Charleston

     Back in Charleston. Again.

     We like Charleston but the City Marina is getting less and less friendly. Wanting $5 a day for dinghy access. Threatening to tow away unregistered dinks. We will see if they tow us. Because of this we go into town less. Spend less money, too. On the other hand we have already done most of the tourist stuff over the last few years so it's not a big deal. If they knew we were sneaking into the marina showers they would be upset also.

     We have been here a week already and have two weeks to go. They weather has been terrific but, of course, it's scheduled to turn bad tomorrow. Carol leaves for somewhere on Sunday. I can never remember where she's going until she actually leaves.

     A big event for us is coming up... turning the clocks back one hour. Why is that a bigger deal for us than you? We are up with or before sunrise and in bed shortly after sunset. When we get back underway it means we leave earlier and must be anchored earlier, too. We like the first part but worry a bit about the second part. Running out of daylight on the ICW can be a problem. For some reason there are no highway lights.

We will not know if we get a weather window to go offshore from here or have to take the ICW south. Florida is one day away if we go offshore. Closer to one week away if we stay in the ditch.

How about some photos taken up to now?

Myrtle Beach

     We're at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with our first free internet since we were ashore for maintenance in Pasadena.

     We stop at this marina because it's reasonably priced and we can get fuel and water and nice roomy showers. The restaurant is good, too.

     We had a good Chesapeake Bay passage. After the boat show and Carol's work break we headed to Solomon's Island and had a nice, mostly downwind sail. The next day got us to Virginia (Deltaville) after another nice sail. Pretty unusual.

     It couldn't last. The final passage out of the Chesapeake was just motoring but the good weather continued. We stopped off at Portsmouth for one night to take down our navigation/anchor light at the top of our mast. This lets us get down the ICW with less chance of hitting the fixed bridges. Norfolk/Portsmouth is the actual start of the ICW.

     Our first ICW passage was a little interesting. There was a lot of boat traffic. A lot. It took an hour to get loaded into the Great Bridge Lock. Normally it's 15 minutes in and out. The sailboaters seemed to be afraid to tighten up and get the job done. It's unusual for us to complain about our fellow sailors.

     Crossing Albemarle Sound was not awful. It was 1-2 foot seas following us and for some reason it was a little uncomfortable. More than it should be in those conditions but not awful. We had the genoa out but it was really motoring with sail up instead motorsailing. Or sailing. The Alligator River was pretty smooth so on the whole it wasn't a bad day even though there were some light rain showers.

     The Albemarle and the Pamlico/Neuse passage a day later are very often one of our least favorite passage combinations. Both can be, and have been, very miserable passages. This time the rain was easing out, the clouds were breaking up and the wind was behind us. Seas again were in the 1-2 foot range but much more comfortable with some decent sailing. We ended up in our usual spot in Cedar Creek off of Adams Creek which is just off the Neuse River.

     After that it was a trip past Beaufort, NC to Mile Hammock at Camp LeJeune. These areas of the ICW are narrow and shallow but very protected and flat no matter the wind.

     Next we had a very interesting day. We went to Wrightsville Beach which in itself was not strange. Just recently I had connected with an older, I mean more mature, cousin on Facebook. It turned out she had been living in Wilmington, NC for some time and was just a few miles from where we were. She actually was stopped in the traffic we caused by requesting the bascule bridge opening. She came down to the dinghy dock for a brief visit. We hadn't seen each other in nearly 20 years. Kinda cool.

     A trip down the Cape Fear River wasn't bad considering the forecast and then the passage here was another easy one.

     We are now only two passages from Charleston, SC where we'll stop for a few weeks to allow Carol another work break and me a regular maintenance period. Maybe a little sightseeing will happen, too.