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January 11-15 So we did an epic run from Beaufort SC to Jacksonville FL - an overnight the 12-13th, which all in all was pretty epic in it’s speed and uneventful in and of itself, but leading up to the trip was a bit of a snafu.
When we got up in the morning on the 10th, we pulled our anchor from our lovely anchorage at Lady’s Bridge, and after a very favorable opening, we pulled up to the free town dock for a day in Beaufort.  I have to say that one of the most amazing things has been the number of free docks we have encountered that are provided by the towns to make it more conducive for boaters to stop and enjoy their cities.  Most of these docks do have restrictions on how long you can stay, and most don’t provide water or electricity like at a marina, but for the most part they are centrally located to the town, which is great.  We all scored $1 HOT showers at the adjacent marina and then we set about our tasks for the day.  It was beautifully warm, tanktop and yoga pants for me and t-shirt and shorts for Bri. Brian and Martijn spent some time working on the refrigeration issue, which continues to plague us.  We had it serviced in Charleston, only to have it not stop running… at all. Turns out that the serviceman just kind of hardwired it, which is all well and good in that finally the compressor was running, but of course, draining our batteries, and it’s not good for the compressor to run constantly.  Unfortunately, the system’s still not right, and despite the best efforts of the guys (who at this point I believe can fix just about anything between the two of them) we had to turn the freezer off and we were getting error messages on the display - something about short cycling. We decided to take a walk into Beaufort to see a little of the town, and to grab a quick bite to eat.  On the recommendation of one of the horse drawn carriage drivers, a really nice guy named Don, we walked down the main street and grabbed a terrific burger at a local place called Luther’s.  We walked around the street a little, exploring some of the shops, and then headed back to the boat with the plan of purchasing ice at the marina.  Unfortunately for us, we didn’t realize that the marina closed at 5, and so when we arrived back at 5:15…oops, no luck.  We walked back over to the dock trying to come up with a plan on how we could get some ice to put into the freezer so that we could preserve the food we’d put in there.  As we were about to make the 2 mile rt trek over to the Piggly Wiggly, the closest place we could get ice, we encountered Mike and Sailor (his Jack Russell Terrier) loading up their dinghy… with a 10lb bag of ice.  I said hello, and made a comment about the fact that we were about to hoof it over to the Piggly Wiggly - Oscar in tow - and Mike said “here take my truck”  I nearly fell off the dock.  I mean, we’d spoken with him for all of about two minutes, and here he was, offering to let us use his truck!  He assured us he was happy to lend it to us, told us to drop the keys in his dinhy on the way out to anchor (he was moored in the closest boat, a beautiful Morgan ketch) and sent us on our way!  We decided to divide and conquer, and Brian stayed at the boat to finish up a couple of projects while I ran over to the store.  When I got back, the guys had fixed a couple of other things, and were discussing our plans for the trip to Jacksonville.  Martijn cast off, and went to anchor Rotop, and just as Brian and I fired up the engine to do the same, with a pass by to drop off Mike’s keys, Mike arrived back at the dock for a bio break for Sailor.  We chatted for a few minutes about the plans he and his wife had for cruising in the future, and we said a cheerful goodbye and thanks and went out to anchor.  our plan was to anchor near Rotop, and get up in the AM to catch the tide out at 11  and head off with Martijn to make the run to Jacksonville.  However, unlike our anchorage at Lady’s Bridge the night before, our anchorage in the Beaufort harbor was not peaceful.  We had a terrible night’s sleep if you could even call it that.  We groggily dragged ourselves out of bed at 8 - I think neither of us had slept more than a couple of hours - and stuck our heads out of the companionway hatch.  Foggy, rainy and grim… and then CRAP the center slat for our companionway, the heavy lexan one, went sliding off the side of the boat… and sunk.  Now also during our time ashore at Beaufort, Brian shaved his head (he looks really cute ) so bless his heart, now that he has no hair, he jumped into his swim trunks dropped a line over the side, and took a dive to see if he could find the companionway slat.  Grrr… no luck, 18′+ below us there was no way.  At about this point, Martijn paddled over to us to see what we were doing, and we told him about our predicament.  “No worries,” he said. “There’s a construction site just next to the marina, and when I was walking around yesterday I saw a dumpster with some scraps in it, let me paddle in and see if I can find something you can use to replace it until you can get a real slat or piece of wood to make a permanent solution!”  