Blue Pearl Sailing

Blue Pearl & her crew did a 72 hour offshore passage from Beaufort, NC to St. Augustine FL. Our original plan was to try and make it all the way to either Ft Pierce or St Lucie inlet but Mother Nature had her fun with us.

Jacklines in place, PFDs on and our tethers ready to go, we left Beaufort on November 16th shortly after 1200 and headed into the Atlantic. We motored for a little while, hoping the winds would pick up and pick up they did. Things quickly became pretty sporty, but at least we had the motor off and were sailing. 

Cold and darkness took over pretty quickly. Mom’s homemade turkey soup warmed us for dinner. Although a little challenging to prepare & eat (you’ll hear sailors refer to moving around down below as an olympic sport and they’re not lying). We tried to take turns sleeping but with the conditions getting pretty gnarly, Rocky only managed a couple hours. We had sustained winds over 20 knots with gusts consistently up to 30. Getting really sporty now. This was not what our weather routing models predicted. Waves built.

Thankfully the winds slowly calmed down the next day and we were able to relax a bit. The steep grey unfriendly waves transformed into calmer blueish ones. This was the first time I’d been offshore with no land in sight, only the vast ocean blue as far as the eye can see.

That second evening was our best nights sleep. Another easy but delicious meal. This time chicken chili (thanks again, Mom!). I was slowly getting more comfortable on night watch. I looked forward to moonrise, providing a little bit of light over the water.

Day 3 brought winds averaging 10-15 knots but the seas were knocking us around horribly. That evening brought little to no sleep for the both of us. Questioning our fuel and the increasingly poor forecast further south we made the turn to head for St Augustine. Just had to wait till morning light to come into the inlet.

Trying to maintain our position while motoring into the waves 6NM out, the engine sputters a few times and quits. Rocky ran down below to investigate and there was nothing obviously wrong. The waves toss us around while we problem solve. My brain is racing with “what if” scenarios. Throw up the sails? Call a Pan-Pan? Meanwhile Rocky decides that with all the healing of the boat, maybe air got into the fuel lines. Or maybe our fuel gauge was off and we were empty? He quickly bled the lines and added one of our 5 gallon cans of diesel (which let me tell you, in heavy seas is NOT an easy feat). We weren’t empty, but the bleeding of the lines seemed to fix the problem. With a sigh of relief we continued on towards the inlet.

It’s not easy navigating a boat through an inlet, especially in a sailboat with a small single engine. With the wrong combination of winds & tidal currents you can quickly find yourself in a very, very dangerous situation with large stacking waves over a short period. Something about morning light improved the mood but we still had an ebb tide with a heavy onshore wind. It wasn’t the most ideal conditions by any means but we saw two sailboats ahead of us on the AIS make it in so we decided to make a go of it. I carefully spotted and called out each red channel marker (not on the charts) while Rocky carefully steered and surfed the boat down the steep swells. We made it. The view of St Augustine was a welcome one.

We decided to splurge on a slip for easy access to land. After 11 hours of sleep that night safely tied up at the dock, we felt refreshed and thrilled to be in one of our favorite towns on the east coast!

-LS