A few days into our visit at Cumberland Island in Georgia I noticed a change in the weather. When at anchor it’s important to check the weather every day, sometimes more than once a day. The weekend had opened to a “fantasy weather window” one that would allow us to sail from Cumberland Island al the way to Cape Fear in one go. No need to duck into Charleston SC and pay to stay at a marina.

So of course we took the window. And of course, being a fantasy the window opened for a weekend. We could leave on Friday and arrive Monday morning before work.

We motored out of the St. Mary’s River easily enough, raised the sails, and pointed north. Motor off it was blissful. Flat seas and the perfect wind. And that worked for about 24 hours.

Watching the Sky

It’s important to keep an eye on the sky when sailing since you can learn a lot from the clouds. I for one saw a really dark cloud moving opposite the current wind direction.. With full sails up I decided to head below deck and get my phone so I could take a photo of the wild cloud.

That was a big mistake. For the moment I’d taken the photo and put it away I was ready to reef the main sails and that’s when it happened. The wind went from 12 knots from our starboard to 35 knots from our port. The boat screamed in pain. The rain soaked us through our underpants as Liam and I painfully reefed the headsail and Ryan reefed the main. .. Another BIG win for a single-line reef to the cockpit..

We got the Jib in but in so doing we messed up the furling and she was tangled. No more jib for the remainder of our journey. We were significantly slowed down.

And just like that the storm was gone. the sun was out. And we had blissful conditions again. Although with our Jib tangled we were moving much slower.

Weather Alerts

There are many things I like about our VHF radio, a few things I don’t like but one feature that I didn’t realize I liked was the weather alert system. In the US the National Weather Service broadcasts the weather on 10 weather channels all the time. There is always one that you can pick up and they will, when the time arises, issue weather alerts. The radio will automatically detect the weather alert, sound a crazy alarm, and then switch to the weather channel and play that.

After our adventure with the squad that could have been avoided if I’d reefed early and not decided a photo was more important I was shocked to full attention at 3:45 am by such an alarm.. And of course, it was a TORNADO WARNING… the National Weather Service had the Tornado on their radar and were actively tracking it. Unfortunately, they were giving all of the references to land-based references that weren’t on the chart. This experience has made me add a Land Based Atlas to my Amazon shopping cart…

Finally, they mentioned a coastal city that was on the chart. And that just happened to be the very place we would have been if we had the Jib out. We’d accidentally dodged a tornado. And so I was no longer upset about tangling the jib as we furled it.

Still terrified I sailed in perfect conditions watching the sky.. plenty of lightning to show where the storm was.. It passed 60 miles in front of us and we sailed in those perfect conditions.

Morning came and we entered the inlet at cape fear on our way to Carolina Beach NC.. The day was uneventful, thankfully. We anchored and it took a good part of the day to untangle the “back wrapped” headsail but I eventually got it out and furled it properly.

And we enjoyed our time in Carolina Beach.. Even when it gusted past 30 knots and we started to drag into the shallows. But that’s another story.