So off he went, and Bri got into real clothes and we went to pull anchor and motor in to meet Martijn… except that we forgot that there was a line over the side - which promptly wrapped itself around the propeller just as we started to motor in. I quickly dropped the anchor again - very nervous because we were close to other boats and in a mooring field - and Brian went below into the aft cabin to see if he could spin the line off of the prop by turning the shaft… enough to loosen it, but not enough to get it all the way unwound.  Poor Bri, suited up this time in his wetsuit, and went for his second swim of the day.  Just as he was about to get in the water Martijn came back to the boat, wondering what had happened to us, since he’d been waiting at the dock with a piece of scrap plywood that was big enough for the slat.  Brian went down, and with a few twists, was able to unwrap the line from the propeller.  Unfortunately, the line wasn’t so happy, but at least it was cleared of the prop.  Martijn went back to his boat while Bri dried off and we went for anchor pulling #2 of the day and headed into the dock to make our new slat.  Martijn paddled back in and we all decided that perhaps it would be a smarter plan for us to motor the 10+ miles we needed to go to get to the mouth of the Port Royal Sound and anchor there at in Cowen’s Creek and all try to get a good night’s sleep before taking the offshore route… so at 1PM we fired up the engine, Martijn pulled his anchor, and we headed over to Cowen’s Creek.  When we arrived, another boat that had been with us both in Charleston and in Beaufort, Tarsie, was already at anchor and we both joined them in the peaceful cove.  We had a nap - to make up for our terrible night’s sleep - and then Martijn joined us for dinner and we mapped out our plan for the morning… a 9:30 AM departure to maximize the tides on both ends and we turned in for the night.
In the morning, we finished up our preparations, turned the Port berth into a pilot berth and just as we were about to pull anchor Tarsie came alongside to ask what our destination was, and whether we’d be interested in doing 3 hour radio checks with them on our way down to Jacksonville.  We said sure, and they headed out with Rotop behind them, and we hauled anchor and followed close behind.  We pulled out the genny, and shortly thereafter raised the main, with two reefs in it.  Great wind, warm, the waves were a bit to our side but mostly behind us, and we were off, sailing and making good speed, a pretty consistent 7.5kts with up to 8 and change at times with the wind and waves.  We sailed along doing our noon check in with Tarsie and Rotop.  At about 2 I went below to try to  get a little nap in, without much luck.  When  did the next radio check with Tarsie, they let us know that they had lost their starter battery, were dangerously low in  battery power overall, and asked if they could follow us down to Jacksonville.  We slowed our speed a little while they caught up with us, and continued on our way south.  We took shifts trying to nap, although I was the more fortunate of the two in that regard, I caught a couple of hours of sleep when Brian relieved me at 10PM, and when we switched at 2 he went below for some sleep.  Unfortunately, about an hour and change into my shift, we had a sudden wind shift that caused us to gybe unexpetcedly, and in the process of trying to correct our course and deal with the now backwinded Genny, I managed to get the Genny well fouled.  I had to call down to Brian (who had been awakened by Tarsie) to ask him to come up and steer while I tried to get the sail unfouled.  About an hour and a half later, with a variety of scenarios past, including both Brian and I up on the foredeck while the Autopilot steered and we tried to unfoul the sail, we had it furled most of the way in (although not prettily) and Bri went back below to try to sleep.  10 minutes after he went below, the Genny decided to pretty much unwrap, and in the process pretty much unfouled itself, however, we still had a line wrapped around at the bottom of the furler, so I had to call poor Bri back topsides while I went forward once again to get the sail unfouled.  After about 15 minutes, we had the sail cleared, the lines re-run  and all that remained to do was to make some adjustments to the furler once we had daylight.  As we came into Jacksonville we encountered a lot of big ship traffic, and one crazy ship that was lit up so much that we both thought it might be land! As dawn broke, we entered into the channel in Jacksonville, having bid farewell to the folks on Tarsie, who had decided to slow down and await daylight before calling Tow Boat US to bring them into the harbor.  We motored along the St. John’s river, passing Moran and actually getting to see a couple of Moran tugs in action as they brought the Liberty Ace (a HUGE container ship) in to dock.  We proceeded up to Trout River, where we’d agreed to meet up with Martijn, and dropped anchor, sent a spot called my parents who’d just returned from England to let them know we were OK, and then pulled all the shades and crawled into bed for a much needed sleep.
We awoke at about 4:30, and hailed over to Martijn who had arrived a couple of hours behind us. We had a nice relaxing evening and set a plan to head over to the free town docks in the morning with the tides.