Sunday, May 17, 2009
17 May - Day 75. We leave Savannah's Thunderbolt Marina at 0800 having eaten our (free) donuts and read our (free) Sunday paper. Luxuries we mariners are not used to. Naturally it's dead low tide and Fields Cut, one of the most silted-in sections of the ICW, lies a few miles ahead. On the ICW a 'slow pass' is not another term for the advances of as unambitious Romeo but rather a choreographed dance between two boats about to pass. The ICW is narrow and big fast boats put out huge wakes, so for civility's sake, and to keep VHF 16 with a PG-13 rating, it's common practice for the overtaking boat to come off plane before passing and for the slower boat to go to idle speed while being passed. While slow passes are common practice they're not mandatory. So when a 45' Clorox bottle passed within 20' and going like a bat out of hell, Nellie rolled a might. We kept our thoughts to ourselves but certainly weren't unhappy to see him go hard aground a few minutes later--schedenfreud the Germans call it (taking joy in the misery of others). We pass through Field's Cut with inches to spare. Two 50'+ boats following us didn't fare so well as both went aground and were last seen churning the waters trying to get off. Just south of Beaufort, SC a squall hits with driving rain and 46kt winds. Visibility drops to near zero. The predicted cold front which motivated us to leave the Bahamas now has us in it's grips. The weather forecasters are almost giddy with all the dire news they have to share: gales; microbursts; severe thunderstorms; tornados; and, best of all, maybe even a forming tropical depression in the southern Bahamas. For us it's constant winds, intermittent rain, and dropping temperatures (80F to 50F). We beat into most of the weather and Nellie has a smooth ride so we continue plodding along. At anchor in the very windy Wappoo Creek, SC (2 miles south of Charleston). 95nm today: 2194nm total. DBH
