A fate better than death

We made it to Charleston last Friday, just before the gale began—one
short hour after our arrival. In keeping with our new attitude
of "let's take it easy" (since there will be LOTS) to do when
we return, we have chosen to wait for absolutely lovely weather
before departure tomorrow, when the window will be two days to
get to Georgetown. Presumably we will wait there for a lovely
day to do the prettiest part of the trip—the Waccamaw River.

Our ride through the rest of Georgia was also very nice; we even
anchored out one night using Active Captain to find a secluded
anchorage (Crescent River) with mild current and good holding
that was new to us. However, the anchoring experience helped
us figure out that the only way to raise the anchor without fouling
the chain is for Jack to pull up the last twenty feet of chain
plus anchor by hand. Laurie can't do that at all. We think
we can fix the problem (with technology, cutting off 50 feet
of chain and perhaps installing a new gypsy) but that will have
to wait for Deltaville.

The ride through Georgia and South Carolina was also instructive
in terms of how much we had forgotten. GA and SC have tides
through multiple inlets influencing all travel on the ICW. Travel
on a rising tide, and the current is with you and then against
you, depending on where you are in relation to the inlet.

Shoaling occurs regularly (where you'd really prefer a uniform
amount of ample water under the boat), and again Active Captain
proved invaluable in reading how people found (and then later)
avoided the shoals. Active Captain provides marks to look at
state of tide and current wherever there is a change. GA and
SC look like nightmares on Active Captain, but now we remember
that we were perpetually looking up inlets in Reeds and correlating
them to the reference.

We had some particular spots we remembered from 2001 that are
still problems each year. We certainly didn't remember that
after the grounding on the first Coosaw Cut in 2001 there were
three other problem places to go through in the next hour or
so. Fortunately, this year we read up before we left, left on
a rising tide, had hours of daylight to make the journey through
the low country and only grounded a little bit leaving the last
cut.

After doing most of our own cooking since leaving the DR, Georgia
and South Carolina have been breakthroughs in eating out. It
started in Savannah, where we ate at a local place within walking
distance of the marina. Pure southern shrimp and grits were
perfect and Jack had the oyster basket. The next night that
we were at a place to eat out was Beaufort SC, where Jack had
shrimp and grits. Slightly different preparation, but also outstandingly
good. Laurie had a softshell crab with a crabcake appetizer.
We agreed that the next southern food Laurie will master is
shrimp and grits. We are pretty confident with her crabcakes,
now.

We had dinner that evening from a couple from Massachusetts who
live part time in FL and who had just become power boaters although
they still have a small sailboat in MA. They were excellent
company and we had a great time. We agreed to keep in touch
and perhaps have dinner in Charleston. They, of course would
be far ahead of us, since we go 4-7 kph and they do much better.

By the time we met in Charleston, they had decided to leave their
boat for a week and fly back to MA. His company, located over
the finish line of the Boston Marathon, had been hosting its
employees and their children when the bombs went off. He thought
he should be there.

In the meantime, we have spent four full days in Charleston,
surely a fate better than death. It has been cold and threatening
most days but Charleston is such a lovely city that it's easy
to overlook the weather. We spent yesterday trying to get the
iPad set up for internet everywhere using Verizon, but that appears
to be a fail in the Charleston area, and we can't imagine the
Waccamaw will have better coverage. We would like to be cool
like the teenagers.

Laurie bought the iPad because she wanted the Active Captain
app with GPS. It turns out to have been an inspired purchase.
Now that we are using the app with charts, it enables us to
do the ICW with a great deal of confidence, even though we still
haven't found the yellow index cards we used 11 years ago. It
also enables us to have two GPS chartplotters working, using
different versions of distance, at the same time. This turns
out to be great. Jack at the helm can use the ½ mile scale to
be aware of the piloting details close by, and Laurie can use
Active Captain to tell him where he should find the marks one
to two miles ahead. Plus, Laurie has the satisfaction of being
an informed back seat driver.

Now, we are preparing to go have lunch at Jestine's, a local
restaurant that has had family ownership for years and provides
real southern food. We ate there once before, and have already
had dinner at Hyman's, Jack's favorite place in Charleston. Surely
this madcap round of eating out will stop when we are no longer
in the low country and doing comparative research on food culture
in the South (purely in the interests of science, of course).


