The trip north to Charleston, SC from Ft Lauderdale has been an interesting one so far. We left Ft. Lauderdale around 4:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday with the intention of arriving in Charleston in the early afternoon on Saturday. The weather forecast was pretty good with the exception of 10 – 15 knots of wind just North of East for the first few hours of the trip in the Gulf Stream. However, it was supposed to die down and shift south Wednesday evening. The Gulf Stream flows due North by Ft. Lauderdale, so we thought the very small northerly component of the wind would not mean much chop in the Gulf Stream. We were wrong. So was the forecast. What we found was 15-20 knot winds from the North-Northeast with 3-5 foot wind waves plus a steep fast moving ground swell from the Northeast. After about two hours of uncomfortable bashing and rolling about in the Gulf Stream, both Jen and Quinn were getting green and we decided we’d had enough. We turned due west to get out of the stream as quickly as possible and within about a half hour things were improving. Within a mile of shore we turned back north in much more comfortable seas but without the lift of the current.
By the time we reached Lake Worth, about 20 miles north of Ft Lauderdale, we were no longer able to avoid the stream as it runs right up along coast. Fortunately, the winds had decreased enough to make the seas tolerable in the 2 knot current. We didn’t get the predicted shift to the south until much later on Thursday. Most of the morning Thursday was spent with Jen and Quinn just holding off being seasick as the seas were still very lumpy and confused with a persistent and steep NE swell. The afternoon was an improvement, but still uncomfortable. When the wind did shift to the South on Thursday evening, it just about shut off.
All Thursday night was a motor as we were whisked north by a 3 to 3.5 knot current in glassy water. After all the washtub action of the previous 24 hours, this was a welcome improvement. It was also very eerie and beautiful with a clear sky full of stars.
At dawn on Friday the wind picked up from the West and we set sails and shut off the engine. With the current we were doing better than 8 knots with less than 10 knots of wind on the beam. Quite nice! This lasted for about three hours until the Gulf Stream started to set to the Northeast which forced us to beat into the west wind to compensate.
Mid morning on Friday we found ourselves being overtaken by a US Navy Aircraft Carrier going 20 knots and conducting flight activities. After a jet fly-by at about 200 feet, they called us on the radio and asked us politely to turn to starboard and maintain a minimum of 5 miles CPA (Closest Point of Approach). Well, we tried our best to get out of the way, but the best we could manage was 3 miles CPA by the time they were passing us. That earned us another fly-by, this time by a helicopter, but they didn’t call us on the radio to complain. I doubt we looked too threatening. We did get a fun show of several jets making training runs: taking off and landing on the carrier as well as a number of touch-and-go passes. If my Top Gun movie recollection is correct, it’s called a bolster. Or not. Anyway, it was fun, and worth the 5 mile detour East.
As I write this we are passing out of the Gulf Stream as it turns Northeast around South Carolina and North Carolina and we are heading due North towards Charleston. We could see the border of the Gulf Stream as we approached it. The wave action and color are quite different, and there is a fringe of seaweed and debris right at the border.
We are well ahead of schedule right now and may end up arriving in Charleston sometime very early tomorrow AM rather than in the afternoon. We’ve visited Charleston a couple of times already so we’re comfortable with a night time landfall. If it works out that way, it would be nice as that will give us an extra day in Charleston before we have to head north again. I’m already looking forward to the tasty rib dinner that has become tradition on landfall in Charleston.
Check our Current Position link on svmirasol.com to see where we are. I think Jen’s uploaded a lot of new photos for the Ft. Lauderdale visit as well.
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