Happy New Year everybody :) We were planning on finally sailing to Cumberland Island to celebrate it but, unfortunately, we only made it to Kingsley Plantation. It was about a 5-6 hour sail but the sun was going down, so we decided to anchor there for the night instead of going on to Cumberland, which was another 3-4 hours away.
Kingsley Plantation is in a gorgeous area and apparently, we weren't the only ones who thought so (there was a group of about 5 boats all anchored there for the night. 5 or so people were even sitting on a mud flat and lighting off fireworks all night). We played with some sparklers but then quickly retired to the cabin because there were little biting gnats everywhere...I felt like I was breathing them in because there were so many, sick.
You know, we spent the entire evening laying in our cabin and doing nothing more than reading, talking, looking at the stars through our little hatch door (Ryan made a piece of screen to velcro over it so the bugs wouldn't get in) and it was probably my favorite New Year's Eve ever. The water was so calm and the only noise we could hear was the people on the mud flat every once in a while when they cheered on the fireworks. Romeo, on the other hand, did not find our evening nearly as enjoyable and tried to burrow in every nook and cranny in the boat to escape the scary firework noises. Oh well, you can't please everyone!
The only downside to our first anchoring-for-the-night adventure was that Ryan was so stressed out all night that our anchor would pull loose and we'd crash into another boat or the shore. He had an alarm set on his phone to alert him when the current changed, so he could make sure we didn't pull free. At about 3 am, a mysterious, and VERY LOUD, alarm went off and Ryan was up and out of the hatch door in seconds! He was convinced that it was our alarm and that we were minutes away from certain doom. After being awake for a little while, we both realized that the alarm was either coming from one of the other boats or the shore but we couldn't tell which. We were quite certain that a serial killer had broken into the Plantation and was going to swim to our boat at any second (I say "we" but I'm pretty sure Ryan wasn't afraid of this).
We made it through the night, murder free, and realized that we didn't have enough gas to get home. The wind hadn't been cooperating the day before, so we had to motor practically the whole way and used 2/3 of our gas! Ryan was worried but I was very comfortable in bed and wasn't really worried about anything at all. He motored us about 2 hours to a dock where we had to make a decision: walk 3.3 miles to the nearest gas station, toting 6 gallons of gas on the way back OR motor to The Sandollar restaurant, where we could get a bite to eat and walk the block to the gas station. It was an easy choice for me, but Ryan was convinced we wouldn't make it there on the gas we had left. (He worries too much!!) We went with the sane, food involving choice and I'm happy to say that all was well. We even had a beautiful, relaxing sail back home and made it there before the sun went down! All was right with the world and we were making it back home in time to rent a movie, put our feet up and enjoy the long weekend.
So, of course there was a problem. If you have read any of the past sailing posts, you know that it couldn't be this easy! Even though it was only 2 hours after high tide, we got stuck...mega stuck. Like, our-boat-was-almost-completely-out-of-the- water-because-it-was-sitting-on-the-ground-and-there-was-no-water-around stuck. Lucky for us, Ryan had completely repaired our leaking inflatable boat...with military grade duct tape! Although it was black and matched the bottom of the boat perfectly, it did not do such a great job of sticking. With Romeo and the two of us, we quickly had water up to our ankles, which is cold and very irritating when you're trying to paddle to safety.
Yada yada yada, we make it home and have a nice hot shower, get a bite to eat and make the decision to stay the night on the boat so that we could easily move it into our slip at the next high tide: around 4 am. We climb back into the leaking, inflatable and paddle back to The Perfect Temperature, only this time, it is now so far out of the water that we're afraid to board her because we're afraid she just might tip over and then where would we be?! We paddle right back to shore where the inflatable meets an untimely death on some oysters growing on the dock. Luckily, our friendly neighbor, who saved us the last time our boat got stuck, agrees to let us borrow his canoe at 3:30 am so that we can move our boat.
There is nothing worse than waking up at 3:10 am, on a very cold morning, and going canoeing. Well, I take that back, after the initial grumpiness wears off, it's actually kind of nice but the first 15 minutes that you're awake? PURE HELL! We got the boat into our slip, returned the canoe and wearily nestled back into our still warm bed. Operation New Year's Eve Sailing Weekend had finally concluded.
A few things I left out:
-At one point, Ryan walked through waist deep silt/mud to get the inflatable out of the water. His legs were completely black with mud.
-That same mud was all over our jib sheet the next day and stained it, we think, permanently.
-The next day, when we returned at low tide, there were giant footprints in the mud. What sort of crazy human being would walk in the poop mud? Ryan.
Lessons learned from this trip:
-Prepare for everything! This includes bringing enough gas, bug repellent of some kind, complete first aid kit, food, etc.
-Flexibility is key. If we had pushed on to make it Cumberland Island, it could have ruined our night as we struggled to find a place to anchor in an unfamiliar area or gotten lost completely in the dark. Kingsley Plantation was lovely and super safe.
-Block entrances to parts of the boat that a dog with sharp claws could get into while in a fireworks panic and sink the boat by puncturing certain plugs.
-Motoring is not failing (fake sailing), sometimes it's just necessary.
-It was awesome having a ton of food to eat and snack on that was healthy. Kept us satiated and not feeling like crap from eating an entire bag of Doritos.
-Drink enough water!! I tried not to drink very much because using our head is a pain in the butt...probably not a wise move.
Love it. That was a great new years.
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