Life inside your washing machine

This trip from Charleston, SC to Fernandina, FL on the outside was planned with the best intentions.

The forecasts all predicted winds of 5-10 knots from the NW going E. Waves of 1 - 2 feet. It looked great.

This trip would save us 8 days of travel through problem areas in SC and GA. We were all for that.

The forecast was right on -- that's what we found. BUT what we didn't consider and will never forget again is the effect of those mild seas and winds and the ride. They were beam on for 12 hours which caused the boats to roll from side to side sometimes very aggressively.

We left Charleston Harbour or tried to on the Ebb tide but met 2 large container ships at the start of the inlet. We waited for them to pass rather than try to negotiate with them in a crowded waterway.

That cost us an hour. Then out we went with mild swells. It was not uncomfortable. We had that ride till dark then the wind increased to 7 - 10 knots which caused us to roll some. There wasn't enough wind to fill my sail so we had to take the roll, otherwise the sail would have dampened it.

When we approached the Savannah River entrance we found several large AIS targets. Mainly container ships on anchor waiting to enter Savannah. We also had a few large ships under way. Boy I'm glad I have an AIS transducer on board. These boats could see and read my track. We were on a first name basis too.

Once through that mess we headed 20 miles to the next way point. On this leg the wind came up and we started to roll uncomfortably. Once pass that point I decided to make a run on the Rhumb line to the last point at Fernandina. This both shortened the ride and gave me a better angle on the swells but pushed me further offshore. That worked for 2 hours until the winds went light again and then I had to bring sail in and we started to roll again. It was tough and a VERY LONG night.

The near full moon helped in that we could see a lot on the water but it disappeared behind clouds about an hour before dawn. Man it was DARK then.

Once the sun came up we felt better but still the hours of rolling was really wearing everyone down.

Ohh we had a roll call every hour on the hour after dark with Skat and Victoria Gaye. That worked very well. We were all within 1/4 mile of each other until the last 4 hours when we all tried different approaches to minimize the rolling -- nothing worked very well.

We are all anchored here in Fernandina and plan to spend a few days here and Cumberland Island before moving on.

No get together tonight as we all try to recover from this marathon voyage. I won't do this again until we cross to the Bahamas in December.

We had the roll all the way to the end of the inlet in Fernandina. We anchored in Bell River in Fernandina and the smooth calm water never felt better.

After a little reorganization and Sun Showers I tried to do a few other things but I started to hallucinate -- I had been up for 35 hours by this time. I thought a large mound of mud was a ship coming in when it was just a large mound of mud -- not moving.