Passage from Charleston, SC to Jekyll Island, GA, 155nm. So let me put the brakes on for a moment and say that this passage was an opportune moment for us to re-learn the pitfalls of using words or emoting feelings such as ‘expectations’ or ‘assumptions’; K more so expectations, D on assumptions. In reality I don’t know how many times one has to re-learn these lessons but it seems that it is obviously more than once, twice, thrice.

Plan was to leave Charleston Fri 11/26 at 1100. That coincided w/the current being favorable getting out of the harbor and 24-26hrs later w/the current being favorable to get into St Simons Sound Inlet by Jekyll Island. Perfect! The winds were to start out from the SW switching to W then to NW, 8-11knots. Perfect! The waves were to be from the SW then W, 1-3ft every 5 then 6 seconds. Perfect! It was to be sunny the entire time, but very cold for the overnite. Acceptable! So now in K’s mind the ‘expectation’ of this passage was that it was going to be idyllic, peaceful for a change, warm during the day, smooth at nite. The ‘assumptions’ made to match were how to set the sails and route plan. Based on all the forecasting info we had in front of us we decided to put one reef in the mainsail based on the projected wind speed. (Explanation #1 below) We ‘assumed’ that sail set would carry us thru the nite. We chose a route closer to shore because we ‘assumed’ that the waves would be less there because the wind would be coming off land.

Let the passage begin. We were able to sail beautifully w/the headsail out of Charleston Harbor. Had to fight for space in the channel w/a tug pulling a barge who in turn was fighting for space in the channel w/a ginormous container ship. Got out of the Harbor Inlet (Explanation #2 below) and into open water and put up the mainsail w/the one reef. The wind was very light, contrary to forecast and the waves were from a different direction, contrary to forecast so we bounced around uncomfortably for the 1st 3 hours. Due to the lack of wind we were going to take out the 1 reef in the mainsail. Waited for a bit and slowly the wind started picking up so we decided to keep the sail reefed. Wind continued to build from the ‘wrong’ direction as did the waves. By 20:00 the wind reached the upper teens/lower 20’s and Rory’s nose was diving into the waves every so often. Uncomfortable-er? You bet. K was QUITE crabby because her idyllic ‘expectation’ of a perfect sail wasn’t happening. The ‘assumption’ of sail set and route plan was causing D to have a case of the ‘What Ifs’. What if the wind goes above 25 knots, what if Rory’s nose goes underwater and causes the anchor to loosen up, what if the wind goes above 30 knots, what if Borko(autopilot) stops working; etc. Winds stayed close to 20 knots for awhile, we chose not to put a second reef in the main due to the wave action, but did substantially reef in the headsail. The closer to shore route ran us right into a parking lot for container ships outside the Port of Beaufort, SC, 21 to be exact. That made the wind angle too tight and the waves even more confused as we needed to go into shallower water to avoid them. At 23:00 we FINALLY turned the corner around the ships and were sailing as the wind and wave direction shifted favorably. The winds slowly diminished the rest of the evening and by sunrise we were gifted with the ‘expected’ winds and waves. The morning was cold, the sun was warm, the sail was pleasant so we decided to press on to Cumberland Island Inlet roughly 20nm further south from St Simons Inlet and relish in our ‘expectedness’.

Explanation #1: Reefing the sails. The concept of reefing the boats sails is to decrease the amount of sail exposed to the wind which in turn slows the boat down, increasing stability and safety. Basically de-powering the boat; think dragging your feet while sledding down a hill to slow yourself down to not hit the tree. In our situation above, if the forecasted winds were to be in the 20’s as they ended up we probably would have put 2 maybe 3 reefs in the main for at least the overnite part of the passage. Putting the reefs in while sailing in rough seas is doable but not extremely desirable, especially at nite when the vision of the sea state is greatly restricted. So in the situation above, we should have put the next reef in the sail as we noticed that the winds were continuing to build.

Ok, so now we’re in sailing bliss and approaching the Cumberland Island Inlet, close to high tide and the current going in our favor. Perfect! Drop the sails and monitor 2 different charts as we go in; one on the chart plotter at the helm and one on an iPhone. The depths on the charts all look as in pics below, good mid to upper teens; lowest spot was 8ft so avoid that spot and head on to the anchorage. We turn into the inlet and the depths begin to radically differ then what are on the charts, every way we turn. Lowest we saw was 3.5ft; I was white knuckling the helm. Made it thru the rest of the inlet to the ‘deeper’ section of 20+ft. Not the additional stress we needed on a relatively sleepless passage. As I analyzed the chart plotter I noticed a tiny, and I mean tiny red dot. I clicked on that dot and the message below appeared. Yikes to quote Rita Ann; I’m glad we made it thru and I’m glad we did it at high tide which is almost 7 ft here. There were no shoaling demarcations on either of the charts, nothing but a tiny red dot.

Explanation #2. What are Inlets? By definition it is a bay or recess in the shore of a sea, lake or river. More specifically here along the Atlantic Coast they are a narrow water passage through a barrier island leading to a bay, lagoon or sound. The eastern US has the longest chain of barrier islands in the world. Inlets exist because of the tides. An inlet is generally formed when a severe storm breaks thru a barrier island and the tides keep the water flowing back and forth thus keeping the inlet open. However, due to that tidal flow its depths and sides move and change. Hence the differences in chart versus reality. There are many inlets, most of which are not navigable by a sailboat, or larger draft boats. Larger inlets say Charleston or Savannah or St Mary’s are dredged for commercial or military traffic. The others, one is supposed to call to get ‘local knowledge’ (usually a TowBoatUS) to find out the status of the inlet one wishes to transit. Hindsight!

We anchored at the northern tip of Cumberland Island for the nite. It was peaceful and we overlooked Jekyll Island and had an interesting view of the St Simons bridge. Did not realize how large the sounds or bays were on the back of the islands. Had our rum shots and made bacon-passage-breakfast the next morning.

The following afternoon we chose to move 16 miles further south and to do it on the ICW (intercoastal waterway). Like we wanted to go back thru that inlet again, yeah right. Sauntered thru grand marshes and islands down the Cumberland River. 2/3’s of the way down the river one reaches a major channel called King’s Bay, which leads to the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. There was a sub present on the docks. Can’t get too close or a naval gun boat intercedes. At times the channel is closed when a nuclear sub is either entering or exiting the base. Only issue we ran into was a dredge taking up most of the channel.

Cumberland Island. The barrier island has a rich and variable past. It has been inhabited by the Timucua Indians whose population was decimated by the Spanish either thru disease or their greed for gold and god. Then the island went back and forth between the English, French and Spanish. Then you have powerhouse players such as Thomas Lynch and Nathanael Greene, who among many men died ‘suddenly’ on the island. His widow Caty and her new husband built a cotton plantation. Eli Whitney came to the island to present his cotton gin, Caty suggested an improvement and thus the cotton industry was revolutionized. She built a mansion called Dungeness and a year after her new husband died. She continued to throw lavish parties. The widow’s daughter gained control of the estate after the Caty’s death and was visited by Robert E. Lee’s father; who yep, died on the island. And so on until the Thomas, the brother of Andrew Carnegie purchased the property. His wife Lucy added on to the mansion and yep, Thomas then died. After Lucy died many years later, the mansion burned and it is now ruins. Thru a whole bunch of ‘family stuff’ the bulk of the property ended up being purchased by the National Park Service in 1972. It is now home to feral horses, armadillos, alligators, raccoons, deer, turtles and bobcats.

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