Jun 07 2007
Stormy night
Position: 30.7185°N 81.5525°W Saint Marys Georgia
Log: 336
Last night Will took on the first part of the night watch while the swell and wind was building. Because of our new course we had to point much higher which made the ride rather uncomfortable. After a while Will even tied himself up in the cockpit. During my part of the watch the wind shifted even more to east so that I was not any longer able to keep our course. Now the waves were becoming more and more confused because of the shifting winds and I decided to start the engine to be able to make it to Saint Marys. Will relieved me soon and I gave him the course to steer. We didn’t make much headway against wind and waves. 4 hours later I wake up only to find out that we were way to far south of St.Marys inlet and we had to change course to NW. At 0700 we were sighting the first light and were relieved though it was taking us another 4 hours to reach the inlet. Once inside we missed the turn for Saint Marys River. Meanwhile there is all sorts of commotion going on. Helicopters in the air, Coast Guard gun boats everywhere. Shortly after we were witnessing why. A huge submarine was entering the inlet.
At around 1200 we tie up to the dock of Lang’s Marina. Will is crashing below and I take a walk to register at the marina office. Afterwards I enjoy some warm breakfast at the local diner and take a long shower afterwards. Back at the boat Will and I have a couple of beer to celebrate the ingeniously mastered landfall. While enjoying the dockside conveniences a man named John stops by and we are beginning to talk. It turns out he recently bought a steel schooner named Guanahani just a few boats down the dock and needed some help sailing her to Brunswick Georgia a few miles north of here. We are making plans for tomorrow. He also had some friends with a car that took us to the next grocery store so we could bunker some more beer and food.
We ended the day with a few more beers and totally enjoyed the night in our not-so-much-moving-anymore bunks. I felt very thankful of Carpe Diem taking us to a safe harbor after a rocky night.
