Update...Part 2 (go back one entry before you read this one)

Chicken on the grill was a tad overdone (black) but the steam-in-the-bag mixed veggies were excellent.  Now back to business...

April 27 Wednesday  St. Johns Yacht Harbor  South of Charleston

Slept well and enjoyed a great shower in luxurious accommodations.  Found out that Jack likes to play cribbage when he saw our board.  He and Kerm had to have a game before we shoved off.  For the record, Jack won and Kerm owes him 3 cents. 

We took our leave, saying goodbye to Sunset II for a while.  They are spending 2days in Charleston doing the tourist thing.
It was overcast and pretty chilly on Charleston Harbor and it got choppy out there too.  These pictures give an idea but I'm no photographer.

Charleston Harbor

Fort Sumter ( No, really, it is...trust me)

 

 

Tour Boat in the Harbor

It took us about an hour to cross the harbor and we were glad to be on the ICW again.  We motored along for several more hours until 3p.m and then ducked into Jeremy Creek because we were hearing of bad weather.  We docked at Leland Oil Co., the only place in McClellanville for transients.  It was NOT five star.  In fact, by the end of our stay, we would not give it any stars at all. I'm not complaining but here are two of the classiest pictures I could take.

There was a derelict boat behind us and the docks were rickety.  However, we were taking the conservative approach to the weather and as they say....any boat in the storm

to be continued

Catch up on our travels

Chris here

I'm behind on my entries so here goes...

Monday, April25

We left Isle of Hope Marina very early (7:01a.m.) before Kim could convince us to stay there forever.  It was a wonderful place and we will recommend it to anyone we can.  We crossed the Savannah River and entered Calibogue Sound, a pretty piece of water between the mainland and Hilton Head Island.  We passed the famous lighthouse at Harbourtown where the PGA had played a tournament (the Heritage at Sea Pines) that ended the day before.  Here's a picture of the Lighthouse...if you want a better view you'll have to go there yourself, sorry.

 We saw lots of jellyfish in the Sound and I can't figure out what they are called. They are round like a cantalope and they have an orange band around the 'equator'.  No tentacles streaming out that I could see.  I'll have to do more research.

 We made a short day of it and docked at The Downtown Beaufort Marina at 2:35p.m. which we had already checked out the week before by land.  We had also checked out the bars and restaurants so we knew where to go. Beautiful sunset.

Warren goofing off on the marina's courtesy car

 Tuesday, April 26
Left Beaufort and after running for 2 hours the weather turned bad.  We had very heavy rain and lightening.  I fired up the radar and but what really saved us was that Kerm kept us positioned on a nearby marker so that we could at least see where we were.   Two of our three GPS units were affected by the lightening and Kerm was one concerned captain for a little bit there.  Shallow water alarms were going off and he was soaked to the skin...too bad he didn't come down from the flybridge where I had a working chartplotter and warm, dry conditions.  Could have eliminated a near heart attack on his part.  Before long the GPS units recovered their senses and Kerm changed into dry clothes...all better.

We opted to stop before Charleston because the harbor is large and can be confusing if you are not fresh.  We pulled in to St. Johns Yacht Harbor which turned out to be a very high end spot with FIVE STAR bathrooms.  Nice clean showers and loos are very much appreciated by us cruiser types!

 

Warren still goofing around.

We were delighted when Sunset II pulled in a short time later.  Jack and Marsha are really nice people we have come to know and Oz, their dog, is super.  He does tricks and he likes me.

Jack, Marsha and Oz

  Enough for now...Chicken on the grill is ready and I'm hungry.  Will update more tonight.

 Love to all family and friends
Christie

O' crap, what day is this

Kerm here

OK, after the calm of a month at Isle of Hope we're back to pounding on miles.  Well, except that the currents in the ICW have not gone our way the last couple of days.  It's made a mess of our daily miles.  Oh, oh and the weather has also not been kind, as we had to sit out yesterday in the midst of bubba land at a marina that probably will go down at the worst place we will ever stay.  At one point, a shrimp boat came in just ahead of us and took out the grill on a Cape Dory sailboat ahead of us and used his dinghy for a bumper.  I could write a book on this place but I don't even like Stephen King.

So many stories...  I'm going to be a pain in the a**s to anybody that will listen when I get older.

