To Fernandina

Day 22 and 23 (Sun and Mon, Dec 4 and 5): OK, we woke at dawn and headed out the Charleston harbor. The weather had cleared some and were setting out on our next hop south. This time our leg would be from Charleston to Fernandina, FL. It was to take us about 24 hrs.  We headed out and it was rough in the inlet. We radioed another sailboat coming in and asked what it was like “out there.” He explained that he was headed back in. Too rough for him. We turned Gaia around and headed back to Charleston too. We anchored out for a time, I made a casserole and we caught up on some work. All the time, worried that we would get stuck and not be able to make it any further south. Bill and Judy had a mechanical problem and decided to stay up at Wilmington. Patrick and I were both concerned that we would too be “stuck.” Later that afternoon, we heard what we had been hoping for, the weather was improving. We discussed it, checked the time and decided that there was no reason we couldn’t head out in the afternoon. We would just arrive in the afternoon too. So, we headed out. The sailing was quite nice. Beautiful sunset but boy was the sea rough at night. My second rough night out. This time, Dobbie put on his kitty life vest and we what became known as his kitty “epurrr.” OK, I was worried. Patrick will not want me to share this part but I was scared. He was great though and once again, amazed me with his calm and steady performance. Winds were gusting to almost 30 knots. The waves were not as bad as before but the wind made up for it. It was rough. Dawn finally broke and things calmed down. I took the helm and let Patrick get a bit of sleep. Gaia was a mess down below. We stowed things but it was still shaken up quite a bit. I would get her cleaned up and back in order once we got to Cape Canaveral. Right now, we were focused on getting south. We pulled into Fernandina around 1pm. One again, we made much better time than we expected. One good thing about the wind.  We found a very nice anchorage for the night. This became known as Dobbie’s pick for the layover. He seems to like anchorages better than marinas. He was very relaxed and spent quite a bit of time out on the bow of Gaia looking around. It was calm and the views were gorgeous.