Now, before you weigh anchor and dive into this entry, I've buried two words from my daily calendar somewhere in the text below. These are Quidnunc and Luscious. Consider it a little treasure hunt on the high seas of prose. No parrots or Blackbeard eye patches required, just a keen eye and perhaps a tot of rum for encouragement.

The sun had barely crested the horizon when we eased Sawasdeekat out of the inlet at Biscayne Bay. We had waved goodbye to Mum the day before, a bittersweet moment that lingers longer than either of us care to admit. But the sea was calling, and Charleston was waiting. The Intracoastal Waterway, that gentle aquatic motorway that hugs the American coastline, was off limits to us. Sawasdeekat stands too tall, her mast a proud 70 odd feet above the water, a defiant finger pointing at the heavens; the ICW's bridges would have soon swatted us down like a bothersome fly. So we faced the open water, the rougher passage, the one that demands respect and, preferably, a decent night's sleep.

We had neither.

The first leg was a crawl. Both engines snarling, pushing against a current that felt personal in its determination to keep us pinned to the bay. Two point eight knots. Two point eight. A brisk walk would have overtaken us. Pookie, bless her, had already assumed the position: horizontal, eyes closed, willing the world to stop moving. She has a superpower, my wife. She can be recognised in any country on Earth by strangers who once saw her wield a spatula on MasterChef, yet she cannot remain vertical on a boat for more than twenty minutes without turning a shade of green that would make a leprechaun jealous.

Once we escaped the bay's grip, the current swung in our favour. The engines fell silent. The sails filled. And Sawasdeekat, that beautiful catamaran we bought with zero experience and a mountain of optimism, flew. Ten knots average. The wind on our beam, the sea state manageable, the horizon a promise. But tiredness is a sneaky adversary. It creeps into your bones and whispers sweet nothings about rest, and so, rather than push on, we turned into West Palm Beach for the night.

It was not, as the guidebooks might suggest, a glittering jewel of the Florida coast. At least not the bit we saw. The river was shallow, the weather grey and daunting and light was fading. The whole place had the vibe of a car park at dusk. We anchored in two and a half metres of water and collapsed.

Four in the morning. The witching hour. The hour when sensible people are dreaming of tropical islands and questionable life choices. I shook Pookie awake. She made a noise that suggested I had just asked her to swim the Channel. But we were keen, (or at least I was) and so we hauled up the anchor and pointed Sawasdeekat towards the inlet.

But it was Dark. A proper, ink-black, can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face darkness. The kind that makes you realise how utterly insignificant you are. And the inlet? The inlet was angry. We could hear the waves, short and steep and mean, marched towards us like a phalanx of watery bouncers. We knew we’d reached them when suddenly Sawasdeekat's nose started violently rising and falling, and then, with a sickening thud, she buried herself into a black wall of water. Pookie looked almost as grey as the night.

I knew. In that instant, this was a fool's errand.

But we were now in a narrow channel. Rocks to port. Rocks to starboard. A torrent of waves ahead. I spun the wheel, timing the turn between swells, and somehow, by the grace of whatever sea gods look after idiots and sailors, we swung about and retreated back to the safety of the river.

We anchored again and waited. We watched the tide tables and tried again at half six.

This time, in dawn’s new light, we could see the waves. This time, we had a fighting chance. Engines at almost full chat, we pushed against the incoming water. Slowly, painfully, Sawasdeekat made progress. She kept her nose pointed the right way, and we slipped out into the open sea like a cork from a bottle.

The wind was strong again. Eighteen to twenty knots on the beam. We reefed the main, reefed the genoa, and let the Florida Current do its thing. At times touching twelve knots. Sawasdeekat was flying. The waves, however, were horrid. Short, steep, confused. The kind of sea that slaps you in the face and laughs. Pookie stayed below, riding it out. I stayed on the helm, because that is my job, my duty, my curse.

We made 116 miles in twelve hours. 216 in twenty-four. Apart from the sail which was looking increasingly like it belonged to a pirate ship, nothing went wrong! It was the best day's sailing since we bought the boat. I whooped. I actually whooped. Then, as if Eurus himself heard our glee and decided to mess with it, the wind suddenly died and so did the Gulf Stream current. It had swung away, further from the coast than we wanted. So we motorsailed. Then we motored. For the following six hours.

If that wasn’t enough, the Raymarine Navionics also decided to challenge us. The Navstation, that electronic brain we trust with our lives, began to falter. Its maps, without another significant investment of cash, did not stretch this far north. We were sailing into the unknown with only basic outlines to follow and so I turned to my trusty Garmin app on my phone. After many hours Charleston finally appeared at one in the afternoon, a hazy smudge of steeples and super tall bridge that slowly resolved into a city.

We had been warned about the anchorage near Safe Harbor Marina. Wrecks, debris, the kind of underwater junkyard that grabs anchors and never lets go. So we anchored well clear, near where the Ashley River joins Wappoo Creek, and breathed.

Charleston.

We only knew two people from Charleston, they were Bill and Cheryl. We had met them a year earlier in Union Island, a chance and brief encounter that became a friendship. We messaged them on a whim, expecting nothing more than a welcome message and wave hello. Instead, they invited us to dinner. Not a quick drink. Not a coffee. Dinner. With their family.

