We are back!

We are back! After getting successfully through the winds and squalls in Green Turtle Cay, we dropped the mooring on Sat. morning and left to sail to Great Sale Cay and wait to leave for States on Monday.  After arriving we decided to leave along with another boat on Sunday afternoon instead. This was a poor choice. We should have gone with our original plan.

The winds were light  at first so we motor sailed up past Mantinilla Shoal and out into the Atlantic after dark on Sunday night where we had a bumpy ride in large swells with shifting wind direction all night long keeping us from getting much sleep at all. Monday the wind was again light and we finally decided to motor due west to the Gulf Stream in hopes of getting some assistance from the current. Well that worked and we motor sailed at over 8 kts the rest of the day and through the night until on Tuesday about 5 a.m. we exited the Gulf Stream to turn toward Charleston. The winds were pretty much non existent at that point and without the current to help we just slowly motored north. It made for a slow go. 

The good new was that with such a flat and quiet sea we both could catch up on some much needed sleep. The best part was we had 3 different groups of dolphins meet up with us and swim along in Spunky's bow waves for quite some time welcoming us back. The first group had about 4 or 5 large dolphins and the second and third groups were smaller but each had 7. They would gather at the bow and swim along side Spunky just under the surface and then come out of the water and swim off to the side. They are so graceful and keep pace so effortlessly.  We also saw 6 huge sea turtles swimming past.

 The bad news was that without wind it took us til after 11:00 pm to reach the harbor entrance in Charleston and we did not reach our anchorage until midnight. We were both exhausted and it was challenging to find a spot to drop the anchor in the dark. 

This morning we moved into Charleston City Marina and filled fuel and water tanks and washed all the salt off Spunky. We are trying to take it a little easy. We have heard from another boat that the ICW is quite shallow in spots north of Charleston. We had planned to take off Friday and go up the ICW to avoid the 30 kt. winds forecast off shore for Thursday and Friday. Now we are not sure what we will do. We will have to try to get through the shallow areas at mid to high tide and timing that can be iffy. Then we must go outside again at Winyah Bay or Cape Fear to bypass a bridge at Snow's Cut which is being worked on so that we can no longer fit under it. We will sail overnight and come back inside at Beaufort, NC and then stay on the ICW the rest of the way back.

Things are never easy. However the weather today here is beautiful and warm. We are hopeful that Spring has indeed arrived and we shall be back in the Chesapeake soon. 

Look forward to hearing from everyone on your springtime/summer plans.

E and J