Saltier Every Day

I finished my first overnight sea passage yesterday afternoon. Amazingly, nothing broke and no one got hurt or seasick. So this is going to be a very boring post. The lack of excitement was likely due to my choice of weather window. Nothing more than 5-10 knot winds were called for. I've been the victim of bad weather predictions more than once. Most recently, on my first day out of Hilton Head when the NWS called for northerly 10-15 knot winds. Those winds turned out to be easterly and more like 15-20. The swells built up quite large on the long fetch across the ocean that day.

I figured that if the weekend weather predictions were wrong, I'd either be motoring down the coast in no wind, or having a speedy sail in 10-15 knot wind. I didn't think the NWS could get it so wrong that I'd be caught in a gale. As it was, they were pretty much on target and we proceeded down the coast at about walking pace. As Ross mentioned in the comments, this would have been ideal conditions for some fishing, but alas my pole is broken.

I left Sapelo Sound at dawn on Saturday and sailed until about 7pm. I tossed out an anchor in about 15 ft depths and slept for a few hours. I awoke around 11, had coffee and sailed from 12-4 am. The stars were pretty on a moonless night and I saw a few shooting stars. Anchored and slept a few more hours, then sailed until reaching Florida in the afternoon.

Most singlehanders would have had their autopilot running and sailed through the night, taking cat naps. My boat still requires active steering, and besides, I felt a lot safer anchored in shallow water while I slept. There's little chance of being run over by a freighter in 15 foot of water.

Pic is of the beer coozies I was given in Hilton Head. The dockmaster must have thought that I would be drinking a lot of beer and needing a tow. Neither was the case this weekend, as I ran out of beer earlier in the week.