I forgot, and now add this later.  We stayed at a 5 star marina the night before.  That makes the contrast between the two marinas very apparent. 

Anyway, the boat is running well.  We ran it hard today after being kind the last few days and we're getting just under 2.5 gallons of diesel per hour. 

We're tired tonight and have only done something like 57 miles.  People think we just sit on our butts all day and just steer according to the GPS with a nice wide channel.  NOT.  The GPS will get you close but it's like running a river.  Don't hug the inside and read the water BUT you also have to read the current both ways.  I took the tow of shame once and I'll be darned if I'm going to do it again.  The years of running river has now paid off.

Osprey Marina tonight.  Cheap diesel, cheap slip rates and nice people.   No tattooed women with an attitude.

Tomorrow is NC.

Kerm


Chris here

too tired to write much tonight...Kerm's right...our encounter with the shrimpers last night was the stuff of a short story.  Right now, all I want  is for our pizza to arrive so I can eat and go to bed.  Love it but tonight I'm totally pooped out.

Promise to write more soon.

Update on our Land Based Tour

Hello all.  Time for an update.

Last week we rented a car and investigated several places in South Carolina.  Began in Myrtle Beach at the northernmost part of South Carolina. We picked up the mail that was waiting for us and drove around.  Tourist area par excellence with every type of amusement you can imagine.  Mary would say "Cheap and cheerful". 

Next, we drove south down the coast to the little town of Georgetown.  It was billed as a great place with lots of history and architecture but we were disappointed.  We blew out of there, went to Charleston and slept at a decent hotel.  We had planned to take a ferry to see Fort Sumter but it happened to be Charleston Sailboat RaceWeek and the ferry service was limited due to the racing.  It turned out that the wind was blowing so strong that the races were postponed.  Instead we did the following tourist things:  

1. Toured the Submarine Clamagore- 1940's sub...not for claustrophobics.
2. Toured USS Yorktown - Aircraft carrier that served right after WW2 and picked up space capsules during the Apollo missions.  Airplanes, ships and museum displays galore.
3. Bus tour of all the sights in Charleston.  Very cool city and we decided we need to come back here someday and spend a good week getting into the city.

After driving further south we stopped at Beaufort for the night.  It is pronounced BEWfort according to the bartender I asked.  After a restful night, we drove to the historic area.  Beaufort was captured early in the Civil War and held until the end of the war so the town was saved from destruction.   It's a small town but it has block after block of beautiful antebellum homes and ancient live oak trees shrouded in Spanish moss.  We were blown away by the historic district and the waterfront area.  What an unexpected treasure...we were unaware of this place.

Hilton Head Island was our next stop.  Very nice but crowded because of the upcoming Heritage Golf Tournament.  We tried to get into Sea Pines but we were too cheap to pay $5.00 just to gawk.  However, we were not to be discouraged...we went to the beach instead.  Enjoyed sandy beaches, warm sunny weather, watching sand volleyball games and adult beverages in the shade.  

We were glad to get back to the Southern Belle after enjoying a successful side trip.

Now we are ready to leave Isle of Hope after a wonderful 'time out'.  We met lots of fellow Loopers and we will probably see some of them again along the way north. 

Our favorite dock hand here at the marina was Kim.  She made us very welcome and it was great to get to know her.  Here's her picture with Warren-

Kim and Warren

We are planning to leave early tomorrow morning and I'll be sure to turn on the SPOT so you can spy on us!!

Happy Easter to all-
Christie

Time to get moving again

Kerm here,
 It looks like the weather has finally warmed up a bit further north so we're leaving on Sunday or Monday.   I'll miss this place. Well except for the bugs that have made a mess out of Chris's skin.  We have met the nicest people but some are transients like us so we are bound to see them again along the way. 

My guess is that we will probably clear SC by the end of the week and then the NC by the end of the following week.  The Chesapeake, Delaware River and outside NJ can be a bit rough this time of the year so we'll probably wait in Virgina Beach for a clean window and with any luck a group to leave with.  This will be the most challenging part of the trip so we're doing research in order to keep surprises at a minimum.  There is a rumor that Linda O' will be coming along in a couple of weeks so it will be nice to have an extra hand.

