Left Belhaven municipal free dock this morning after a quiet evening. It’s Graces birthday today!!! Sucks we couldn’t go do something a little more exciting than transiting a hot canal in the middle of nowhere where hahaha. But we made great progress today, had a smooth trip and now anchored ready for just another few hours to our final destination!! So excited to get there and be stable for a couple months. Also ready to celebrate graces birthday per her request to have PIZZA & BEER 🍕🍻

This leg of the journey started in Charleston, South carolina where a very special guest flew in. GRACE IS BACK. woo wooo. she came in to help me fix a few things and to also help me run north some more. I love being solo but man is it soooo much smoother with someone else. I missed having her around!! We had a tough time exiting the harbor but after that it was smooth sailing. Such a great offshore journey. From here we will continue up the rivers for probably another day or 2

If you read my updates throughout the trip, things were going fantastic. I was moving quick, good weather, little rolly seas but manageable, 100’s of dolphins surrounding the boat, gorgeous sunsets and sunrises. Then finally I have the harbour in sight, that famous charleston bridge can be seen from a few miles out. It quickly became hidden through dark stormy clouds, I suddenly was caught in 4-5fts at short intervals. I got behind the jetty and was relieved, I swallowed the lump in my throat and carried on thinking the harbour would protect me. I see the storm slowly moving south and then bam I get hit with building winds. 16, 22, 25, 27, 33, 36, and rising! I clocked 46 kts before my wind reader shut off. Eventually found out someone clocked 52 kts but likely even higher. As this wind came through it churned up the water and i had waves breaking over the boat with water coming up over my dodger, soaking the inside of the boat through the closed hatches (they do leak a little but only under intense rain). The wind blew off our flexible panels and was using them basically as a kite in the air. BENDING THE SUNTOWER, this was insane to turn around and see the dinghy dipping into the water and the metal poles arching. It was all I could do to just keep the boat turned to port not the get pushed up on the beach or rocks. I truly thought that I could lose the boat. I stayed relatively calm 😅 I fought the storm for what felt like forever but was probably about 20 mins. I ended up getting a marina slip for the night, where I spent the evening just trying to dry the boat out. Also clean all the fuel off deck, the waves crashed so hard and high over that it flipped my tied down fuel cans and spilled them. it also rolled in over the hatches on the dodger, let that sink in… that’s well over 6ft high on the boat. Today I learned that Sadie cannot handle storms of any sort and will definitely never risk that again. Coming into the marina was chaos with vessels thrown up in the marsh, sails ripped to shreds, and other boats on top of each other. I’m just glad to have made it safely and been close to shore. 😴

Another long hot day!! Pretty uneventful except for a MASSIVE container ship coming down the river. they called me over the radio and told me to “go anywhere but left, we need that side to get through” SO I WENT ANYWHERE BUT LEFT!!!! turns out he meant HIS left. like who says that? tell me to pass on your starboard side? or literally any other clear way to tell me where to go. I was hugging residential docks and going against his wake and the strong current flowing into the river put me at less than 1 kt. I was definitely on edge the entire passing time. Learned a lesson today to always clarify 😅 made it to the free overnight dock (with insane current and tidal change) where I will stay until tomorrow morning to leave out of the river and head offshore to Charleston!

Back to Sadie! 3 weeks too long. Left Green Cove Springs Marina today where she sat on a mooring ball. I got in late last night around midnight after a long travel day and boy was the boat in rough shape. Hot & smelly- i immediately opened all the hatches and turned the fans off. I couldn’t be bothered with cleaning up the mess (that i made last week when i came to drop all my stuff off before taking my van to NC) so i just went to sleep and dealt with it this morning. Turns out there was water all in the back bedroom, under the bed in the battery bank area, and filling the float tank…. all of the bedding and pillows were covered in mold and ruined plus the walls too. I noticed this half way through the trip today so i took everything out of the room and then cleaned up all the water once I got docked. today was pretty uneventful, no wind, & 95 degree weather which meant motoring the entire way and sweating terribly. I made it to the YMCA dock in downtown jacksonville where you can dock for free and get a free guest pass to the YMCA which is so nice. I went and signed in, showered and then went 5 mins down the road to get some CAVA for dinner. Sadie drove great today and had no issues! Day 1 of who knows how many to get to NC !

