Nautical Miles Travelled: 84
Total Trip Miles: 834

"Calling all vessels, all channels, all vessels all channels, this is the United States Coast Guard Charleston South Carolina, break. We have a Search And Rescue emergency distress beacon that has been energized at coordinates...all vessels are advised to proceed in this area with extreme caution, report anything if seen and assist if possible." "Roger that Coast guard this is sailing vessel Soul Purpose, we are currently transiting that area approximately 6 miles west of the reported SAR signal, please advise if you need our assistance, we show an unidentified vessel on our radar approximately 4 miles South East of the reported SAR coordinates..."
More on that later.

Today marks a day that was unusual, exciting, unplanned and adventurous at the same time. It's funny how a simple event can change the course of the rest of your day... We rose from a great nights sleep with relatively low ambitions for the day. We joined a parade of boats out of the harbor where we waited for a 9 am bridge opening (opens after rush hour). After proceeding through, about 30 minutes later we had passed all of the boats in the parade, yet another reason it's great to have a catamaran, 2 engines! We put the sails up and were enjoying some brisk cruising through the sunny SC countryside along the protected intracoastal waterway. Because we blew away the other boats heading down the waterway today we completely missed a turn that would have kept us on the intracoastal. I was obliviously sailing along while the ships navigator (Rachel) was on the phone trying to fix her computer with corporate IS. By the time we realized we missed the turn we were already headed towards an outlet that would take us back to open water. We did some research, checked the coastal weather and decided it was safe and would actually put us ahead of schedule. We rode a narrow channel out and had an amazing few hours of sailing directly downwind. We had 6 to 8 foot waves but we were travelling with them and in fact surfed them up to 13.6 kts! We had the Gennaker (big sail) out and the sun was blazing. That's when we heard the Coast Guard transmission. We were the only boat in any direction even remotely close to the SAR signal. We informed them of our position and all kinds of details about ourselves and boat and then they asked us if we would alter course and investigate since they were a couple hours away from having a boat on scene. Before we knew it we had the Coast Guard, a tug boat and a freighter all talking about Soul Purpose and coordinating efforts with us. We worked to triangulate a search area radius and calculate potential drift based on wind, waves and current. I can just imagine what all the people we have met along the way this trip were thinking hearing the whole ordeal over the calling channel 16 (what everyone monitors) and Coast Guard Channel 22A. Unfortunately both our search and the Coast Guard's was unsuccessful which means the boat may have sunk with the SAR beacon. Later that afternoon a boat was reported missing so one can only assume from there... We felt good that we did all we could to help, but now had to face the reality that it would be dark before we even reached the outer channel to Hilton Head. We called around but no one had dock space available or they had already gone home for the day. As usual Rachel devised options. We decided against another night sail as conditions are supposed to be intense tonight, no thanks, not again. We ended up glued to our GPS, Radar and Thermal night vision screen yet again while we made our way into the Chechessee River. We are currently parked 100 yards off someone's front yard. Their porch lights were invaluable in helping us keep the boat oriented during anchoring in the blackness. You can see the river shoreline in the night vision camera video in the photo from today's blog. All in all a great day and certainly exciting. Time to grill up some grub and get a bit nice with a bottle of Jack!