Charleston to St. Augustine

by Bill
Well, we left Charleston in the morning with the outgoing tide.  It had been a weekend of celebrating the 150th year since the initial battle of that terrible historical event known as the Civil War. That initial battle happened in Charleston, more specifically at fort Sumter. Several re-enactments have taking place with cannons firing daily. Luckily none fired at us as we passed the fort.

It was a great sail leaving the harbor and inlet. The forecast and grib files indicated the weather should be good for our initial leg south to Florida. We were hoping to make it to at least Fernandina or if speeds were good, maybe St Augustine with only one night at sea. This shouldn’t bee too much trouble if we can sail the rhumb line which would take us over thirty miles offshore but still inside the Gulf Stream. 

Things were going well and Tribe was sailing along very comfortably at 7 to 8 kts with winds out of the southwest. As night began to set in the winds shifted further south and more on our nose causing our course to go further offshore – this actually added miles and time.  Later in the night the winds increase but also moved to the south east. All said, it caused us to make a decision to either point to Fernandina, with an arrival past sunset, or continue south for St. Augustine or Ponce de León. With the winds and seas building from the SE, not a good direction for entering Ponce de León, we decided to sail to St. Augustine. This meant arriving in the wee hours of the morning  so we would have to “heave to” offshore and enter in the morning. So we did.

In the morning we were lying about 12 miles offshore with winds and seas out of the SE.  It was an easy run into St. Augustine but the entrance was a real washing machine (to use one of Cole’s surfing terms), but we made it in without issue. We then looked for a place to anchor and clean up from the past two nights at sea.