Not a goodbye, a see you later. Storing Sadie at a Marina for a while to do a couple projects & go see family…. then it’s time for a new adventure. i’ll catch yall up then. xoxo Official end to The Bahamas season. I’m very emo right now and can’t recap but it was the time of my life 🩵

Left our “private dock” this morning and continued down the river. I haven’t spent much time on rivers so this is really interesting to me. Cruised under bridges, by cruise ships, downtown jacksonville, crazy strong currents, and the most dolphins i’ve ever seen! The wind was weird but picked up enough I decided to sail, it felt so weird to be sailing through a river but it was so cool. Honestly crazy to see how far i’ve come- i barely wanted to put sails out (honestly had no clue how) the entire first half of this season and now look at me sailing through a river. Disclaimer: i still have no clue what i’m doing lol. IT IS HOT, we are definitely back in Florida. I’m desperately missing that pretty blue non alligator infested water right about now 😅 After another long day we made it to an anchorage near a boat ramp where I will be able to pull my dinghy out for repairs and within walking distance to parts stores, gas stations, and food! We are so close to the end… i don’t want it to be over 🥲

anddd we’re off. I’m so sad, we are leaving the trio. Said bye to Alfred this morning, we have spent basically everyday together since we met in georgetown (aka 3 months) and it’s officially the end to this amazing season. Luckily I still have Reagan for a few more days because we are heading to the same place. We all had a blast in St. Augustine! We ran the outside for one last time today, with no engine troubles for either of us woo woo! (the troubles aren’t fixed but “band aided” enough hopefully to get us to our next destination) It was Reagan’s last day on the ocean, he’s selling his boat in the next couple weeks to go start a big boy job in Atlanta! I spent the entire day reminiscing on the past 7 months… from the refit, maiden voyage having not a clue what I was doing, to the bahamas & meeting some of my best friends. I’m emotional. LOL. I’m so happy to have this app to document everything and treat it like my personal diary 🤣🫶🏻 We made it in the St.John’s river and boy I was not expecting that current! I was flying!! We ended up at a boat ramp dock (that we definitely weren’t supposed to stay at .. oops) The tide dropped 5.5ft here 🤯 soo we couldn’t leave, i was loosely touching bottom and reagan was hard aground sideways. We have just been having a week 😅 but we made the best of it and enjoyed the security of the dock at least. Tomorrow we will continue up the river!

Left the marina this morning and transited under the bridge to the anchorage. Only stayed on a mooring one night, it was a good spot right downtown! The anchorage is just outside the mooring balls on the north side of the bridge. The current is very strong through this area and switches dramatically. Once I set the anchor I didn’t move all week. A storm came through with 25-30 kt winds and a power boat that was anchored did drag through the anchorage. It’s also just outside the no wake zone and by the inlet so it does get pretty rocky. However you are right next to municipal marina with direct access to downtown! Marina passes are pricey at $15 a day to dock the dinghy but you also get access to all marina amenities. The boys and I had a fantastic time here, although extremely overwhelming after being in the bahamas for 4 months! While in St. Augustine we ate at local restaurants, and chilis 🤣, checked out happy hours, went grocery shopping, went to a Bailey Zimmerman concert and so much more.

Woo. Another rough day. Decided to leave New Smyrna asap, currents were strong and sandbars were busy! We stopped here after our crossing, I ran aground coming in the inlet because I was so delusional from no sleep and couldn’t see anything. lol rough night. We found an auto store to try to fix our engines (Reagan and I) we topped off on fluids hoping that would be good enough to make it to St. Augustine. We were wrong… I made it to the entrance of the inlet where my boat just decided to shut off. I dropped anchor in probably the worst spot possible to keep from drifting into the jetty. Eventually was able to get it back running and had Reagan cruising right next to me out of the inlet just in case it happened again. i made it through with no issues after that. We decided to run the outside just in case we had anymore issues so we wouldn’t have to deal with strong current, bridges and weekend boaters. Wind was so shifty and current was so strong my auto pilot could not stay on course. Which made for an extremely long day. I steered and monitored the engine for 10+ hours 🥲 i know this sounds dramatic but I am not used to having to be at the helm every minute. whooo that’s tiring. Eventually we made it about 16 miles out and Reagan’s engine died and he had run out of fluids. The wind was terrible but he decided to sail for another 5 miles which took forever. Then we decided for me to tow him the last 11 miles. He towed my dinghy and then I towed him. Seatow should hire me!!! This was stressful because I’ve obviously never had to tow a boat bigger than mine plus just all the stress from this morning and a long trip all day, but I was super glad to be able to help him. I’m not sure what we would have done without each other the past few days, not only for mechanical support but mental support lol I probably would’ve gone crazy. We eventually made it into St. Augustine and fueled up at the marina, got free fresh water (wooohooo), a mooring ball, showers, laundry, all the things. Plus finally got back with the trio- Alfred made a straight shot to St. Augustine instead of stopping in New Smyrna. Now it’s time to explore the town thanks to my grandpa Mr. Ponce DeLeon- (no i’m not kidding… he’s actually my great great great x 11 grandpa) isn’t that pretty cool?!