Right or Left?

That was it.  "Right or Left?"  That single question was the extent of our planning for last Saturday's sail.

Around 3:15 we looked around. It was nice.  The tide was in our favor for leaving the dock and the wind was light, but from a good direction.  The last time or two we'd left the dock, we'd had to fight both.  We decided to take a last minute sail.  You know, a couple hours out then glide on back into our slip, thanks to the conditions.

We started by removing this plug and installing the speed reading thing.  (Ew.)  

Getting out of the slip was a breeze.  The easiest exit we've had in ages.  Apparently, when it's a stress-free exit, I have a stress-free sail.  We're also getting better at stowing things below (thanks to lots of industrial/removable Velcro attachments and museum putty stuff) which keeps us both from stressing about whatever is rolling around below when we're stuck in the cockpit.

Cruising on out into the Wilmington River - hoisting the sails.  Here's where I asked - Right or Left?  

We went right (usually choose left) and cruised on by some tiny little houses...

The breeze was light, but the sun was out, and there really weren't too many people out for Labor Day weekend.

We eventually got on over to the bridge in Thunderbolt - I KNOW we clear the bridges, but we still end up holding our breath a little each time. 

And here's where I breathe again.

Loads of cool shrimp boats in the area.

A quick snippet of Bonaventure Cemetery

Bridge number 2 of the day ahead.

This one is a draw bridge.

Notice the left fwd side doesn't actually open here.  ?!

Butterflies in the belly on this one.  

This is why you take sails down to go through a bridge - one big gust with sails up and we'd've been dangling from that sucker.

From the other side.

 About 20 minutes after going through the draw bridge we realized we didn't really have a "plan".  We looked back and there were some light rain showers - but we couldn't tell which way they were headed.
  We talked a bit about how far we were from our neck of the woods - and then hashed out how long it would take us to get back there.  It was almost 5pm, so we figured we had about 3 hours of daylight left.  We hated to call and make the guy open the draw bridge again.  I went below to check out our chart of the area so we could try and get an idea of how long it would take.  We've cruised the waters for years in our power boat - but I wanted to see an aerial view.  I understand things much easier when I have a visual.  Turns out we don't actually have a chart of where we live...  Who knew?  I have a chart of the ICW, but we were about to mosey on out to the outside - and we don't have a paper chart for that.  Using our massive experience, we determined it would take us right about 3 hours to go out the Savannah River, into the ocean, around Tybee, in Wasaw Sound, back up the Wilmington River, and back to our slip. Even though the leg from Wasaw to our slip takes a minimum of 45 minutes...

Here we are cruising on around Tybee.

Look at that gorgeous sunset.  From our boat.  In the ocean.  No where near our destination yet...

Still in the ocean.

We got to Wasaw Sound sometime after dark.  Without a Qbeam.  It's a tricky inlet to say the least, but we DO actually have experience with it and know that our chart plotter is very accurate here.  It was a slow 4 knot day.  As we cruised on up the Wilmington we were able to watch the fire works from the boat.  We finally eased on into the slip at 11pm.  The dogs were about to explode - in fact one of them did on the dock.

So what did we learn?  We ordered a Qbeam and it's already on the boat.  I'm going in search of a detailed local chart of the entire area this week - not just the ICW.  And today?  Today we turn left.