Learning One Wave At a Time

For Father's Day, I bought Ben this boat and coincidentally, on Father's Day (day 10) he had to demonstrate his skills and navigate through a very windy Port Royal Sound, South Carolina in 10-foot waves. Happy Father's Day, Babe! 🤪

Between the wind and the waves in the sound, the boat was gliding up each wave and slamming down repeatedly, water splashing up the sides of the boat. We faced sustained 25 MPH winds, head on at the bow with gusts of 45 MPH. I was picturing our boat performing like the boats in The Deadliest Catch during storms, minus the rain. 

Each sound, bay, or inlet that we crossed had its own challenges. I have been a big fan of stopping for the day and anchoring before we reached any open water so that we could cross first thing in the morning when the winds and waves were calmer. This wasn't an option since we had just begun the day just a few hours prior.

Port Royal Sound is between Parris Island and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. We were hoping to meet up with Steve, our buyers' broker, and his wife in Hilton Head, but that didn't work in our favor. We didn't want to endure the rough water any longer than we had to, so we will meet them on the water another time!

The kids were in the cabin watching TV. It didn't bother them at all. In fact, they hardly noticed, beyond me nagging them, asking to see that their life vests were on and properly zipped and clipped. I was sure we'd need to swim ashore.

Ben and I were in the cockpit. He was laughing and even told me, "We are learning... one wave at a time. I think I saw that somewhere." I rolled my eyes at him as he was mocking our motto, in an attempt to make me less anxious. I was avoiding accidentally updating my mom and freaking her out, at all costs.

As we crossed further into the sound, the waves were continuously bouncing the fenders, which I tied to the bow of the boat. Ben told me that he hoped I tied them well enough since they were all over the place. Thinking back on when I put them up there, I was pretty confident I tied them well.

We remembered to close the portholes and the hatches in the cabin as the waves picked up, but we had forgotten the hatches in the cockpit. One big gust blew the port side hatch back and it slammed open, landing on top of the 20-year-old cockpit air conditioner. Big hunks of the plastic covering flew off the back of the boat as I apologized to the water and animals for our unexpected and unavoidable shattering and littering. Ben said it was okay because he wanted to replace that anyways.

In the foreground, you can see the white plastic piece. It is all that remains of our AC cover. The black part is supposed to be under the cover that we lost.

Unfortunately, there was one more casualty during the crossing of this sound: one fender. Ironically, I HAD tied it well enough and the fender itself blew off, leaving the line securely fastened to the bow. I was sad to litter another thing (even though it would float to shore), but proud of my line securing skills, which I only learned at the beginning of the month.

Notice the 3 colors of line tied to the metal bar. The gray line is the one from the fender we lost. While we were filling up on diesel after that event, the worker, not knowing our story, asked if we wanted an extra fender (the black one) that some rich guy didn't want anymore. Karma works in mysterious ways.

Our journey down the coast had us narrowly dodging Tropical Storm Claudette the whole way. She was crossing over the Carolinas as we were southbound in South Carolina and moving into Georgia. Although this was not Claudette, it was an unwelcomed visitor on our trip.

A few waves, a lot of learning, and still we continue on this journey!