A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 10/11/20 – 10/18/20

We started off the week at home relaxing and watching the rain. Monday was similar, but we ventured to shore for lunch and spent some time that evening double checking the weather forecasts. We decided to move during a weather window Tuesday morning, so we pulled up our anchor bright and early that day and headed out to sea.

We motored most of the morning, but the wind filled out that afternoon and we were able to sail through the night! We averaged ~6.6kn of speed, and safely made it around Cape Hatteras early Wednesday morning.

Ray and I switched off taking naps and enjoying the sunshine at the helm the rest of that morning, and fixed our code 0 halyard that afternoon. When we hoisted it the other week we noticed a lot of twists in the line, which caused it to stick at the top. So, we tied another line to the end of the halyard and brought it up, then threw the slack behind the boat for a bit (the ocean and movement of the boat helps untwist the line), which seemed to do the trick! We were able to comfortably bring up and use the code 0 when needed the rest of our trip. 

Later that day the wind started mocking us (I swear!). We’d hoist and trim the appropriate sails and then the wind would die, pick up, or shift in a way that required us to completely change our sail set up. Finally, we gave up, dropped all our sails and started an engine. We motored the rest of the day and most of that night. 

Luckily, I woke up Thursday morning to a warm, steady breeze and a beautiful sunrise! I changed into shorts and a tank top for the first time in a while, and settled in to keep watch.

We had to motorsail, but we made pretty good time the rest of the day. We ran into some rough seas Thursday night, but pulled into Charleston Harbor Marina around 8am on Friday and were greeted by RJ and Jenna (and a bottle of peach bellini to celebrate)! 

When I first moved aboard Sabado it wasn’t just Ray and I. RJ and Jenna were on board, and the 4 of us sailed together all the way to Maine! 

During that time, RJ and Jenna became two of my favorite people, and we had a very dramatic crying- at -the- airport- type moment when they packed up and left Sabado in July to move onto their new home, OV, a 2020 Fountain Pajot Elba 45. In August Ray and I were lucky enough to be able to dock Sabado in Maine and fly to Fort Lauderdale to help them sail OV to Charleston, but that was the last time we were all together. 

Since then, RJ and Jenna have been running charters out of Charleston, and Ray and I have been making our way south with Sabado in hopes of catching up with them!

So, on Friday night we all grabbed dinner together at a place that specializes in oysters, fried chicken, and champagne (seriously, it was great)! We caught each other up on everything we’d missed, and talked about future sail plans.

Saturday morning we got breakfast by the marina and said our goodbyes. RJ and Jenna left that afternoon to sail south, where they’ll be running charters out of the US Virgin Islands for the foreseeable future. We were a bit bummed we couldn’t get to Charleston sooner to spend more time with them, but we’re excited to meet back up again soon. 

Ray and I spent the rest of the day Saturday running errands. We have a very long list of things we want to get done while we’re in Charleston, so we rented a car and jumped right in. Since we’re on a dock (and therefore have an address for the week), we placed some amazon orders and ran around town picking up various other bits and bobs we needed. Hopefully this next week will be as productive for us as we plan, and we can keep moving South soon!