Fernandina Beach to Charleston

So let me catch up with this adventure or more aptly "tale of woe".   Left Fernandina Beach at about 6:30am on Sunday morning.  Had a beautiful day sail. Weather was 5-10 out of Southeast   Made great time all day with GPS predicting our Charleston arrival at around 6:30am. Great 24 hour run, but not to be. Even caught a nice blackfin tuna.  

The winds predicted approaching Charleston 5-10 out of the north turned out to be 20 out of the northeast, right on our nose.  Waves and wind slowed us to 1-2kts putting us in Charleston at somewhere late afternoon. Too much pounding to weather for two senior citizens.  We turned around and headed for Port Royal Sound, 33 miles away to the south. We were 25 miles from Charleston at the time.  Neither Dave nor I had ever entered Port Royal so it was daunting with a steady 20 kts out of the Northeast.  The channel approach is due North for nearly 5 miles, then a turn of about 30deg to the west for 6 miles putting the waves on our beam. Thankfully the channel is well marked and deep.  We made it in though, fueled up at Port Royal Landing, where I now have some of the rubber from their floating dock on the port side of my boat.  Kissed it a little hard and Dave forgot to put out the fenders.  Took a ball at Beaufort town marina for $20 and had dinner at Luthers.  

Dropped the ball at 6:15 and requested bridge opening with 2 boats following us through.  Let them pass thinking they were more familiar. Great move until we tried to enter the Ashepoo Cooshaw cut.  The boat we were following went aground and us right behind him.  I tried to go right but too late we went into the mud.  Luckily I was able to back off.  We anchored, thinking we would wait for more tide as it was very low.  A passing trawler gave us a heads up on the proper course so we tried it again snd made it.