Sunny and warm in Charleston

Today was a lay day/play day.  We were up early doing laundry and Dan finished rerouting some wires for our battery monitor and then at 11 the whole group took the water taxi across the harbor for an early lunch at the Fleet Landing restaurant and a chance to wander the streets of Charleston.

Two more bridge pictures... The lights were impressive last night and Pete got this morning shot of the fog creeping in on cat feet.

The water taxi dropped us off at the waterfront park which is a lovely first impression for the city.  Kathy is taking a picture of this fountain and will undoubtedly do  a great job with it.  I used my phone all day, so a little more limited in my scope.













It was warm enough that children were running through this fountain in bathing suits!

We discovered last time we were here that going in for an early lunch  was a good idea.  It worked again today.  We got there at 11:30, were seated right away and had a wonderful lunch.  On the way out of the restaurant the line of people waiting for a table was out the door!   We split up after lunch to do our wandering,  the guys wanted a hardware store and some of us wanted to see other things.  I spent the afternoon with Jeanne (Ragtime) and we visited the Cooks! store, a needlepoint shop and took a quick look at the central market area.  It was a lot of walking and a lot of fun.  We moved north from our first stop and planned to pick up the water taxi at the Charleston Maritime Center Marina.  We didn't time it  quite right and arrived 2 minutes after the taxi had left.  We found chairs in the air conditioned laundry room and relaxed, watched the harbor and chatted waiting for the next taxi.

The view while we waited for the taxi shows the aircraft carrier Yorktown across the harbor and our marina to the right.

We watched the College of Charleston Sailing Team racing on our way
 across the harbor and landed under the stern of the Yorktown..

Everyone gathered in Brunelle's cockpit again this evening to discuss plans for tomorrow.  They say we're in for a cold wet spell for the next few days....  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Let's do (the) Charleston

We are HERE, well not exactly, all the marinas in Charleston proper are booked for the entire month of November, We are at Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina which is across the harbor from the city, but we have access thru a water taxi and a trolley service here on the "other" side.

When Dan and Pete took the dogs ashore at 6:30 this morning we thought it was still up for grabs which way we'd head south, but Pete had received a large internet job that required good signal, so the decision was made to stay inside.

While the boys and dogs were ashore I started to squeejee the dodger and enclosure,
 but first snapped the first picture, a few minutes later I notice a dramatic
change in the lighting and turned around to see the sun emerging.  Just before
we headed off I turned around again and saw that we weren't going to
escape the fog completely!  

Luckily the fog was no match for the sun and we didn't see any more of it until we were several miles down the ditch.  As we crossed on of the inlets from the ocean, we looked shoreward and saw a HUGE fog bank engulfing the area about half a mile inland from us.

It may not look that dramatic in the picture, but it reminded us cruising in Maine.

We hit some of the "thinnest" spots in this part of the ICW at dead low tide, so it was slow going and as we didn't want to hit hard.  After lunch Pete sent off his large project and offered to take the lead giving us a welcome breather.  We did have time constraint because the Ben Sawyer Bridge, just before you reach Charleston Harbor is closed to boat traffic from 4 to 6 pm and we wanted to make it to our marina before dark.  As it was we reached the bridge around 2 pm and had no trouble getting to our marina in good time.  The day was warm and sunny, a pleasant change from the past three days.  

As we entered the harbor it was buzzing with activity, quite a change from the solitude of the winding ways of the ICW.  The light shining on the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge right over our marina was a welcoming sight.

We started the day with a dramatic sunrise and fittingly the ended similarly.  We re connected with Pinnacle.  They had gone overnight from Southport and arrived early this morning at the same marina.  We all sat around Brunelle's cockpit for cocktails and caught up on everyone's experiences of the day.  Dan captured this great sunset over the harbor and the city of Charleston.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Georgetown, SC...a new venue at an familiar stop

We've often talked about this anchorage, just east of the turnoff for the ICW, but never stopped  here. We are undecided whether to head outside (offshore) tomorrow at first light or whether to head down the canal and take the inside route to Charleston.  This is the perfect spot for making that decision.

We left the Barefoot Landing at 8 this morning is thick fog,  not quite "pea soup" but thick enough to

make progress slow and nerve wracking.

At be beginning we couldn't even see the three other boats behind us, but by the time we went under the Myrtle Beach Golf Course cable cars all three were visible.  The rest of the scenery included a buoy graveyard, an eerily lit scene and the first of LOTS of Spanish Moss.

The Waccamaw River is always a fun run, a wide serpentine river with mostly wilderness on both sides, interspersed with both stately homes and homely shacks!  We saw a pair of eagles along the bank and I got a kick of one  walking out to the end of his branch to pose for us.

At one point we passed two dogs out on the dock warding off all intruders.  Dory made sure they knew she was there and then took up her post watching for any other canine racket.

The fog returned with the twilight (I was going to say with the setting sun, but we didn't see any evidence of sun today), making the evening dog run more exciting.  Added to that there is also a very strong current that runs through this channel, setting us first one way and then the other.  

