Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Beaufort SC to Fort Pierce FL Plan

Ocean, SC to Florida...
We will head to sea today, Nov 12, taking the ebb tide 22 nm out to the sea buoy from the wonderful town of Beaufort, SC. Again, that is Beuuuuuuuuuu-FORT, SC, not Bowwwwwwww-Fort, NC! We waited out the last north winds due to high and confused seas. Now, the low has pulled offshore and the waves are calming down to 2-4 feet from their 4-6-8 feet level over the past few days. Of course, there is now less wind and it looks like it will be a motor sail for much of the leg.

We are pressing on as we need to store the boat near Miami so we can fly to AZ for our family Thanksgiving. This leg will be a 300 nm trip, if all goes as planned. As Captain Ron famously said, "We must be close, because we had just enough fuel to make it and we just ran out of fuel!" Our motoring range is about 350 nm and this trip is 300 nm, so we better be able to sail some of this or else it will be a Captain Ron event as we near Fort Pierce! (Just kidding!)

North winds 10-15 knots off our stern


If you are interested in planning ocean routes and looking at sea state, pressure and winds, then we direct you to study up at www.PassageWeather.com. We find it very helpful to learn what we can expect when we get to sea.

Here are the planning photos...

Low pressure moving out
Marry Poppins Winds, North Winds, here we go
Ocean waves in meters. The arrows point down wave

Sunset Ashepoo Coosaw River, our anchorage before Beaufort

Arriving Lady's Island Swing Bridge...ahhh, Beaufort SC
We enjoyed our 24 hours here...drinks with Jeff & Marjorie of IP 45
Far Niente on the deck at Luther's and an amazing dinner at the Old Bull Tavern

The waterfront park of Beaufort is beautiful
22 nm to sea from Beaufort

A direct route would be 50 nm offshore,
we may curve toward land to stay away from the Gulf Stream

The Fort Pierce FL inlet, where we will arrive Friday late afternoon
Thanks for following along. We will be pressing our SPOT at noon, 6pm and midnight and 6 am. This will show up on our SPOT maps HERE.

2 comments:

GregK said...

I had a yellow diesel jug get washed over the side about 8 years ago. We were close to your 7am latitude but about 100nm off of the coast.

If you see it - It's mine. :-)

Craig Moore said...

Love your reference to Captain Ron !!