Resting in Charleston

Resting in Charleston

I’m sitting in the pilot house now, enjoying a beautiful breeze, while it lasts. The heat is supposed to return tonight and we’ll be back to AC and sweating a lot when working around the deck of the boat.

Jeff left this morning. It was bittersweet to see him go. Harsh, because we loved having him aboard with us. We learned so much and had such a great time.  He even surprised us almost daily with gifts (the hula hoop, Charleston Chews, Olives and even a game that he developed himself!)  He wasn’t the least bit put off when Martin and I got a bit “testy” because we were anxious and/or hungry.  He helped us develop protocols and check lists and good practices. And most importantly for this trip, he helped us gain some confidence in our boating skills.  Plus, he’s just fun to hang out with!

Dark & Stormies and Charleston Chews on the Fly Bridge

Blossom seemed to take a special liking to Jeff. She tried to gain his attention…

When he rudely ignored her for his phone, she tried harder…

The “sweet” of it is a bit less dramatic. His departure means that we’re that much closer to our goal of running the boat alone, just the two of us, as we’ve been dreaming to do. 

The past couple of days have been filled with cleaning, tasks and paperwork.  We did get into Charleston both evenings for fantastic dinners. The first evening we asked the taxi driver to take us somewhere restaurants would still be open (it was getting late). He dropped us off in front of a restaurant called “Blossom”. Seriously?  Serendipity?  Well, of course we ate there and it was fabulous!

Dinner at Blossom

It's a busy marina with boats coming and going all day. This was the view as a particularly large boat went by, leaving the marina: 

We started our day to the sound of hundreds of birds. Looking our the port light, they were enjoying the sailboat rigging at sunrise: 

MacMorris, (MacGyver + Morris J was at it again and built a new intake duct for the engine room from a dryer duct pipe.  We hope this will bring down our engine temp a bit. We’ll be able to test it on our trip when we leave here for a 26 hour trip to Beaufort, NC.

We’ve been enjoying the marina as well. We’re way, way out on the Megadock, it’s a good walk back to land!  They have everything you could want here – dock side pump out and diesel, a restaurant, bar, mini store, liquor/wine store and free shuttle to town. 

Local folks passing by

Local planes passing by

This morning, after seeing Jeff off, we took the marina shuttle to the West Marine and Harris Teeter grocery store. (It leaves every day at 11 and picks you up at 12:30 – what a great service!)  We picked up a few odds and ends.  We came back and pumped out for the first time (emptied the black tank).   

Then we spent some time plotting our next passage. We’ll go over everything with Jim but we wanted to see what we’ll be doing this weekend.  It looks like it’s about 26 hours to Beaufort.  Tides and currents look good for a 10-11 departure on Saturday with a noon-ish arrival on Sunday.  We’re thinking that we’ll probably leave on Saturday as the seas are calming down for a couple days Sat/Sun. If that holds, those will be our travel dates and we’ll try to sneak up the coast before the seas get much bigger than 4 feet.

This afternoon we were doing more tasks. I want to attack some rust I found on the swim platform rails. Martin rigged up our burgee (little flag pole on the bow of the boat) and is off building something else in his work shop. We call it the basement, but it’s really his workshop...

Unassuming view of the hatch in the guest stateroom:

 Yet lurking below is Martin’s lair:

We’re primping a little so she’ll be in good shape to show off tomorrow to my Mom and her girlfriend, Desnee.  We're excited to have guests tomorrow aboard Blossom!