Big Boats and Rouge Waves

Day #50: From a freighter's perspective Savannah must look like a speed-bump between the Atlantic Ocean and their port. Almost as quickly as one ship went down the river another came up. It was a bit alarming seeing these 1000' walls of steel passing so close. Amazingly, and thankfully, they put out very little wake. Getting safely out of the river was really quite easy--we simply shadowed one of the outbound behemoths.

Crossing Port Royal Sound we hit some 20kt winds and a 4' chop. We tacked slightly to take the waves on the forward, starboard quarter. All was fine until one particularly quarrelsome wave decided to slap us directly on the starboard beam. The force of the impact caused a lot of water to go straight up into the air. All this water was then accelerated horizontally by the strong wind--right through Nellie's open pilothouse window and Dutch door. It was like a firehose being let loose in the pilothouse. Even the ceiling was drenched. All we could do was laugh. While we both saw the water coming there was no time to react. An hour later, and now in protected waters up river, we passed an outbound sailboat named Passages. Their crew seemed happy and relaxed and I wondered if they knew what lay ahead. As if to put voice to my thoughts someone on the VHF radio said, "Passages, you're not going to like it out there."

It was 41 interesting nautical miles from Savannah to Beaufort, SC, where Nellie is now at anchor and drying out. Our new fuel pump has 50 hours on it and continues to purr like a kitten. And to round out the numbers, we've 913nm under the keel. DBH