We made it to Tybee Island!

Photo Courtesy of Sailing Anarchy's Meredith Block. This was about 250 feet before hitting the beach at Tybee Island.
Thursday morning in Daytona the Race Committee announced that the start from Fernandina Beach would be at 8AM. After a sleep deprived week this was a brutal announcement. However, once we found out the reasoning, wind decreasing later in the day on Saturday, we agreed it was for the best.
After an early finish in Fernandina we did some minor boat work to get the boat ready to sail to Tybee. The coast of Georgia is very desolate and there is almost no where to pull out if you break down. A few years ago a team broke down and had to overnight in a remote area of the GA coast and sail to civilization the next day.
We started off in about 3 knots of wind. The start was brutal for us, we had the poll position in the 2nd start but the surf was the biggest at this end. We pushed off with the spinnaker full thinking we would punch out. Suddenly a wave set came and pushed us back and back and back until we were almost back at the beach. We started paddling and got through the first waves only to be pushed back again by a 2nd set. It was really frustrating and it led to a poor position once we got out of the surf.
Almost immediately we were in GA, crossing the opening of the St. Mary's river, avoiding a large tugboat and commercial fishing boats. From there we saw an hour or two of light (3-6mph). The forecast was for the wind to die after 11AM, we were trying not to think about this, but we were doing the math in our heads... 114 miles divided by 3 is a long time! We were praying this wouldn't be the case... as 11AM neared there was no sign of the wind letting up, infact around 10:30 the wind picked up to about 12 and then continued to climb and settle in around 15 knots. This fresh breeze led us to a double trapezed tight spinnaker reach. For the most part the 80+ mile speedy spinnaker reach was uneventful, we went back and forth with around 5 boats that were around us about 10 miles off the GA coast. One of these boats was Team Moose-Burd who was there one minute and gone the next, we later found out that their mast folded in half. These guys sailed the rest of the race (38 miles) under jury rig finishing about 7 hours after us.
This leg featured the least amount of sea life of the whole race. We saw a few dolphins about 2 feet off our bow early in the leg but that encounter that really shook us up was later on when we were sailing at 16knots, double trapezed with the spinnaker up and looked down to see a 8 foot hammerhead shark right below us! We both looked at each other and exchanged some words not to be repeated on here. We figure the shark was only about 6-8 inches from our daggerboard. After this sighting we decided we were going to try REALLY hard not to capsize and have a closer encounter with this guy or any of his friends.
As we neared Tybee we had to drop the spinnaker and jib reach for a bit. Within a few miles of the finish we raised the spinnaker which took us most of the way to the finish. There is a cool video of us finishing at:
Sailing Anarchy TV
The video of us is "Team Adrenalin Finish" it is the last of the Tybee videos.
It was great to pull up to the beach in Tybee and finish the Tybee 500 in our first attempt! The welcome was amazing with hundreds of onlookers and beachgoers. Tons of people came up to ask us about the race, we almost felt like celebrities. Apparently back in Daytona, one racer was asked for his autograph!
Making it to Tybee was made possible by all of our sponsors, family, and friends who supported us this year and all throughout our sailing careers. We know you will all continue to support us and we greatly appreciate that! Thanks again for everything!