I woke at 5:30 on a Friday morning to the sound of rain on the deck. I was on the port pipe berth of my Moore 24, Gannet, anchored in 60 feet of water 13 miles off South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island where I live.
We had anchored under a full moon in dying wind at 9:30 the previous night. My ePropulsion electric outboard does not have a 13-mile range, and we weren’t going to make Port Royal Sound at the island’s north end unless I was willing to stay awake all night, which I wasn’t. The barometer was high, the sky clear. I judged correctly that nothing serious would happen that night and so dropped the 10-pound Spade over the bow.
I slept relatively well. We rolled for a while on a low swell, then the ocean went flat, then we began rolling again the last hour or two before I fully woke. On deck, I got NOAA weather on my handheld VHF and learned there was a small craft advisory for 20- to 25-knot winds and 5-foot waves. Under sail such conditions might be an inconvenience; anchored 13 unprotected miles offshore they were serious.
In pre-dawn darkness I put on my headlamp and made my way to the foredeck. I took a brush and bucket and dipped it over the side for water, then sat down and began to haul in the 150 feet of rode. This took a while, bringing in 10 feet at a time, then holding the rode with my right hand while I flaked the line into its deployment bag with my left, but finally it was done.
I unfurled the jib, set the tiller pilot, and we began to sail almost silently toward the buoy 2 miles away marking the outer end of the channel into Port Royal Sound.
I am pelagic. I like to set out and not turn back. Since the end of my sixth circumnavigation, I have felt as though I am on a tether. Gannet sits in her slip at the marina, and I can see her masthead from inside the condo where I live with my wife, Carol, amid a landscape of live oaks and Spanish moss, palmetto palms, spartina. It is both a comfort and a torment to see her there—this small boat that is waiting, as I am.
One evening during the first passage of Gannet’s circumnavigation, between San Diego and Hilo, Hawaii, I stood in the companionway as the little sloop ran west before the trades and thought, “Use yourself up old man. Use yourself up.”
That was nine years and more than 30,000 sea miles ago. Yet, at 81, I feel I am not yet used up. Perhaps I deceive myself, but I think I can still do more. More importantly, I have to try.
So, this voyage offshore to nowhere in particular. The plan was to put the wind on or aft of the beam and have several days of good sailing no matter our course, then turn and work our way back. That’s not what happened, but it was the plan.
I had pushed Gannet from her slip at 1:00 p.m. the preceding Saturday. Headed by a light northwest wind, we powered slowly around the long curve of Skull Creek, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway, 1.8 miles to Port Royal Sound, where I cut the outboard and we sailed under jib alone until 3:00 when I anchored.
I had a quiet night, woke at first light, and had the anchor up at 8. As the anchor came off the bottom the outgoing tide turned Gannet’s bow, and I had only to unfurl the jib and engage the tiller pilot for us to be making 5 tide-assisted knots down the sound. With an increase of the wind to 18 knots on the beam, soon we were making 8 knots.
Gannet only draws 4 feet, 1 inch, but shoals that can be a concern even for her extend a long way offshore from Hilton Head Island, so we sailed not far outside the buoys marking the channel for almost two hours as the wind backed and increased to 20 knots. The waves grew too as we moved away from the land and began to slam into our port quarter. Concerned that they might drown the tiller pilot, I partially furled the jib and set up the port running backstay.
An hour later we passed through a line of five anchored ships waiting to enter Savannah Harbor. Still beyond them were scattered buoys, some marking fishing havens, some belonging to the Navy, and eight isolated Navy towers, some as far as 50 miles offshore, but we were clear enough that I was able to go below, move the anchor and rode bag to the bow, and rearrange other stowage for the sea miles to come.
Wind and waves increased throughout what became a rough, hang-on day. More and more slammed into and over us. They were only 5 or 6 feet, but they were steep and close together—wind against Gulf Stream.
We were rolling so much that I spilled water pouring it into the JetBoil to heat for freeze-dried chicken and dumplings. A gin and tonic spilled before I had my first sip. And a wave came down below to add salt to my meal and my Levis.
Then at 8 p.m. the wind abruptly died, and we rolled becalmed through a miserable night. For a while the jib collapsed and filled 15 or 20 times a minute, so I furled it and let us drift. I was up many times looking for a nearby Navy tower and did not get much sleep. This was not the vision I’d had of this journey.
Dawn found us drifting north at 1 knot. At 8 a.m., a light wind filled in from the north, so I unfurled the jib and raised the main and Gannet began to make 3 knots southeast.
At noon I routinely record our position, day’s run, and barometric pressure. At noon that day we were 42 miles from our noon position the day before, but there was no point in considering a day’s run because we had changed course so often—southeast, south, west, north, east, and now southeast again.