The electronics going bonkers saga on the boat appears to be solved.  Just throw money at it.  We ditched the Humminbird depth finder on the upper bridge and replaced it with my old Garmin 540 that we had on Harry and put in a new hull sensor for the Raymarine sounder down below.  The 540 also required a new hull sensor that the tech installed.  Apparently the Humminbird folks had a frequency on this unit that is a bit close to VHF frequency and there can be cross talk in certain situations.  (Ya, right,,, my situation). My research on the internet confirmed this frequency deal. And, for the Raymarine, the sensor was for whatever reason going bad which caused frequency hic-ups. 
I don't know, it's all PFM to me...

Fuel prices are a bit of a concern right know.  Diesel is now over 4 bucks.  Our marina is at 4.38 now so we're happy that we fueled a couple of weeks ago for two bits less.  (For our English friends two bits = a quarter of a dollar). Keep in mind there are no road taxes on this fuel so I'll bet the over the road truckers are looking a 5 bucks at least.  Thank goodness we didn't buy the boat with two engines and double the weight.  We burn about 2.5 gallons an hour at about 7 MPH so we're looking at somewhere around 280 miles per 100 gallons.  I'm going to start logging fuel burn at different speeds to see what I can do to improve the numbers but in our world 2.5 is a envious number.  We went to a party the other day on a 54 footer with twin 1000 HP engines and he burns 70 gallons per hour but, but then again he has 3.5 bathrooms.  That has to be worth something I guess.

Road trip using real roads

Chris and I thought that if we rented a car we could blast through several must do stops with the flexibility of a car.  We also need to get to Myrtle Beach to pick up our mail as there were some forms we needed.  (More micky mouse c**p having to do with the FL tax man).  Jeez, I wish they would lighten up.  Anyway, we left this morning from Isle of Hope and drove right to Myrtle Beach figuring that we would hang around there for a day but it was a typical tourist trap with a beach.  Hey, we live in FL and know tourist traps.  So we hopped in the car and headed south to Georgetown.  Great history with this town but nearly all pre-civil war stuff either burned or was replaced at some point.  Stillwater MN probably has more charm than Georgetown.  Too bad. 

So, we jumped back in the car and headed to Charleston where we expect to see Fort Sumter via tour boat and then the restored parts of town.  For those that weren't paying attention at school with regard to the fort, look it up.  Bonus for tomorrow is that there is a huge sailing regatta in town.  We hope to see either parts of it from the tour boat and / or cruise marina row on foot to look at the boats.

Radio tic update.  It's getting worse with instruments that worked up till Thursday going crazy.  I won't even start up the radar as I don't want to take a chance of hurting it.  I give up.  If I was at home (hmmm, where's home)  anyway,  I would tear into it and rebuild the whole system from the ground up.  But,  sitting in a marina is costing money so I'm bringing in the professionals and know that writing the check will (I hope) bring me confidence.  I'm not doing the NJ offshore all-nighter unless everything is perfect.

I do regret now that I didn't spend more on the new VHF to get the AIS option just in case the radar goes out.  The AIS shows all ships on the small VHF screen without all the adjustments or knowledge required with radar.  Kinda like radar for idiots but just for ships and we all know that ships can hurt.  Dan would say that I over think all this stuff and that good seamanship is way more important than all the techno c**p that a person can pile onto the boat.  He's probably right.

And then we stayed

Kerm here

We were buttoning up things yesterday to get back to cruising and I was telling Kim at the marina office what a great time we had here and she said why don't you just make it an even month while waiting for better weather up north.  I told here that we really didn't want to spend the money for yet more days at a marina vs mooring out.  She said let me figure out how much it will be and then make the decision.  She came back and said that if we stay for an even month we will get 300 bucks back as the monthly rate is that much lower.  Soooo, we stay.  We will be here at Isle of Hope until April 26.

There are several places we wanted to see in SC so we're thinking of renting a car and do it that way.  This way when we get back on the move we don't have to stop for anything but nightfall.  We can make it up the 250 miles of SC in just 4 or 5 days vs a couple of weeks.  The following week would be the Chesapeake with Chris's must do's of Virginia Beach and Annapolis.  Depending where we stay maybe throw in Washington DC.  We'll See.  In my mind, I would like to be well into fresh water by June 1st.

The radio 'tic' is back but we were up in the flybridge and of course it was when we were coming into the marina with John and Cheryl so we just had to live with it.  We don't think the new one down below was doing it so this might help me zero in on what the heck is going on.  If it would just do it when I had time to shut down systems to see where its coming from I might be able to nail it down.  Today I'll just run the boat at the marina and see if it will surface.  I have a sneaky feeling that we will be playing with this bug for a long, long time.

