Day 87, Year 11: A Chill in the Land of Palm Trees
Date: Sunday, January 17, 2016
Weather: Overcast and Cold, High 46, Low 32 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC
I do believe we brought cold weather with us when we returned to the land of palm trees. The thermometer only reached 46 degrees F today and it was overcast and windy and felt colder. Tonight temps will dip to the freezing point and the next two nights the low will be around 20 degrees F. Chilly!!!
Last night when we got here, we started checking the weather for our passage south to Florida. We had promised ourselves we would sit still for a week or two until we figure out what is going on with the nighttime pain in Mark’s abdomen. But when Mark saw four straight days with mostly north winds (tomorrow through Thursday), he changed his mind. If we left tomorrow morning (Monday) we could be in West Palm Beach by Friday morning. We saw the forecast for two 20 degree nights (Monday and Tuesday) in this part of the world, but we ignored that because starting on Thursday or Friday of this week, it looks like southerly winds for all of the next week. It looked like we would either have to leave tomorrow and freeze or wait two weeks. So we decided to spend today doing the last provisioning and be on our way. But this morning, we started rethinking about just how cold we would be in the cockpit at 21 degrees F and it did not sound like fun. In addition, Mark has come down with a cold and probably doesn’t need to be doing freezing nighttime watches. Nevertheless, we did go ahead and do the last grocery shopping. We are ready to go, but we decided to stay put. It might be possible to leave on Wednesday and get as far as the Florida-Georgia border by Friday and then wait out the southerlies there. Or we could continue on in the Intracoastal from there as we did last year. Another option would be to travel the Intracoastal all the way from here to southern Florida. The problem with that is that the Intracoastal has some very shallow areas between here and Florida and the thought of going aground is not inviting. But however much we dislike traveling in the Intracoastal, at this time of year it might end up to be our only choice. The next two days will be spent doing more weather watching and by Wednesday morning we hope to make a decision. And we hope for warmer weather.
