight, however, I was starting to get the nods. Focussing on the compass in the darkness was having a strong hypnotizing effect. Between long blinks the boat would drift way off course and I would snap to suddenly and get her straightened out. My track must have looked like a big zig-zag across the ocean. That certainly wasn't helping us get where we're going. So now what am I going to do? I can't keep my eyes open, and there is still over 20 miles to go. Also, it seems that despite all this, I am going to arrive at the inlet earlier than anticipated, just as the current is at its maximum ebb. It would be wise to stop or slow down, but without the main I can't heave to, without the autopilot I can't hoist the main, especially since the wind has now returned, and it's too deep to throw the anchor. I can drift. Sure, why not? I'm headed more-or-less downwind anyways. Even if I drifted for several hours, I'd still be in a position to set back on a broad or beam reach when I started sailing again. Probably a better point of sail too. So I furled the jib, locked the rudder, and curled up for some much-needed shut-eye, doing the usual periodic scans for oncoming vessels. Interestingly (and fortuitously) when left entirely to the mercy of the wind and sea, Bacon sets herself sideways to the wind and sails on hull and rigging with just enough forward way to combine with the drift to a course just broad of a dead run. Precisely the course I was working so hard to follow, just slower (at about 2-3 mph in a 25-35 knot wind). How lucky. So I slept on and off until it started getting light. It was a bit uncomfortable as the boat rocked vigorously while sideways to the waves. It actually bounced me off the bench onto the cockpit sole once. Meanwhile, we covered 8 miles directly toward our destination while doing absolutely nothing . Now rested, I was in good shape for a few more hours of sailing by the compass. I started the motor just to speed things up and to help stabilize the steering. Within a few minutes though, I heard that old familiar rev then stall. Now what? Simple problem: When I started the motor with bulky ski gloves on, I must have accidentally flipped the new fuel pump off. Easy to diagnose and fix, but I still had to bleed the engine. I'm getting pretty good at it, but it's a challenge to do while the boat bobs around in the sea, which had picked up a bit in the night. That fixed, and again I'm underway. Soon I was within sight of the entrance channel buoys which made steering much easier with something to steer toward. Just inside, the jetties was the Mayport Marina, so I stopped there for fuel and a rest while I stood on firm ground and took stock. Called dad, made some plans and then headed back out into the St. John's River to take advantage of the incoming flood to venture another 17 miles to Jacksonville. On top of the fast current, wind was good and the traffic was light so I enjoyed a nice sail, making short work of the trip. Much nicer sailing when you can see things. I even had some dolphins doing Marineland-style jumps and flips ahead of the boat. I am now anchored in Jacksonville, where I'll be for at least a few days, waiting for dad, fixing the autopilot, and making preparations for the next leg. Dad and I are planning to head back to sea for the run down to Cape Canaveral.