Beaufort, NC to St. Mary's, GA
20 November 2007 | St. Mary's, GA
Donna

We left Beaufort Docks at 6.45am on Sunday and headed out into Beaufort inlet. The wind was gusty, 10 - 12 knots and there were 3' swells in the inlet. It was turning into a beautiful warm, sunny day and we pounded into the swells happy that we were finally seeing beautiful indigo colored water rather than the brown, muddy stuff we had been seeing over the last week. Over the course of the day the swell decreased significantly, but unfortunately so did the wind. We do not think that we have even seen our wind indicator display '0' for such long periods of time. We were starting to think that it had packed up working altogether, but no, occasionally we would see '1' or even '2'! Magic was a motor boat again.
Overnight we instigated our usual '2 hours on, 2 hours off' watch system. Our first overnight was uneventful, and on the morning of Day 2 we actually started to see a little more wind. It seemed perfect for our hardly used asymmetrical spinnaker! And it was for about ½ day. We were seeing between 3 - 4 knots and the spinnaker was giving us at least ½ knot of additional speed. But by the afternoon the wind died again completely and we were once more left with the iron sail and the main only.
Our 2nd night out was also uneventful. The nights had been stunning; calm and warm with a sky full of stars. We had the company of the moon until about 2am giving a wonderful light reflected on the water. But after the moon set the darkness was almost a physical presence that could be touched. Occasionally we would see a light from another boat but apart from that there was no other ambient light at all. The peace was wonderful!
By the morning of the 3rd day (Tuesday) our indigo seas had been replaced by water of a lovely milky emerald color. By 1pm we were heading into the Cumberland Sound and towards St. Mary's. By 2.15pm we were anchored in the river and busy trying to tidy up Magic after our 55 hour run. The passage itself had been uneventful but we had made great progress and had saved weeks by going offshore rather than trudging down the ICW. We now had a couple of days to recover and enjoy the famous Thanksgiving dinner in St. Mary's. More of that to come!