Man, I thought that I'd never get away!  These last few weeks stressing over all of the details that needed to be taken care, of in order for the trip to be successful, are finally over.  I'm catching up on my sleep, getting into my reading books before bedtime mode.  Ahhh... all's well! 

I left the dock early in the morning having just turned my car over to my good friend Andy. That was the last thing on my list of  "To Do's" and now I am free.  I spent a beautiful, warm , sunny day cruising down to Beaufort so that I could jump offshore the following day.  A friend met me shortly after my arrival, and we spent the evening discussing the trip while drinking beer at the Back Street Pub and then over dinner at the Beaufort Grocery Co.  Early the next morning, I headed offshore for what turned out to be 6 long hours of hand steering downwind.  As I stated in my first posting (Beaufort), I was unable to get any autopilot that would work on this boat because Raymarine will not put the model that I need into production until the first part of 2007.  So, much to my discontent, I have to hand steer the boat 100% of the time.  Being as how I'm single handing the boat, it keeps me quite busy.  This isn't a problem for the most part because the Motorcat 30 tracks like a train on rails... with the exception of downwind (like all boats)!  So after 6 hours of continual concentration on steering in a straight line (keeping the angle that I'm hitting the backs of the waves the same is the easiest method to stay on course when you don't have land within site to use as a steering reference), I finally headed back in at Wrightsville and continued down the Intracoastal Waterway.

I made it as far as Tubbs Inlet before I anchored for the night, cooked some dinner, got online to check my email (gotta say that I love my WIFI amplifier!) and then the Web to check the progress of the cold front that was going to hit that night. The next morning I got up before light, made hot coffee and put on 3 layers of clothing in preparation to get underway.   I only had covered a couple of miles on the waterway before I had to stop for the Sunset Beach Bridge.  This bridge is the only pontoon bridge left in the country and, of course being a pontoon bridge, it doesn't have any clearance to go under it so one must wait for it's scheduled opening.  (Here's where this gets a bit embarrassing for me cause I thought that I had done this trip to the Bahamas enough times now not to make any more stupid mistakes... wrong!)  I had a 45 minute wait for the bridge opening so I decided that I would just pull my boat into the creek next to the bridge and put the bow up on the beach.  Way easier than anchoring...  When I got into the little creek and turned towards the beach, the current caught me and threw me sideways up onto a sandbar in the middle of the creek.  The current was too strong for the engines to get me off so I put on a bathing suit, jumped in (Brrrr...) and tried to push the boat off.  No luck, the current was too strong.  So I released my anchor and walked and swam it out to the entrance of the creek (getting a few lacerations on my hands and feet in the process when I accidentally discovered a nice oyster bed in my path) and set the anchor.  I then used the anchor windlass to pull the boat off of the sandbar and back into deep water.  It's now a few minutes after the 8 o'clock opening time for the pontoon bridge but, fortunately, my antics had so amused the bridge tender that he went ahead and opened the bridge to let the half naked, drowned rat looking man through.  He was probably just scared of what trouble I might get myself into if I had a whole hour wait!

I would have liked to have gotten some pictures of Charleston from the water but an hour before pulling into Charleston Harbor the wind picked up considerably and the chop and spray in the harbor, not to mention the sun was in the west and I am single handing, made getting a good picture impossible.  I motored up to what used to be the Ashley River Marina, now gone condo and private slips as the "Harborage", and was met by my friend Ron, "Mr. Walrus."  Ron had me over for dinner that night and cooked a trial recipe before including it into his personal cookbook.  I had originally planned on staying in Charleston for several days.  After watching the weather, I decided that with all of the cold fronts coming down back to back, I had to get further south while the winds were calm or else I would freeze as the temperature dropped well below the 76 degrees necessary to support life (as I know it...).  Anyway, to make a long story short we only had one night on the town which was, as always, great fun as Ron knows all of the bar staff and management at most of the better eating and drinking establishments in Charleston.  The night was late and the morning was WAY too early when my alarm went off at 5 a.m., and I woke up to head out of Charleston Inlet.  This time it was too dark to get any pictures.  As I headed offshore, the seas were 4 foot and sloppy, and of course, on the stern.  After a couple hours of that, I headed into St. Helena Sound determined to relax a bit on the Intracoastal and enjoy the views and changes that have occurred in the last 14 years since I last traveled exclusively down the Waterway.  The day ended up with me anchoring to a beautiful sunset on the edge of St. Catherine's Sound Georgia, the water calm and glassy, all prepped to go offshore first thing in the morning.  Are we seeing a pattern here yet?  I'm so used to going offshore and making quick passages between my favorite cities that it's just instinctual to try to get offshore and I keep at it (that's my story and I'm sticking too it).

In the morning the winds were calm, yeah!  I leave St. Catherine's Sound in the dark with a couple of shrimp boats.  Once I get beyond the shoals around the mouth of the sound and turn toward St. Augustine.  Finally!  I get a nice day offshore with calm 2' seas coming from the stern port quarter.  The boat liked these conditions very much and made my steering relatively painless.  I pulled into the St. Augustine inlet late that afternoon and anchored out behind the beach and in front of the Conch House Marina on the shallows of the tidal flats.  Great holding and only 1 other multihull anchored nearby.  A nice finish to a really nice day!  Had I an autopilot, I could have spent the day fishing and reading, probably caught a tuna or dolphin (the fish, not mammal) for the grill that night...  Oh well, I'm doing an 8 month cruise of the East coast and Bahamas, guess that I can't really complain about any minor inconveniences. 

WAIT!

Joe just sent me pictures of the going away party that was thrown the night before I left, so I DO have some pictures.  They're all labeled so click on them and enjoy...