With the anchor down and boat washed off, we were officially ready to explore Cumberland Island! Just kidding… I should say that the owners were ready to explore Cumberland Island and Eitan and I marched on with our duties as crew. I had a ping of envy while I watched Eitan drop the owners off on a nearby dock as I finished washing the dishes from lunch. However, I couldn’t be too upset because this is what we signed up for after all. It was a sad realization that sometimes crew only get to see the new and exotic places from the deck of the boat.
But it was nice to finally get some alone time with Eitan onboard. Since the boat is the owners’ home, we try to minimize time in the common areas and any downtime is typically spent in our cabin which has less square footage than a king size bed. Even with 6 weeks at the dock, Eitan and I were rarely the only ones onboard. Considering that we’ve spent almost every waking and sleeping minute of every day for the last 7 months within 50 feet of each other, it still amazes me that we haven’t grown sick of one other. Once our daily duties were finished, we could finally kick back and enjoy the surrounding scenery from the flybridge and wait for the call from the owners to come pick them up.
Having spent the afternoon exploring the island, the following day the owners offered the tender to Eitan and me for a few hours to do a little exploring ourselves. After coming to terms with crew life and not being able to step foot on land whenever we please, it’s needless to say, I was thrilled. We headed to shore, tied the tender up to the public dock and were greeted by a herd of feral horses that roam the island, keeping the grasses grazed down. The island was beautiful with Spanish moss hanging from the trees and the old ruins of buildings from when the Carnegie family owned the land. After two hours of exploring, Eitan and I headed back to the boat and were pleasantly surprised at the invite to join the owners for a beach day on a different part of the island. We packed up the dinghy and headed to a more northern dock, which had a trail leading to the Atlantic facing seashore. The beach was just as I expected of the east coast with a wooden boardwalk leading through the sandy, vegetated dunes.
We dropped our things off on the beach and ran for the water, since it had become almost unbearably hot in the direct sun. Our sunscreen was sweating off before it could even be absorbed so we hoped it had some kind remaining SPF factor. We spent the afternoon wading in the shallow water, then Eitan and I decided to head back to the boat early. This was the first time the boat had been at anchor without anyone onboard and the generator turned off, so no one was quite sure how the batteries would hold up to the baseline power usage of the boat. The owners decided to stay on the island a little longer and would call us later to be pickup.
Throughout the day, we had heard the rumbling of a distant afternoon thunderstorm. Checking the radar while still at the beach, Eitan estimated the storm would eventually hit us, but not until later in the day. Almost as soon as we arrived back at the boat, it started to sprinkle but the owners assured us they were fine onshore, thinking the small cell would pass quickly, and there was plenty of cover at the ranger station. Just a few minutes later, the skies turned dark and the thunderstorm moved right above us with a full-on downpour. We could hardly see the shoreline or the boats anchored next to us and the wind started to whip us around.
Soon enough, the anchor alarm sounded and it was obvious we were slowly dragging backwards. I looked up at the wind gauge and it was showing over 60 knots! In some of my previous posts I have expressed that even in 10 to 20 knots of wind it is uncomfortable to be outside in. Once, I saw gusts blowing over 30 knots on S/V Sierra Wind and hoped I would never see it again. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw 60 knots on the wind meter until I started to feel the boat heeling over like a sailboat with the anchor track extending backwards.
Normally when the anchor starts to drag, the first strategy is to put out more chain, assuming you have enough room to swing around when the wind changes direction. Since we had the snubber on (the snubber is a rope used to transfer the load from the anchor chain to the hull instead of to the windlass motor used to take chain in and out), letting out more chain was a bit of an effort, but we were starting to drift closer and closer to our neighboring boats. To help relieve the load on the anchor, Eitan fired up the engine and began driving us forward, taking tension off of the chain and holding us at a safe distance from the other boat until the storm cell passed and the extreme winds subsided.
As we sat in the pilot house watching the radar, one of the sailboats anchored in front of us looked as if it had broken loose and started to drift towards us. I stood there in disbelief thinking we are about to get hit by another boat as Eitan reached for the radio to make an emergency call to the other captain and USCG. Luckily, we spotted the captain on deck and it seemed he had also been dragging and just let out a large amount of chain which had caused him to drift back several meters.
The entire storm lasted about 30 minutes and was probably one of the most intense weather events I had ever experienced. Although I’ve seen commonplace afternoon thunderstorms in other parts of the world, this was a completely new experience for me to see one of this magnitude, let alone from the bridge of a boat that was dragging anchor. I was grateful that Eitan had stayed onboard instead of going to get the owners as soon as the rain started, or else I would have been stuck onboard by myself as this all unfolded. I was also grateful that Eitan always seems to know what to do and calmly take action while I stand around having a silent panic attack.
After the strongest cell had passed on the radar, Eitan zoomed to shore in the dinghy to get the owners back onboard. Since the AC had been off while we were at the beach, Eitan and I had turned them on high once we returned and, with all the excitement, didn’t realize the boat’s interior was now an icebox until the owners (who were now soaking wet) stepped foot inside. The remainder of the day was spent taking hot showers and enjoying some homemade soup for dinner.
