Distance: 24 nm/Time: 4.5 hours
With the passing of the cold front the last night, two things happened, one good and one bad:
The first was that the winds shifted from the south to the northwest, which not only meant that they wouldn’t be in my face today, but that offshore sailing might be possible since there would be very little fetch from a wind coming from nearby land. The second (bad part) was that it was now very cold and was forecast to remain that way for the next few days. Now, high 30’s/low 40’s might not seem “very cold” to those of you currently experiencing single-digit January weather up north, but I’m a Florida boy who had not planned to be exposed to anything below 60 degrees once he started cruising and so don’t have a lot of appropriate equipment (or thick enough blood). The other point is that it’s one thing to run from your car into the grocery store when it’s 10 degrees out, and quite another to stand in an exposed, windy cockpit in a windchill of 40 degrees all day long. I was not looking forward to the next few days! In fact, had I not wanted to take advantage of the winds to make an offshore passage, I would have just hibernated in my cabin under the electric blanket for a few days until some warmer weather returned.
But, it looked like there would be an offshore window where, if the winds turned out to be as forecast, I might make it all the way from the Cape Fear inlet by Wilmington, NC all the way to Jacksonville, FL–bypassing South Carolina and Georgia completely! This would be worthwhile and a near repeat of my longest offshore passage so far–at the end of June–from Fernandina Beach, FL, to Beaufort, NC. Not quite as far this time, but I also wouldn’t have the Gulf Stream helping like I did northbound.
The main point was to bypass SC and GA, where the ICW is a real pain in the neck, winding all over the place, full of large tidal swings and strong currents. As offshore passages always did, it would save me a lot of time, too–at least two weeks of tedious ICW driving. So, I figured it would be worth sucking up the cold for a few days to make it to the Sunshine State where (I hoped) it would be warmer.
I woke up in time to motor the couple miles to the fuel dock in Wrightsville to top off my tank. I technically had enough fuel to make it all the way to Jacksonville if I used my Jerry cans.1 However, filling the main tank in the cabin with Jerry cans is not easy, especially with a boat pitching and rolling as often happens offshore. Therefore, it was worth the stress2 and time to make a trip to the local fuel dock to top off before continuing south.
It was a very “skinny”3 route at at few places getting from the anchorage to the fuel dock, requiring me to hug some homes’ docks a lot closer than felt comfortable, but I made it in and out without issue, a floating fuel dock making it so much easier. Then it was back out past my anchoring spot and into the ICW, southbound.
Despite the wind being at my back, it was a very cold day. I was wearing heavy-duty fleece under my foulies with winter gloves and waterproof socks, all of which made it tolerable. In spite of the cold, it was a beautiful, sunny day, and I made good time with the currents, arriving in the Tina’s Pocket anchorage around 2:30 pm. Tina’s Pocket was reported to be a good staging ground for heading either offshore out the Cape Fear inlet, or continuing south in the ICW. I arrived right when two other sailing cruisers were entering the anchorage, but it was huge so there was plenty of room. I was glad that the anchor set first try so I could finally get down into my cabin and out of the wind.
At this point I still wasn’t committed to going offshore. The ICW took a jog off the inlet a couple miles further south (before the actual inlet), so I could make the final decision in the morning. But, my weather updates still showed offshore as favorable, and the timing of the currents at both the Cape Fear and St. John’s River Inlets (at Jacksonville) as favorable as long as I left in the morning at first light. I went to bed early, planning to wake up around 6:30 am to depart the anchorage at twilight.