Three weeks ago our lifestyle changed. We left land, found ourselves becoming more focused, taking the challenges of boat travel in stride, laughing together and enjoying life.
Tonight we are anchored in Church Creek, SC, a mile off the intercoastal waterway. Its quiet and peaceful. Should be a beautiful sunset.
Dolly is talking to her daughter in Michigan to whom our mail is being forwarded.
The Beach House eight days ago in Fernandina Beach Marina.
Part of that enjoyment has been meeting with old friends and partners over a delicious meal at Hudson’s Seafood on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Karl Bambas – George Townes – Paul Ebel
George, Paul and I plus several others formed what became a very successful engineering consulting company in 1984 when our employer, Allied General Nuclear Services, shut down in Barnwell, SC. George and Paul found their nuclear expertise in high demand. I was a financial guy and left on good terms after about a year.
Now on day 23 of our great loop cruise around the eastern third of the United States we have dropped the hook on seventeen evenings. Six nights at marinas is about what I anticipated at the start. The goal is about two nights per week. Marinas are required for fresh food provisioning, fuel, water and laundry.
Where to start!? Yesterday was scattered clouds and warm. There was a wind that was a nuisance when combined with an incoming tide at an inlet. The two together made it hard to keep on course. Karl says I am properly initiated into boating… I ran us aground. He says the old saying about two types of motorcycle riders, “those who have dumped their bike, and those who will dump their bike” applies to boating and running aground too.
Night before last, we stopped for the night at an anchorage just off the intracoastal waterway and thought we had enough room beneath us for the night. Hmmmmm…… to make a long story short, we stayed up until after 10 p.m. to wait for the tide to lift us off the bottom and we moved a little further from shore to deeper water.
We were only going to go about 26 miles to Safe Harbor Skull Creek (Hilton Head Island, SC.) and made a lazy start to the day. When we got to the Savannah River, we spotted our first ship. I’m grateful she was sitting still so we wouldn’t have to contend with her wake. We watched a tug approach her and go down her far side. As we passed, we saw that the tug was helping to steer the ship around a bend just upstream. Please excuse my foot, I’m an amateur photographer!
A few minutes later, we decided that we were done with the scenic route, turned around and got back on the intracoastal waterway. In that wind, we didn’t want to go out into the Atlantic.
We got to Safe Harbor, and were lucky to get dockage at the end of a T-dock. The wind and currents were so strong, it took several tries to get close enough to throw lines to be tied down. We were grateful to get docked. The guy manning the office told us that someone earlier was trying to dock in one of the slips, and the wind blew him off and the side of his boat hit the bow pulpit of another boat. He broke out a window. We added more lines because of the wind, and settled down to a nice spaghetti dinner. We had a restful and quiet night.
I was able to wear my sweater last night. It is going to be perfect for this trip. I’m sitting in the marina laundry right now, waiting for my second load to finish washing. We’ve been on board for so long that it seems the solid ground is moving beneath me. Hope you are having a great day!
Dolly
PS (1:34 p.m.): I was just going through photos, and found a video I took just before we got here. It was cool to watch.
We reached our anchorage yesterday afternoon at about 3:30 p.m. We are planning on a ‘rest’ day again and will stay here a second night before heading north again. We had a horde of flies all day yesterday. They liked to come into the pilot house because it was calm in there. It was calm until Karl insisted I bring the battery powered vacuum up and he sucked them all in. That took care of them for a few minutes and we decided to close the doors and roll down the window flaps, not zipping them so we would have a supply of cooler air. That slowed them down to a better rate of entry. They are still pretty active today, but we have the screen door latched so they can’t get in the cabin and bite us.
The sunset last night was a gorgeous display. The tidal current and the wind were arguing about which direction the boat should be facing, the tide won until after bed time. Then in the night, the wind came up stronger and we weren’t pointing into it. We rolled quite a bit, and I wasn’t sure I’d get back to sleep, but finally did after the boat got itself situated into the wind.
While we were underway yesterday, Karl commented that he always said that he didn’t want to become one of those old men who sat and stared out at the world going by, but here he was… he was at the helm on autopilot and watching the world go by. It’s a good thing he’s not old!
Karl suggested I talk about some of our safety equipment we use every day: the communication headsets and our life vests. Both of these things make everyday life safer and help to keep misunderstandings to a minimum.
The headsets keep communication open when we aren’t close by. Here, I am rinsing off the anchor chain while it is being brought up.
I can call off how many feet have come up, or let Karl know to back up because we are moving over the anchor. Our voices come in loud and clear, and we don’t have to shout at each other or repeat ourselves (very often.) When we are in rough water, we use them when I go below for something, letting Karl know I was down safely or on my way back up.
We chose inflatable life vests for comfort. We don them before raising anchor and wait to remove them after we drop anchor at night.
These vests have 3 ways of inflating. The first one is if they get wet. Fall in the drink, and they should automatically inflate from a cartridge. If that fails, there is a pull cord that should trigger the cartridge. If that fails, there is also a tube on the inside to manually inflate the vest. Speaking of these, I think we should get some extra cartridges. Hopefully we will never have to use them.
We also have the bulky, orange life vests available. I’ll have to consider those when we have to go out into the Atlantic. I’d rather be a bit uncomfortable and safe than comfortable and sorry! It will probably depend on how rough it is.