The projects on the boat have settled down to minor inconveniences.
Jack needed to change the pump in the aft head, which was challenging
given that there is a large auxiliary fuel tank in the way.
But he had to, so he did. We seem finally to have arrived at
clean fuel. The next several hundred miles will be challenging,
but there will actually be water to travel on, which did not
always seem to be the case in much of GA and SC.

We're now in a marina outside of Charleston, 10 miles distant.
Because we didn't leave at slack at high tide at 7am, we provided
the morning's entertainment trying to leave at 9. We decided
to lick our pride and wait till slack at low at 2pm. Oh, well,
tomorrow we will definitely make it to Georgetown.

In Georgia

Now we're in Georgia, finally. Jekyll Island, to be precise.

It has taken us the five days on the move that we calculated
would be required to make it here. What we couldn't forecast
was the weather, and neither could the weathermen, as it turned
out.

First, let us offer our thanks to the many folk who responded
to our last email with their personal floater stories. All were
different and all had good outcomes and gave us a good range
of things for Jack to be looking out for. Meanwhile, the problem
seems to be resolving and J hopes to be able to see our own eye
doctor when we make it to Slip 19 in the Chesapeake.

We got the air conditioning system fixed in Ft. Pierce. We figured
it would be handy to have as we went up the ICW and spring brought
warmer temps. And it was handy, because of the reverse cycle
feature that makes our AC a heater. We needed the heat. Only
here in Georgia have we used it for a few hours as a proper air
conditioner.

The strong northerlies that we experienced in the Bahamas continue.
(Oh, we know, it's worse up north and it snowed on Easter in
DC.)

The delay in getting the pump fixed meant we had time to rendezvous
with friends from Massachusetts, so that was a very good stop,
even if it cost a week.

Since we have finally been able to get rid of most of the traces
of Dominican and Bahamian fuel, we have found our consumption
of Racor filters drastically reduced. We have now motored 25
hours on the same Racor and see no signs of the needle moving
into the red or yellow. (Which would indicate a clogged filter
stopping the flow of fuel to the injectors.)

We are a little afraid to trumpet this to the heavens, since
to do so courts disaster, but we do think it is a credit to the
pure fuel we've been able to get in the US.

Since leaving the Indian River near Titusville the water has
been getting progressively shallower and the tides and currents
more complicated. We remember this from the last time we were
here, 2002, but don't like it any better.

When we came through this way in 2002, J had made up little yellow
cards that choreographed each turn on the ICW from the chart
book, so we kept the cards on hand and it seemed to go quite
easily. Now we have two chartplotters and the chart book and
it still seems quite perilous. We wish would could find those
little yellow cards. In Georgia there are 7'-9' tides, and currents
that can knock 3 knots on or off one's speed, so it can be a
little like playing Chutes and Ladders.

We made it to Jekyll Island in a mere five hours but decided—since
the tides would be going to possibly a foot lower than mean low—that
we could just wait until the next morning at seven to move on
to Brunswick when the tide would still be highish.

Our route planning is for us to spend 22 days on the move to
go from Jekyll to Slip 19, but who knows what the weather will
allow.

We also hope to spend some time smelling the roses, of course.
Besides our friends from MA, we reencountered the folks who
told us about the fabulous pilot to Croatia in Vero Beach. We
met the people who ran the Mednet for the five years that we
were in Europe. We've done a bit of touring in St. Augustine
and we are looking forward to being in Charlestown and Beaufort
again. We're pretty sure this is our last trip on the ICW (there
are easier ways to be warm in winter) so we are hoping to enjoy
it.

Note: woke up on our scheduled departure day from Jekyll to dense
fog. By the time it had cleared we had lost the tide. Our daughter
sent us a word of bad weather they had seen coming in, and since
we have good wifi here we could see it too. I guess we'll see
a little more of Jekyll for a few days. We have not dealt with
tides in any big way for over nine years. Perhaps we are being
a little oversensitive, but the number of boats seen aground
suggests not.

Scott, the amiable and energetic dockmaster at the marina, turns
out to have roots in Taylor County (GA), just as Jack does.
The Taylor County Diaspora is one of the wonders of modern America.

The Jeckyl Harbor Marina seems to be one of those places where
people come and just stay and tonight there was a potluck for
the semipermanent residents and transients. It is tempting to
linger, but we have 700 miles to go.