By midafternoon I passed the last Navy buoy and was more than 50 miles offshore and seemed to have the ocean to myself. I have written about entering the monastery of the sea. So far on this trip I hadn’t, but I did feel at last a sense of space and openness and simplicity that I never do on land.
With Gannet sailing smoothly on a beam reach at 6 knots I was able to spend time on deck. Sunset found me sipping an air-temperature gin and tonic and listening to music. This was the vision I had. It lasted too briefly.
We sailed well until 4 a.m., when I woke because Gannet was moving too fast for the tiller pilot to keep up, making 9 knots. Gannet can do more if I want to hand steer. I didn’t and deeply furled the jib.
Another rough, rolly day of Gannet following 20-plus-knot veering wind across a dark blue, whitecapped ocean beneath a hazy blue sky.
I spent most of the day below, reading at what I call Central, sitting on a Sport-a-Seat on the cabin sole, facing aft from the main bulkhead, rising from time to time to check and change course.
That evening I found myself wondering if sailing to nowhere can be enough. If I stayed out a month would that be enough? Enough for what? I did not know. But I knew there was an 81-year-old man still wondering what he ought to do, what he wanted to do, rather than merely wait for time and chance to end him.
And I knew that it was good to be out here. Just me and Gannet and the ocean. I was where I wanted to be.
The next morning, Wednesday, the wind decided that I had been there long enough by continuing to veer until it was south of east. If we continued reaching, we would close the coast of Florida. I did not want to do that. Instead, I jibed, and we turned back a day early toward Port Royal Sound 160 miles away.
From below, looking out the main hatch, I could see the ocean streaming past, sometimes blue, sometimes foaming white. It looked as it had hundreds of times during Gannet’s circumnavigation. But I knew it wasn’t, and somehow that mattered.
We re-entered the Gulf Stream Thursday.
Checking our GPS position in the iSailor app I found our COG was 30 to 40 degrees north of our compass heading. I set course further off the wind to compensate. I did not want to end up off Charleston and have to beat back.
By noon we were no longer being set north and the wind eased. Under full main and jib we had fine sailing, making an easy 6 and 7 knots. I sat on deck and listened to music.
At sunset the lights of seven anchored ships were ahead of us. As we passed between them, I considered their crews and how different their experience of the ocean is from mine.
In diminishing wind Gannet gradually slowed, and at 9:30 I anchored.
The NOAA forecast I’d heard on the handheld VHF after waking was bearing out as we made for the outer buoy marking the entrance channel to Port Royal Sound, sailing fast under a solid low overcast in shades of gray and black. As we paralleled the ship channel, dashing along at 8 and 9 knots, I was not certain we’d get in that day, despite being only 17 miles from the slip. The little boat is light and underpowered and easily moved by wind and tide. I wanted a hot shower and later a cold drink, but if the wind went much above 20 knots, I would not approach the marina. We would anchor in Port Royal Sound until the front passed.
The channel doglegs to the northwest as it enters the sound, and the water smoothed as we made that turn. Halfway up the sound I lowered the main. Our speed only dropped to 7 knots.
The ePropulsion should have a range of more than 7 miles, but I have found that sometimes it doesn’t, so we sailed until the green marker at the mouth of Skull Creek was abeam before I furled the jib and turned on the outboard. From then on, it was a debate whether I’d have the range to get in, battling wind and current and at times seeing speeds of less than a knot. I frequently leaned back to check the diminishing battery level.
As we reached the apex of the curve in the creek, I could set a course directly for the marina a half mile ahead. With the outboard battery at 59% I knew we were going to make it.
The rain had paused while we were powering up the creek, but a dark line of clouds over Pickney Island to the west promised it would soon resume—and it did, heavily, just as I made the turn into the dock.
Once moored, I retired to what I call The Great Cabin—tongue in cheek for a space that is no more than 38 inches tall in Gannet. I sat at Central, listening to the rain patter on the deck. I made a FaceTime call to Carol. I checked the barometer and found it had fallen 13 millibars in 14 hours. That is a quick and deep fall; I was surprised the weather was not more extreme.
I considered the sail. We had covered almost 500 miles. For a few moments I wondered if sailing without a destination had been a good idea, and then I realized that it was. We did not find the sailing I had hoped for, but in several years on this coast I have learned that here the wind comes from any direction and any strength, and the only constant is change.
A sailor knows that whatever wind he has will not last. Still, old boats and old sailors need to be used, and for a while Gannet and I were again together in our element. That was more than enough to make the vagaries of this journey worth it.
When in an hour the rain eased, I walked home.
Webb Chiles has circumnavigated six times, twice in boats under 24 feet. He has been awarded the Cruising Club of America’s Blue Water Medal and the Ocean Cruising Club’s Jester Medal, and he’s published seven books and many magazine articles about his journeys. You can follow him at inthepresentsea.com.
March 2024