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Barefoot Landing Marina

...not to be confused with Barefoot Resort Marina.  When heading south on the ICW you have to choose between turning left or right after you go through the Barefoot Landing Swing Bridge...

Waiting to go through the Barefoot Landing Swing Bridge.

We chose left.  Dan says I wanted to go here rather than to the Resort Marina because the Barefoot Landing is right beside a shopping mall!  Not really true, but it sounds good.  We left this morning at 8 am and were shortly joined by Pekabu III  who had left at first light to rejoin our little group.  We meandered on down the narrow windy(that's a long "i" sound (no wind to speak of)) channel through several inlets each with it's own shoaling and strong side currents.  One of these currents, the Lockwood's Folly Inlet current managed to put us aground...

It all started because we knew we would be going by the spot where we had spent a lovely long weekend helping get niece Amy Bliss married last May.  We wanted to get a picture from the ICW of the cool house (slept 16) they rented for the wedding.  We kept miscalculating the exact position of the house and I was out on deck trying to get a picture (of the WRONG house) when oomph we came to a halt.  There was so much sweep coming in from the inlet that Dan didn't notice he was being pushed out of the channel.  We sat there for over 3/4 of an hour begging every power boat that came past to "wake" us in the hope that their waves would ride us off.  Eventually (right after Dan had called TowBoat US) we started to move just as three power boats came by and with the tide and their help we were off and running again.  10 miles on down the pike we finally did get a picture of the famous wedding site...

All but the center shot are my futile attempts to find THE house!

We didn't actually have sun today, but the rain was spotty and hardly noticeable after yesterday.  The rest of the trip was uneventful except Kathy Bruzik came over our CCYC radios with "Livestock! and I don't have my camera."  At first we had to question her wording, but I did have the camera out and got a picture of said livestock!

Not your everyday sight along the ICW!

We were treated to a courtesy van ride to the local BiLo grocery store once we arrived and are ready for whatever comes next!  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Rain Rain Go Away! Two days is enough!

Nothing like a classic yacht to raise your spirits on a gray and rainy day.

We passed this beauty right after going through the Wrightsville Beach Bridge.  We're always a bit nervous around this area as we lost our rudder here seven years ago!  We were down to only three boats when we went through the bridge because Pekabu III is  at Carolina Beach State Park about 10 miles further south and Pinnacle  ran aground getting out of the marina.

We make it safely through the Wrightsville Beach Bridge.

The rain didn't seem to bother the brave souls who like to fish right at the many inlets that riddle this part of the NC coast.  It makes it hard to judge your timing for bridges because for a while you'll be getting over a knot of current boosting your speed only to have it set against you when you pass an inlet.  

Cars and fishermen dot the beach at this inlet.

We had a boost through Snow Cut but noticed that the 65' bridge there was reading 63' on it's vertical clearance boards.  We relayed the information to Pinnacle because their mast height is 64+'!  (they never did catch up to us and have decided to head outside to Charleston tomorrow after they make it through the Snow Cut bridge at dead low tide!)  As we headed out into the Cape Fear River, we spied  Pekabu III  in the marina.

Pekabu III is right of center.

We would have liked to join Pete and Kathy there, but remained at the Harbour Village Marina for a second night (and day) so Dan could try to figure our why our alternator wasn't charging the batteries while we were motoring.  He thinks he has pinpointed the issue...a bad battery switch.  He did some jury rigging today and we'll see if it helps when we get underway tomorrow.

We made it to Southport and are tied up at the South Harbor Village Marina.  It's a really nice place with good facilities, good restaurants and good rates!  Now we just need a little sunshine. 

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Regrouped! Harbour Village, Hampstead, NC

We originally planned to get up at the new crack of dawn and leave Dudley's by 6:30am, but we learned that the rest of the fleet had spent a second night in Mile Hammock Bay in Camp LeJeune and had hoped to make it to Wrightsville Beach.  They called ahead and discovered there weren't any slips available in any of the marinas there and settled on Harbour Village Marina in Hampstead.  It was only 40 miles from our marina so we headed out at 7:00 instead.

Our dockmates, a Gulfstar 45 from Canada, asked if they could follow us as they had heard horror stories about shoaling at Brown's Inlet, just before you get to Camp LeJeune.  We remembered having to do a real zigzag two years ago and felt we could lead them through it.  We did make it through with only two small bumps, but on of the key buoys was missing, which made it even more difficult to decipher.

The rest of the trip went smoothly EXCEPT the newly renovated alternator didn't seem to be doing it's job.  Our batteries continued to slowly lose voltage as the day wore on.  Luckily we made it the Harbour Village Marina before 2 pm and promptly plugged in shore power as soon as we tied up.  Tomorrow promises to be ugly with thunderstorms, so we'll stay another day here and hope to iron out this new wrinkle.  The only good picture I have to share is from "home".  I implored all the kids to send Halloween pix and they complied.  All I can say is CREATIVITY ABOUNDS!!

We're not proud grandparents, NOOO!  ~~~_/)~~~M&D