Charleston, SC — 11•12•24
After spending a week at the Charleston Maritime Center Marina, it was time to get going again. My crew had left, and it seemed like a good window to run to St. Augustine, FL. I moved Trouble out of the marina at slack tide and anchored in front of the Yorktown again for an early departure the next morning.
11•13•24 0500 — Engines on, anchor up, and riding the ebb tide out of Charleston. Reload N Charge was going to head out with me, but he had instrument issues and followed an hour later.
It would be an overnight passage and a gentle sail with following seas and wind. I was trying to time my entrance into St. Augustine on a flood tide, as the wind and waves were supposed to pick up, and the inlet channel is notorious for being nasty with wind against current.
11•14•24 1100 — St. Augustine Deep Water Buoy
I was a bit early to the St. Augustine Deep Water Buoy. Heading up to the buoy, I heard some broken-up chatter on the VHF radio about a man overboard and the sheriff’s department trying to help a boat. As I got closer, I heard a boat called Moon Shadow on the radio entering the channel, and the sheriff’s department was keeping an eye on them. They seemed to make it in. I didn’t hear anything else about the man overboard, so I suspect they got him back on board. I radioed Moon Shadow to get the conditions in the channel. His words back to me were, “I’m not gonna lie, that was pretty bad.” That was not reassuring.
Inlet Chaos
I prepped Trouble for the worst. This would not be our first rodeo in big seas in a channel. I headed Trouble into the mess ahead of me. I knew her tendencies—good and bad—in these conditions. The first set of waves, she rose up on the stern and took off on a surf— I looked at the speed and saw 12 knots. My biceps are burning, gripping the wheel, trying to keep her true. She was doing great, and I was thinking I could ride this wave all the way in, but I couldn’t hold her any longer, and she spun out of the wave. No problem, I thought, and got her under control before the next wave came. By then, we were out of the worst of it, and the surfing wasn’t as long. I got in fine, made the bridge, and stopped at the fuel dock to top off before going to my mooring assignment.
While all that was exciting, I was pretty calm about it and kind of hyped up as I enjoyed my passage cheeseburger and beer at OC White’s.
I texted Reload N Charge about the conditions and reassured him it might be better since I was a bit early coming in, and his entrance should be calmer. It wasn’t any better, but he made it in OK. Later that night, over a couple of beers, he told me he had heard the man-overboard calls and thought it might have been me. I had a few days of rest before my next leg.