Day 182, Year 10: Five Days in 24 Hours
Date: Friday, April 10, 2015
Weather: Sunny, Temp in the 80’s, Winds SE 2-4 knots AM, Going to 7-9
Latitude: 28 59.452 N
Longitude: 080 35.885 W
Location: ~12 Miles Off Florida’s East Coast, Just S of Daytona Beach
Miles Traveled: 143 nm
The good news is that we have traveled about five Intracoastal days in one 24-hour period. The bad news is that we are motor sailing, just as we would be in the Intracoastal. But we don’t have the traffic and the bridges, so I’d still say it’s a good deal to be out here. Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to continue on to Little River, South Carolina, in this one jump. We could be there by Monday, but the weather is just not cooperating. The weather guru, Chris Parker, said this morning that if you are traveling north along the coast, you should be in Charleston, South Carolina (90 miles south of Little River) by no later than tomorrow morning. Of course, there is no way we can make that. So we’ll take his advice and get in somewhere on the Georgia coast by tomorrow afternoon. His advice in this case is following the EURO weather model (European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). NOAA’s weather follows the Global Forecast System (GFS) model and the two models don’t agree on exactly what is going to happen. Some people say the EURO model is better at predicting North American storms, but everyone agrees that there will be strong squalls and thunderstorms in this area late tomorrow into Sunday and strong wind coming from the NE for a period of time. So we’ll be prudent and duck in with the hope that we can continue offshore on Sunday afternoon or Monday. But the weather rules, so we will just have to wait for the Sunday forecast before deciding exactly what we will do. Tomorrow we will either come into Cumberland Island on the Florida-Georgia border or a tad further north in the Brunswick, Georgia, area where we would hide behind St. Simon’s Island. That can only happen if we get wind tonight to give us a little boost. But I dare not wish for wind because you sometimes get way more than you wish for. So we’ll just go along with whatever comes our way. Right now we are having a smooth ride. The winds overnight were 10-14 and the washing machine motion continued. But when the wind died down this morning, so did the seas. It really wasn’t what you call rough last night—just wishy washy. So merrily we roll along.
