“Honey, where’s the gun?!”

From “Honey, where’s the gun?!” to laying the boat on her side… please enjoy this week’s update:

The weather finally cleared and we were able to get back to enjoying Charleston from outside Lady Sun Dream! Our local HVAC guy (Mike) finally made it to the boat on Tuesday morning to troubleshoot our presumptive“leak” in our fridge/freezer line. Two hours later, we’d only discovered what wasn’t the problem. With the promise of bringing different equipment next time,we scheduled another visit for Thursday morning. We went for another beautiful walk around Charleston while waiting (impatiently, on my end) for my sister, brother-in-law, and twin nieces to arrive. After an Uber ride of ridiculous trust-fund-baby stories, we arrived at Kelly and Mike’s oceanfront Folly Beach rental. After a drink and a little time catching up and playing with babies, we headed to Rita’s for an early lunch. Unfortunately, the delicious tuna nachos revisited almost all of us within a few hours of dinner… womp womp. However, the afternoon visit was great and we said our goodbyes with a promise of spending the next day with them. Nate and I stopped by his favorite Folly Beach dive bar, Surf Club, for one more drink before heading back to the boat for the night.

The twins boarded a sailboat for the first time and enjoyed the boat for a little bit before we headed downtown for a delectable lunch and quite a bit of wine at Slightly North of Broad (S.N.O.B.). We spent a little more time on the boat until the twins’ “witching hour” was upon us all. Once they left us for the night, Nate changed our alternator (yay!) and we now have significantly more power aboard, charge ALL OF THE THINGS! Nate’s friend Justin arrived later that evening and we went out for drinks and dinner, having to turn down an invitation to meet Nate’s friend, Lee, at a different location. I left the guys to their devices and for some bro-time after the meal and headed back to the boat, alone…

Downtown Charleston is extremely safe, ergo; I had little-to-no concern about my safety on the dark walk, even past the terminal and a few rundown buildings just before the marina. Once aboard Lady Sun Dream,I started preparing to wind down to go to sleep early. As I was switching the laundry,I heard what sounded like a knock on the side of the vessel. I shook it off,thinking it was just some marina noise… then another set of knocking was clearly on the hull. This is not uncommon, as many cruisers are super friendly and like to introduce themselves. What is not normal, however, is that the knocking was coming from the water-side of the boat… not dockside. The slip next to our boat was empty… [heart rate increases] I throw on some sweat pants and cautiously raise my head out of the cabin in the cockpit. To my terrifying surprise, I see a hooded figure in a dinghy. I popped my head back in the cabin like the most scared whack-a-mole you can imagine and grab my phone. [heart rate exploding]. I call Nate in a building panic and frantically, but quietly:“Honey, wh-wher-where’s the gun?! There’s a man in a hood in a dinghy trying to get in the boat!” He tells me where the gun is and I grab it hastily and ask him to call the police, he suggests otherwise for the moment, and I agree to keep him on speaker phone as I “investigate” the intruder’s intentions. With the gun by my side, I slowly open the hatch and step up to the cockpit… “ummm,hello…?” I yell at the man, as both hands shake, my heart about to burst, and voice quivering with fear…

“Uh, is Nate aboard?” the hood responds. Blood quickly regains flow to my body. “Lee?” I ask, guessing, as that’s the only person inCharleston that would be looking for Nate. “Yep!” he responds. “DAMNIT, LEE, I ALMOST SHOT YOU!” I yell at him, raising my right hand to reveal the Kimber. I yelled into the phone to Nate that it was “just Lee…” PHEW. I mean,what. the. Hell. But, also, phew! I invite Lee aboard for a drink while Nate and Justin make their way back to the boat. Apologies to Justin, as he had to chug a $15 beer when I called in a panic. I’d finally calmed down by the time Nate got back and I hit the hay, exhausted from the adrenaline rush. Nate and the guys chit chatted over drinks a little while longer.

Thursday morning brought more laughter than fear as were counted the story and discussed the need for me to actually shoot the Kimber for practice someday (turns out, I hadn’t even loaded it during the perceived invasion). HVAC guy returned and FINALLY isolated the leak – classic boating scenario… pay $160 to find out you need to spend another $400 to replace apart. Womp womp… for the time being, we’re testing the ability of flexseal… I may submit a video the infomercial, if it works! Luckily, both the fridge and freezer are still working like champs, 6 days later.

