We left St. Mary’s inlet in GA and had a nice current helping us along. 

We departed Cumberland Island at 10:00 AM and started off at a strong 9 knots from the inlet. The wind was lighter than expected so we motored/motorsailed most of the day. Then a string of storms began chasing us.

Furled in the sails and waited for this little ‘white out’ to catch up. This is the view directly behind us….

And the view directly in front of us….

This is the second round of storms; not particularly scary. This brought winds up to 25 knots

At least we had a beautiful sunset. Mike was down below cooking.

During our night watches, we could make out large storm clouds passing around us. On my 1 AM – 5 AM shift I felt the winds pick up and a torrential downpour hit. For the umpteenth time I hid my chin under the fuzzy collar and internally thanked Mike for buying me a new set of foulies before we left Boston in 2015. The waves were rocking the boat at an uncomfortable angle. After slipping a few times and having a hell of time jibing, I called Mike up for another set of hands and as encouragement. After experiencing the lightening back in Georgia, I hit my ‘sailing wall’. I knew where I drew the line and that was at lightening storms. It was only raining at that moment but I still felt rattled and insecure, knowing that lightening could strike at any moment. It was pitch black and all I could see were the running lights on cargo ships coming in to port and black masses of clouds that moved in giant herds overhead. I was on my feet for my entire watch. I was so relieved to see Mike appear on deck early and say ‘tag’, our term for ‘okay, I’ll take over now, you’re watch is over’.

Mike must have downed an entire pot of coffee because he took over from 5 AM until we anchored in Charleston. It was fun coming into the harbor… oddly, there were a lot of similarities between Charleston and Boston…

Ecuador’s 3 masted Barque Guayas