Hilton Head Island: 13TH; Cape Lookout Bight

13TH is a powerful and disturbing new documentary on Netflix.  

The title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for conviction of a crime.

The documentary begins with Barack Obama stating, “The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners.”  I did not know that and am shocked to learn it.

I have seen a lot of the world and I do not believe that, with the exception of mass shootings in which we are in a deplorable league of our own, citizens of the United States are more criminal than anyone else, so how can it be that a quarter of all those imprisoned in the world are imprisoned here?  That is what 13TH explores and explains.  Profit is part of the answer and fear is another part.  That big corporations and billionaires have disproportionate influence on our so-called democracy is not news, but more evidence is shown in the film.

I find myself wondering about the fear, particularly in light of recent fatal shootings of a young woman in a car that mistakenly pulled into the wrong driveway and of a young, physically slight black child who mistakenly knocked on the wrong door.  What are people so afraid of that they instantly shoot strangers? 

But then I don’t own a gun.  Maybe I am brave after all.

I learned from 13TH.  Possibly you could too.

I am going sailing in a few days.

I biked to GANNET this morning and scrubbed the bottom as well as I can with an extension boom, removing some soft growth.  With ablative paint the bottom will clean up more underway.

I inventoried what food I have on board and find I need to top up on juice, box wine, chocolate, cookies, dried fruit, ice tea.  Also of course fill water containers and reconfigure the interior to sailing mode.  I will bike to a supermarket tomorrow and depart Wednesday or Thursday.

I have a destination this time.  Cape Lookout Bight as shown in the charts above.  

In the top one my present location is the blue arrowhead in the lower left corner and Cape Lookout the black rectangle in the upper right, 250 miles distant.  Cape Lookout is near Beaufort, North Carolina, and the next cape southwest of Hatteras which is located just outside the frame.

The lower chart shows the anchorage in detail.

I have sailed past Cape Lookout a half dozen times without ever noticing it until Steve Earley anchored there on one of his cruises.  It looked to be a good isolated and interesting anchorage, which Steve tells me it is.

So I’d like to sail up there, anchor for a few days, and sail back, maybe stopping in Charleston on the return.

As has been everything since completion of my sixth circumnavigation this is not a matter of make it or die trying, which is probably the way I prefer it, but I would like to get there.  The wind is strong here right now.  We have a gale warning.  By the end of the week it may be very light.

I will turn on the Yellowbrick, so you can follow if you wish.