We Left Cooper River Early - On Monday

Thursday, November 17, 2011

First of all, I can’t believe it is November 17!  Time is going by so quickly.  It almost seems like yesterday that we left Kemah if February.

We are back in Jacksonville, Florida.  We arrived here yesterday morning after a very interesting night.  

We departed Cooper River Marina, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina at 1200 Noon on Monday.  We left at Slack Tide and Current.  By leaving then, we were at the very height of high tide about to change to low tide (outgoing tide) and fortunately, Mother Nature timed the change from Flood Current to Ebbing Current (fastest outgoing).  So we were heading down the river with the tide going out and the current building up.  Man did we have a ride out!  9 knots at one point.  That was as fast as we were riding the Gulf Stream coming north out of Miami when we left Key West.  Of course when we got out of Charleston Harbor reality struck, and we were headed south to Jacksonville with a slight opposing Gulf Current residual and we were making about 4.5kts on the open water with a southwest wind of 15kts true on our nose.

We motored!  Those of you who know us will have heard the axiom we use.  If you are cruising on a sailboat, you will spend:

50% of the time MOTORING,

15% of the time SAILING,

15% of the time MOTOR-SAILING

And,

20% of the time SAILING when you should have been MOTORING!

So far, that has been completely true – and always will be if you have ANY type of plan in place!

So we chugged along all Monday, and Monday night.  Gorgeous weather, not a cloud in the sky.  An exquisite view of the Milky Way with the Trillions of stars out there.  The ¾ moon shining down as we rounded 2045 (8pm for those of you who live in Rio Linda) – Talk about a wonderful way of communing with nature with no traffic out there AT ALL!  We were alone in the world.  

Tuesday morning dawned with high Cirrus clouds building and later lower Stratus clouds – to the point where by mid-afternoon we were completely cloud covered.  The early warning of the cold front that would be passing Tuesday night if we stayed around.  Tuesday afternoon found the seas building around us and we started bouncing a bit.  By the time we were well south of Hilton Head and abeam Cumberland Island (Latitude 31 degrees), about 1600 (4pm) we heard the first call on the radio:  “This is US Navy Patrol Aircraft calling the sailboat at 30 degrees, 28  minutes by 081 degrees 45 minutes”.  That wasn’t quite our lat/long – close, but not ours.  The aircraft continued, “you are about to enter a live fire exercise area, and you need to leave immediately.  He never received a response.  The sailboat obviously was not monitoring Channel 16.  We looked around because we knew he was near, and saw his sails on the horizon to our left.  We heard this radio call four times over the next 20 minutes.  Hmmmm, that wasn’t quite our lat/long, but I called the Navy Patrol Aircraft anyway to verify he was not calling us.  When he responded, I asked him if we were at a good lat/long and heading.  He came back a few seconds later stating if we proceed as we are, we should NOT be in harm’s way.

By 2200 (10pm) we were hove-to trying to rest prior to making our run into the St. John’s River so as to arrive at 0745 for Slack Tide and Current to make the run up-river on the flood (incoming tide) and ebb current (slowest).  About midnight we heard the announcement again, but more emphatically with a longer and more detailed statement, “This is US Navy Patrol Aircraft calling the sailboat at 30 degrees, 28  minutes by 081 degrees 45 minutes.  You are entering a Live Fire Target Range using missiles, there was an announcement in the current Notice to Mariner’s declaring this a hazardous and dangerous area to be in.  If you do not make an IMMEDIATE turn to 220 degrees and proceed at that heading for 10 miles you may be in danger of being hit.  Your safety cannot be guaranteed”

With that, we decided to leave our hove-to position and head on to the mouth of the St. John’s.  We didn’t want to dawdle too long here.  As we made our last waypoint with 3 miles left to our entrance we heard the same patrol aircraft calling ANOTHER sailboat, but telling him to make an immediate right turn to a heading of 280 degrees for 40 miles to get around the live fire range.  We added an item to our pre-departure checklist – check Notice to Mariner’s before leaving!

So our trip in from the hove-to position 13 miles from the mouth of the St. John’s was just as interesting.  We were in the FOG again.  Now prior to leaving Charleston, remember, I climbed the mast to fix the radar.  That was good, because dense fog is not my idea of a fun time.  Renne’ and I had discussed heading into Jacksonville at night, and I had to admit to her that going in under just lights of the waterway was not comfortable for me.  She thought it would be easier than going in under the fog bank we were in at that moment.  I commented it was no different than flying IFR.  I had a GPS/Chart plotter with my route plugged in (the IFR airways charts and instruments), Radar to see ahead of me in the fog (equivalent of having Flight Center following my progress) and AIS (Automatic Information System) to see and identify traffic around me (IFF Transponder).  Here we were flying into the St. John’s River, through the jetty (MUCH NARROWER than the Galveston Jetty), and up the St. John’s until about 1000 (10 am) at a blazing speed of - 3kts!  There was traffic in the ship anchorage we had go around, fishing boats (who were as NUTS as we were) out there in the goo we had to avoid, and a dredge out there calling us for permission to cut across the channel in front of us to avoid collision.  If it had been at 180kts, I would have felt Renne’ could  have just passed her IFR check flight.  We spent most of the night and morning in fog so dense we couldn’t see the bow of the boat twenty feet in front of us, but we could see 12 – 24 miles ahead of us and in most directions around us with the radar.  We actually felt very safe!  I am sure the traffic around us thought we were freaking nuts though!

We arrived in downtown Jacksonville and stopped to eat lunch at a restaurant at “The Landing”; a popular social area restored downtown, and then set out for Sadler Point to pump out our holding tank prior to heading for the Naval Air Station (NAS).  Actually we are two miles from the NAS marina, but they don’t have that capability.  By the time we had finished that project, we decided to stay here.  So we are tied to the dock at Ortega River Yacht Club.  We missed Don Finney and Elaine by a week here.  They are down in Ft. Lauderdale and perhaps when we leave we will catch up with them.

So we had Sundowners last night with our friends Bruce and Gina, but missed having you join us there.  You really will have to come down to the docks one evening.  The Tinto Verano’s are fabulous!  So perhaps tonight, 6:30pm at NAS Jax.  See ya’ll there!

JonNe’