We spent the late morning through early evening with Kelly, Mike, and the twins at their rental house. It was finally warm enough to sit on their deck (or maybe it was the wine) and enjoy some family time. We went out to another early dinner at Crab Shack and said our farewells until they visit in Cabo San Lucas in March, Spring Break, baby, WOO! Thanks again for all the wining and dining you did for us, Kel and Mike, and for driving all the way down to hang out!

Nate and I stopped by St. John’s Yacht Harbor to have some roasted oysters and drinks with Lee (as planned, unlike his first visit!) and enjoyed an evening on the dock. Friday morning brought pea-soup fog, but our time was up at the Maritime Center Marina. We cautiously puttered ourselves to SJYH for the night and had a relaxing evening aboard Lady Sun Dream with intermittent rain.

Saturday morning brought more fog and rain, but we motored down the ICW, unwilling to brave the gale warnings offshore. The sun finally broke through in the early afternoon and we chose a pretty anchorage area by 1600 in order to (finally) switch our mainsail to our new North Sails 3Di sail. Surprisingly easy, even with a slight hiccup, we were swapped and stowed within an hour. We settled in for a nice dinner and chill night. Roughly five bites into our tuna, we both felt as if the vessel was listing to port… then the moment of realization set it… “SH*T! How deep was the water we anchored in?!” Feeling stupid, but hopeful, we fired up the engine and tried to drive ourselves loose.  No luck. Within five minutes, we were leaning another 5 degrees to port. Ten minutes later, we were at 20degrees and exceedingly less comfortable than before. Nate wasn’t worried about the boat; she would be fine on her side and is designed to never fully flip/roll. I was doubtful, nervous, and increasingly uncomfortable. But what were our options? We only had one…. Wait until the tide turned. We spent the next four hours attempting to be comfortable on the couch, watching a funny movie to take our minds off the embarrassing situation we put ourselves in… eventually, just chuckling when something else fell from it’s seemingly secure location. According to our tide apps, the tide was expected to switch at 2130. We decided to try to sleep for a few hours with an alarm set for when we’d maybe be floating again… we awoke around 2300 to significantly less of a list and discovered we were floating! WAHOO! We quickly pulled the anchor and reset it in water twice as deep as previously chosen and went back to sleep with “our tails between our legs” and a lesson learned.

As it turns out, two experienced mariners can mistakenly assume the other one had considered the tidal range of the anchorage, lo and behold, neither of us checked or mentioned it to the other person. We are hoping it’s one of the biggest mistakes and most embarrassing moment of our three-year adventure, but we doubt it will be… At the worst of it, the boat was tilted 37.5 degrees… it really put 20-30 degree rollers in context. The good news is, it increased my confidence in Lady Sun Dream greatly, and now leaning 20 degrees feels like nothing!

I debating sharing this story, as coming from a sailor with 35 years of boat experience and a NOAA Corps Officer with five years of maritime training and shipboard living, we are 100% embarrassed at our lack of attention to detail. We hope sharing our mistake will remind ourselves, and others, that we’re all human and we can certainly make mistakes, sometimes we each make the same one without even knowing it!

We laughed our way down the ICW the following morning towards the Atlantic and sailed through the day and night towards St.Augustine. Nate rewired the smaller television to run off our solar panel power, so I was able to watch the Redskins win (through bouts of vomiting, as I seem to have left my sea legs in Maryland… also embarrassing…). We arrived in St. Augustine Monday morning and spent the afternoon exploring the history and beauty of the little city. My friend Sara came aboard for a drink and then we were breath-taken by the city’s Nights of Lights holiday light displays!

We are currently underway for Miami, or as close as we can get before we need to tuck in to safety/comfort from the looming storm due to arrive Wednesday night. Oh, and the water maker isn’t working, yay, boat life! We will continue to keep you posted.  Please check out our Instagram (@tipseatraveler) for loads of photos – the website platform makes it very difficult to add photos (it also sucks up a boatload of our cell data when I post from offshore).

Until next time…

Cheers!

Sarah & Nate