We left Carolina Beach NC on a warm Saturday and motored down the ICW to the Cape Fear inlet to get outside into the ocean. I always forget how long that run takes and I was pretty tired of hand steering by the time we got outside.

Not a lot of wind predicted for the first night so we thought we’d motor till morning then sail the rest of the way. And the night went well.

It wasn’t until the next morning that things turned messy. The rain started at about 7:00am and just about then the autopilot failed. Nothing would bring it back, the whole wheel assembly was seized and not moving.

The Decision to turn into Charleston SC was pretty easy since we were almost exactly 30 miles directly offshore from there making it our closest possible landfall. So we turned in and I hadn’t steered in the cold rain until we dropped anchor at 5:00pm. I was SO cold. Frighteningly cold.. And I didn’t realize how cold until I came down below after being anchored and sat in front of the heater taking off my wet things. The thermometer registered me as “LO” when we tried to take my temperature. Yup, Hypothermia. I need better foul weather gear made for colder sailing since we tend to do so much of it.

Anchored safely in front of the UUS Yorktown, which is now permanently docked and a museum, we took an early bedtime. The next day was Monday and I spent the day replacing the autopilot. We’ve had issues before and carry a spare wheel unit. Then I took some time to troubleshoot, it was the gear box as expected and I priced out a new one so I can repair the broken wheel unit and we will once again have a spare. Then in the afternoon I went to the nearby marina for more Diesel fuel.

Tuesday morning we left since temperatures in the teens was in the forecast and we raced south to Fernandina Beach Florida at long last.

We ended up arriving at the St Mary’s River at about 4am after trying to slow down as much as we could and need to do some fun figure 8 maneuvers until sunrise. Inside and we grabbed a mooring since the plan is to be here for a while.