Their home was warm, their welcome warmer. We talked of sailing and adventures and the places still to see. We met their daughters, bright-eyed and curious. It was the sort of evening that reminds you why you cast off the lines in the first place. Not for the miles, not for the bragging rights, but for the people. The connections. The unexpected kindness of strangers who become friends.

Charleston itself is a city that wears its history like a well-tailored coat. Blackbeard once demanded medicine here. Slave ships unloaded their human cargo on these very docks. The past is not buried; it is woven into the fabric of the place. Everywhere the ghosts of old quidnuncs who once traded gossip on these cobbled streets seem to lean in, eager to share their secrets. And pineapples. Pineapples everywhere. On front doors, on gates, on the famous fountain at Waterfront Park. The legend goes that a ship's captain, returning from a long voyage, would hang a pineapple on his door to announce his safe arrival and welcome friends to visit. A tropical fruit as a symbol of hospitality. I rather like that.

Columbia may be the capital of South Carolina, but Charleston is the beating heart. More populous, more beautiful, more alive. We were just about to go exploring when my phone buzzed. Tom. Captain of On Liberty. We had last seen him in St Maarten, a lifetime ago. He was berthed at Safe Harbor and noticed our arrival. He knew the area, and he and his fiancé Kelly offered us a guided tour. The buildings around us were pastel confections, antebellum beauties with wrought-iron balconies and gardens bursting with magnolias. Parks shaded by ancient oaks, their branches draped in Spanish moss like the beards of wise old men. It was a city that seduced you with its charm and its food and its unhurried grace.

I had noticed an eatery called The Charleston Crab House that served its “World-famous” crab steam pots and invited them to join us. Tom piloted his tender up Wappoo Creek, because his could handle the four of us better than ours. The crab steam pots arrived, luscious and steaming, a mountain of shellfish that demanded silence, elbow room, and a complete abandonment of dignity. We ate. We drank. We laughed and watch weirdly wonderful boats sail by.

We had a wonderful time in Charleston and vowed to return. But then, as always, the sea called us northwards for the hurricane season.

We rose the following day bright and early, ready to set off for Chesapeake Bay. I pressed the button for the windlass. Nothing. Well, not nothing. A groan. A struggle. But nothing else. The anchor was stuck.

I tried driving over it (A common way to unhitch an anchor). The river’s current, strong and indifferent, made that impossible. I tried turning. Nothing. We shortened the chain as much as we dared. Still stuck. Seven metres of river below us, zero visibility, and a current that could drag a swimmer to the sea. We needed a diver. But… it was

Memorial Day Weekend.

Of course it was!

We called seven numbers. Seven. Finally, someone answered. A diver. He quoted $250 to try, $350 if he succeeded. A fair deal, I thought. It encouraged effort. He arrived the next morning. I collected him from the marina, helped him gear up, and watched him disappear into the murky water.

Five minutes. That's all it took. He surfaced, asked me to lift the anchor, and up it came. Free. Whatever it had snagged on, whatever piece of Charleston's underwater history had claimed our ground tackle, had let go and he hadn’t needed to touch it. We reclaimed a £1500 anchor. He charged us $300. A discount, he said, for the short dip. We filled our fuel tanks, waved our goodbyes, and set off.

As we sailed out, a massive MSC cargo ship chased us out of the estuary. A floating city, steel and containers, bearing down on us with the indifference of a glacier. The law of the sea is clear: despite us sailing, the big ship has right of way. Not because it is bigger, though it is, but because it cannot stop, cannot turn, cannot deviate from the shallow channel. Big enough to create its own wind system we tucked in behind it, a dinghy in the shadow of a skyscraper, and slipped out into open water.

Northward. The wind pushed us along, a steady hand at our backs. And then.

BANG!

A sound that stops your heart. A sound that sends you scrambling for the source of the catastrophe. We looked. We searched. Nothing. We carried on, but the worry gnawed. At six in the evening, I spotted it: the yellow reefing line, nearly cut through. The bang had been the clew strap on the boom snapping. Now all the pressure of the sail was on the reefing line. We dropped the main and limped on, one engine and the foresail, heading for the shortest route around the Diamond Shoals.

The Diamond Shoals off Cape Hatteras have claimed so many ships that the area is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Over 600 vessels have wrecked here since record-keeping began, their bones scattered across the shifting sands. The treacherous confluence of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current creates conditions that have baffled and broken sailors for centuries. The shoals lurk beneath the surface, a trap for the unwary. We could see why. The depth sounder flickered, the water shallowed, and we threaded our way around it with only my phone to guide us.

Just as we put this danger behind us, another one was waiting. A red light appeared on the port engine. I swapped to starboard and carried on. After some time Pookie went to check the engine bay. She came back with a look on her face that I have learned to fear.

A foot of water was in the engine bay. Almost up to the engine itself.

In sheer panic we quickly grabbed the pump and hand-pumped the salt water into a bucket, hoping it was not a hole in the boat. Once empty and with the engine not running it remained dry. We breathed a sigh of relief and carried on towards Norfolk.

We later surmised that it was the fault of a small hole in the mixing elbow of the exhaust system. As dawn rose we motored slowly past the armada of war ships lined up at the mouth of Norfolk, grey leviathans sleeping in the morning mist, and slipped into Portsmouth where we hoped to see a man about an inverter. The adventure, it seems, is never truly over….