St. Simons Island, GA to Hilton Head, SC

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We slept without the generator last night. The temperature was comfortable enough, and we wanted to give those new impellers the night off. I got up around 5:00 and noticed that the house battery voltage was on the low side, so I fired up the starboard side generator. We had an early breakfast and got underway before sunrise. We had 90 miles to go today and wanted to get a jump on the trip. We ran without the genset because the main engines charge the batteries and the temperature was comfortable.

Early morning start, before sunrise.

As I photographed the sunrise, a passing bird photobombed me. It took almost an hour to get out of the Eastbound channel, and the sun was a bit uncomfortable on our eyes. It was a relief to turn the boat North and head up to South Carolina.

I was not able to get a good picture, but we saw a pod of dolphins, so you'll have to trust me that just under the surface in this photo, they are playing around.

Today was uneventful, which is the best kind of boat ride, with calm seas and hardly any other boats around. We decided to anchor on the Northern side of Hilton Head Island after our 9 hour sail. While it is the closest spot for getting underway tomorrow, we are not enjoying the high winds and currents here, and Ann just pointed out that she would not recommend anchoring here again. I agree. I'm running our zero speed stabilizer because I was actually feeling a bit woozy after we arrived and settled in. Strangely, and wonderfully, Ann is fine and not feeling seasick at all. 

Here is the path we took today. As a reminder, you can track us in real time whenever we are traveling at https://share.garmin.com/share/AviRubin with password:  Gimel  The track updates with a dot every 10 minutes. Occasionally the Garmin Inreach fails, prompting a call from my Mom to make sure we are okay. Our kids don't even read this blog, but at least my parents track us!


After we arrived, I considered lowering the dinghy and heading into town. There is a restaurant that we both love here where we ate on my birthday on the way South in the Fall. However, it is too rough out here, and we are both a bit worn out from all the long travel days, so we ended up cooking and relaxing on board.

We are now settled in to watch the women's final four. We are more interested in the second game with Iowa's Caitlin Clark, but that will start at 9:30, and we'll probably be asleep by then.


Tomorrow, we have a longer boat ride. Our plan is to get to Georgetown, SC and to anchor there. We will pass Charleston on our way without stopping. If we had more time, we'd spend a few days there, but we are now up against the clock, and the weather looks amazing for the next two days. On Sunday, we plan on arriving in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, and we have a marina reserved there. It will be very nice to be on land again after three consecutive stops at anchor.

 

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