Beaufort, SC

We had another pleasant day motorsailing up the coast, tucking in at Port Royal Sound and motoring up the ICW to Beaufort (the one pronounced "byoofurt"). We covered 50 miles on the ocean which would have been about 80 miles if we had done the entire distance on the ICW, since the waterway doesn't go in a straight line. Once we got into Port Royal Sound, there were tons of skiffs, speedboats, and jetskis all enjoying the Memorial Day weekend sunshine. The weather took a turn for the worse just as we approached the anchorage, the rain started coming down just as we dropped anchor and right away the wind picked up. Anchoring in squall conditions is not ideal. Even less ideal is anchoring with the wind pushing you one way and the current pushing you the opposite way. Monohulls are heavy and tend to lay with the current, but we are a lighter boat and have a lot of windage so when the wind blows hard we tend to do a little dance around our anchor as the wind and current push us around. There will be an anchorage full of boats all facing the same way and we will be the only one facing the other way. It's funny unless there's not enough space between the boats -- that's when we worry about bumping in to someone (like last fall's encounter with Turnabout*). It's been a couple of hours since the squall passed and the wind has died down to nothing so we are laying like everybody else now. We plan to take the day off tomorrow and maybe try to do a little sightseeing here. They have some kind of Memorial Day festival going and we are anchored right near it and can hear the music from the boat.