Passage Log, Day 3

Day 3 - Wednesday, May 10th

I alter course for an oncoming big freighter out of Charleston just before sunrise, which puts us on a truly broad reach in which the headsail flogs a bit every minute or two. I hate doing this - not just because it’s hard on the sail and sheets, but because it’s quite loud down below for the off-watch crewmember. But when confronted with a ship doing nearly 20 knots, there's typically only one way for a slow sailboat to go to get out of their way...in this cast it's further east. I could gybe but in this wind that's much easier done with two people on deck.

At 6:30 I turn on the HF to listen to Chris Parker weather. Today his part-time sidekick Stormy is broadcasting, and he gets quite flustered when a regular caller, “M/V My Position,” calls in to request assistance. They lost a crewmember overboard last night at 8pm in the Tongue of the Ocean between Nassau and Andros, with no life jacket, and are asking for someone to call BASRA so they can begin a search. Not good at all. With Dawn and I doublehanding and standing solo watches we have a rule about wearing our life jackets whenever abovedecks after dark and not going outside the cockpit unless the other person is up top. It’s way too easy for a weird wave to knock you off balance while you’re preoccupied – and once you’re in the water at night, the odds are against you even if someone saw you go in. And if nobody saw you, forget about it.

Anyways Stormy/Chris forgets about us again but I understand given the circumstances (Chris is calling BASRA in the background while Stormy fumbles ahead with the weather). After the weather and breakfast I head to bed, telling Dawn that it looks excellent for getting into Little River Inlet before sunset. I should've held my tongue. When I get back up at 10am the wind has veered NW and faded markedly, and we have a 2.1 knot current nearly on the nose! Yuck! I fall off 20 degrees to keep a hot angle and get across the current which I suppose is outflow from the Waccamaw River / Winyah Bay, but it persists well past the river outlet. Meanwhile the wind continues dying and I start the engine at 10:30. By 1pm there's only 4 knots true wind speed and I furl the yankee. We creep along at 5.3 knots with barely 4 over the ground. My hopes of getting in before sunset fade.

I think back to the daysail from Little River to Southport that I did with my friend Lance Lindsay last September, and realize I remember the route we took out of the inlet. There was plenty of water, and tonight we’ll be arriving near a high spring tide. The inlet is lit, and there’s a nearly full moon to help us get into the Bird Island anchorage (which is fairly straightforward from the inlet, but trickier from the ICW). So I’m actually feeling reasonably confident about doing this after sunset.

At 2pm Dawn sees a line of splashes across the horizon, which we assume is a pod of dolphins. Sure enough, soon a rather large pod is swimming in our bow wave! Piper goes absolutely ape, running up and down the side decks yelping excitedly, tail wagging. He pokes his head through the bow pulpit and I think he's going to jump in to play with them! There are 12 or 13 dolphins in all, including two juveniles and a baby; two the adults hang around for a good 10 or 15 minutes before taking off. This is the first time that’s happened on our boat, and it's quite a nice welcoming committee back to SC!

I take a nap from 2pm until 3:30 or so and then get up to relieve Dawn a little early. The wind is light and dead behind us, and the day is fairly sweltering so both Dawn and I strip down to our skivvies. We put on some tunes, put the fishing line back out, and are kicking back enjoying a nice day on the water. Later we’re planning to grill up some more fresh Mahi for dinner, and now it’s looking like we’ll be coming in the inlet at 8:40pm, still the later stages of twilight. Bird Island is the very first place we anchored Windbird, back in August, and I’m looking forward to a nice quiet night with plenty of sleep before we take Windbird to the dock tomorrow morning.