Odd thoughts on the overnight passage
Wednesday December 2 – Thursday December 3, 2020
Wednesday morning in Beaufort was very cold. When we came to take the oars off the dinghy prior to deflating it, the metal stung our hands. I started to think we were crazy to be undertaking this overnight voyage. It seemed that no amount of clothing would be able to keep us warm. Once we got underway at noon, the warmth of the sun was helping to dispel the chill. The air still seemed cold to me.
We sailed the outer part of the channel leaving Port Royal inlet and continued sailing down the coast of South Carolina and Georgia until the dropping wind reduced our speed to about 3 knots. We had some 96 nautical miles to cover on the offshore section and felt we needed to make more than 5 knots to arrive in daylight with favorable current at the entrance. If we travelled much faster than 6 knots we would arrive at St. Mary’s inlet in darkness—never the greatest!
River of Jellyfish
Once we turned onto our correct course, we started to notice large numbers of jellyfish in the water. Every couple of feet there was another jellyfish (not the translucent ones we know up north but brownish in color). The shocking thing was that this river of jellies went on for more than an hour—probably nearly 10 miles. In one of those David Attenborough wildlife documentaries, he talked about what is left in the oceans once all the fish are gone—Jellyfish. It’s hard not to be a bit disturbed by what we saw....
Ship Sandwich
As we neared Tybee inlet (leads up to Savannah) we saw, on the horizon, a parade of large commercial shipping. We were concerned about one inbound container ship in particular. If we could maintain our speed (while sailing) we thought we should be able to cross in front of this vessel. What we weren’t paying attention to was an outbound container ship...
It was starting to look like Cotinga might become the filling in a ship sandwich! We had to start motoring (at high revs) to get across the shipping lanes. I was very glad that we still had daylight at that point. (As Mike points out, even in the dark we wouldn’t have had any trouble spotting these vessels on the radar!)
As for the cold
Darkness fell and the night seemed very long. While it wasn’t exactly warm, it was not nearly as cold as I had feared. Mike admitted that he had on a T-shirt, a light fleece, a heavy fleece, a hooded sweatshirt, a puffy jacket AND his foul weather jacket... Interestingly, as we motored into the St. Mary’s inlet we noted a precipitous drop in temperature. Motoring into the north wind was no help either!
Once we were anchored near the town of St. Mary’s (Georgia), we ate a celebratory breakfast. We noticed a strange humming sound that seemed to be emanating from the mast. Much discussion, concern over the rig and general commotion resulted. We thought it might be the backstay (too tight?) but as we had not adjusted it we were baffled. Then Mike remembered that he had put in a reef overnight (wind gusts to 19 knots) and pulled the boom down with the vang. The result was that the topping lift was drum tight and vibrating in the wind. That’s one less weird noise to worry about.
Gloria
30 43.017 N, 81 33.176 W
Additional note from Mike:
The first half of this passage was amongst the best we have experienced. Winds were light , the seas were really flat and we were making adequate progress under sail. The sunset was spectacular and I enjoyed using the camera and tripod for some shots after dark. I also saw the best moonrise I have ever seen. It was my turn on watch and Gloria was in the cabin resting. I looked over my shoulder and saw a red light – my first reaction was “crikey” a red navigation light really close, how did that vessel sneak up on us? But it was the moon, one or two days past full, starting to rise above the horizon. Gradually the full face of the “man in the moon” appeared crystal clear, slightly squashed, tilted to one side and bright red. His chin dripped molten red onto the horizon as he finally emerged. I have never before seen anything like this … and in case you’re wondering I was not using a scopolamine patch!
As Gloria mentioned the winds dropped and went astern in the late afternoon and we ended up motor- sailing for a few hours, but after midnight they strengthened from our port quarter and we sailed on a broad reach the rest of the way. Inevitably as the winds picked up so did the seas and the last few hours were quite bumpy.
Sailing under moonlit skies - on a clear night with almost full moon you can see reasonably well. The lights inside the cabin are red to preserve night vision (we don't keep them on)
The sun rises through the clouds as we enter the St Mary's Inlet (Cumberland Sound)
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