The time out with John and Cheryl gave us an opportunity to check out the realigned engine / shaft and it seemed to take a bit of a 'thump' out.  Maybe its just my imagination to justify all the work. 

Cheryl and John visit us at Isle of Hope

We were happy to have Kerm's cousin, John, and his beautiful wife Cheryl visit us this weekend.  They live in Atlanta and drove down to stay with us here in the marina.  The weather was good and we had a great time, including a tour of Savannah, great meals and a 3 hour voyage on the Belle to give them a flavor of our adventures.  While we were out we saw four sting rays in the river they were about 18 inches square with barbed tails trailing out another 12 inches or so.  Lots of bird life and way, way too many no see 'ums.  We debated whether there is a special hell for them or if they go to regular hell... issue undecided.  But Cheryl did come up with an ingenious dispatch method.  Squish them with the sticky side of a label, this worked infinitely better than the fly swatter method used by John and Kerm which consisted of flailing around ineffectual and killing nothing. Here's the evidence...

Note that the picture is 'intentionally' blurred so prevent offending our more squeamish readers

It was a wonderful visit and we were happy that the accommodations were met with approval.  Thanks, John and Cheryl, for a great time!!

John and Cheryl pose with Warren, showing off John's new hat

Sunday

Christie-

I went to church this morning at the cutest church right here in Isle of Hope.  Our Lady of Good Hope has eight pews and we had a full house this morning.

Beautiful

 

Here are some pictures from around the neighborhood.

Azaleas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quaint little cottages overlooking the waterfront

I couldn't resist this...

Brother Billy Miller...now I know I'm in the South

Then I came across this and couldn't believe my eyes...

and this...

the revival tent!!!

All in all, a very successful Sunday!!

Calm before the storm

 Kerm here,
We have decided to stay in Isle of Hope for another 3 days.  We are comfortable here and storms are headed our way on Tuesday and Tuesday night but in reality we are finally relaxing and just don't feel like moving into the cold north just yet. 
I replaced the marine radio at the lower helm yesterday as the Smithsonian wanted the other one for some sort of marine history display.  The bugger worker well except when needed which has caused some high blood pressure situations.  I hope replacing this will somehow fix the intermittent blank readings on the panel mate depth meter which also fails when needed.  I did talk to a marine electronics expert yesterday and he thought that the depth meter is probably causing the radios to go crazy and not the other way around so we'll see.  One of the other reasons to replace the radio was that the new ones have an emergency button that sends the Coast Guard your position if there is a problem.  I still have to tie this feature into the GPS network but will try to  hook this up today.  Where is Dan when I need him...
Chris is at church.  Yes, church.  I decided to pass and instead told her that I would listen to it on the radio.  This is what dad said when we went to church as kids.  I don't know if he really did as polka music was always on when we came home. I checked and can't find a polka music station down here, only a bunch of stations telling me I'm going to hell unless I ascribe to their version of the bible... oh, and send money.

I better get crack'n on getting the place cleaned up before Chris gets back.

Days of Rest

We have been at this nice marina outside of Savannah, Georgia for a week.  We had some stormy weather and we used the crumby days to do some important maintenance, as mentioned in Kerm's last post.  The marina has loaner cars so it has made running to the hardware store very easy.

This area is loaded with beautiful old cottages and waterfront homes. We were lucky to be here for the best of the azalea and dogwood bloom...absolutely beautiful.  We road around the neighborhood on loaner bicycles and enjoyed the quaint little roads and byways.

Yesterday, we took the bus into Savannah to do the 'tourist' thing.  We took a trolley tour all around the city and then walked from square to square.  Very fun city.  Our bus ride back to Isle of Hope Marina was a real trip!!   It took over two hours and we thought we were going to end up in Macon or possibly Atlanta.
It was great to get back to our little home after a busy day.

Having been here for a week has afforded us the opportunity to see lots of other boats come and go...people all have interesting stories. It has been wonderful to relax after our dash out of Florida.  Don't know if we are going to leave today or tomorrow.  We are waiting for our mail to catch up with us.


Love to all
Christie

Warren enjoying a beautiful sunrise.

This is what we see in the morning outside our window