Cooling Our Heels In Charleston

24 January 2014, Saturday
We are staying an additional day here in Charleston to take care of some items that we had put off.  Installing the new 50 amp electrical input connection on the back of the boat was one.

Connections, Connections!

After completing the electrical install, we scheduled the marina courtesy vehicle to take us to West Marine.  Today, the temperature is hovering around 26 degrees and the wind is blowing.  We get to the courtesy van, and luckily the doors were unlocked, we got in and still froze for 15 minutes when the slightly eccentric driver showed up.

Joe, in full freeze mode

 As we were pulling out of the marina parking lot, we passed a sign that said "Marina Variety Store Restaurant".  Now, I am always keeping my eyes open for a boat supply store, so I asked the driver what they had in that place.  He thought about it and replied "they have a variety of stuff".  I asked for a clarification and after a while he stated that "they had a variety of food items, that is was just a restaurant."

On to West Marine.  I, at this point do not remember what we went for, but I do know it was important.  Next door to the West Marine, there was a "Stein Mart".  What all they sell I do not know, but Beth returned from there with several throw rugs for various places on the boat.  After returning to the boat and installing the rugs and whatever important stuff we got at West Marine, it was about time to go to dinner.  We decided to walk to the Marina Variety Store Restaurant. Food was excellent, I had my first ever "She Crab Soup" which is made up of various pieces and parts of only female crabs.  I will say no more about that.

We were set for an early morning departure the next day.

Doing the "Charleston"

23 January 2014, Thursday
Today we hope to get to Charleston, South Carolina. 


Sunrise

We will travel 63 miles today.  Remember when I stated that I thought we got away unscathed from the Southport Marina Fuel Dock?  We stopped today at the Isle of Palms Marina for fuel.  This is located a few miles prior to entering Charleston Harbor.  When I got off of the boat, I looked at the side near the waterline, and there was a 20 foot long black scar down the side of the boat.  I became somewhat distressed as I attempted to scrub it off.  It appeared to me that it had gouged into the fiberglass below the gelcoat.  Now, in addition to that, we had tried starting the generator earlier in the day and the battery appeared to be dead.  Appearances were not deceiving, it was dead.  Up at the Marina's Ships Store, they had a sale on batteries so we bought one.  They were also having a sale on lunch items so we got some of that.

The Kitchen Staff Posing

So, on to the Charleston City Marina.  This was not the marina that we had stayed at in June.  As we were crossing the harbor, I called the marina and asked for a space.  This marina has what is called the "Mega-Dock".  The marina's MegaDock extends 1,530 feet and is the longest free-standing floating fuel dock in the Southeast.  We had read numerous reviews of this facility, and there were quite a few complaints about the distance from the restrooms, showers and laundry from boaters that were placed on the MegaDock.  When I made the reservation over the phone they assigned us to a spot quite a ways down the dock. I had told them that I had a "handicapped" member of my crew and I would like a spot closer to avoid walking and they replied that they would haul any gimps with their golf cart.  When we got close, I called them on the radio for directions, they placed us up in the number two spot on the MegaDock, we could not have been much closer.  We had discussed finding a place to stay a couple of days, to relax and catch up on chores.  I determined that this would be the place.  There is much to do here from this location.  I did not factor in the weather doing us in though.

On to a Fire Sale

22 January 2014, Wednesday
Today's journey will be 57 miles to Georgetown, South Carolina.  Finally!  Another cold day of travel, we ran the generator most of the day, keeping the heaters running.  No point in being "really" miserable.  This was obviously duck hunting season, as there were many john boats with hunters, dogs and decoys along our path.  This is a view of a fast moving "mystery" duck hunting boat.

 Here is proof of Beth's efforts with the donated sewing machine on the aft cabin curtains.

A Panoramic View of "Deluxe Curtains"

We arrive at Harborwalk Marina in Georgetown and get settled in.  We decided that we needed to go to the local grocery store so we summoned a taxi cab.  When the cab appeared, (it was a mini-van) I opened the side door and started to jump in when I was surprised by a man jumping out, and three teenage girls filling up the back seat.  Once over the shock, the cabbie had told his male passenger friend to walk as he needed the room for paying customers, we headed to the store.  Passing through the downtown waterfront area, we passed the location where we had dinner the last time we were here.  The location was now a burned out city block.  Big fire occurred shortly after we were here in June. (The Fire Marshall cleared Joe of any wrongdoing)  So, we get to the grocery store and stocked up, called the cab back to pick us up, drove to MacDonalds for dinner and it was back to the boat.

Rainbow Coalition

21 January 2014, Tuesday
Today we are headed to Light Keeper Marina, another 66 miles today.  These 60-70 mile days are a pretty pressing pace as there are not many daylight hours yet.  We caught this view after a rain shower was nearby.

A Double Rainbow

Note, that the rainbow ended on the sandbar, we looked very closely, but there was no "pot o gold"

Today's course took us down the intra-coastal, cutting into the Cape Fear River.  A very large, imposing major seaport.  Fortunately we did not encounter any ocean going ships during the two hours we spent on the Cape Fear.  Shortly after turning off the river, back onto the southbound intra-coastal, we stopped at Southport Marina to refuel.  The wind was very brisk pushing us onto the dock, but with the aid of 4 dock goons, we tied up unscathed.  We had stopped here because of a piece of advertising that I misread, so we did not get the fuel discount, but we did get hosed.  But, their pump out was working and we needed it.  We had not unloaded since we left Portsmouth. I was inside the dock office paying for the fuel and asked the manager where his other dock goons had gone.  He said that as soon as they heard the word "pump out", they found other pressing duties somewhere else.  I was going to use them to hold us off the dock till we cleared it as the wind was still pressing us tightly against it.  He did it himself and it was an admirable job, or so I thought!!!!!

Pressing along, we arrive at the marina, this was also one of our stops on the way north last June.  We had gone to an on site restaurant last time we were here, but we were too tired to walk the half mile for a pricey meal.


The "Light" at Light Keepers Marina

The Calm Waters at Light Keepers

20 January 2014, Monday

Happy now with our restored electrical power, I motivated Joe to clean and polish our ships bell.  It had become discolored and quite un-ring-worthy.  While he removed and began that task, we headed down the intra-coastal to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.  This would be another 68 miles today. Would we ever get out of this state? Now, according to the Local Notices to Mariners, published by the U.S. Coast Guard, Camp Lejeune, NC (A US Marine Corps Training Center) would be conducting live fire exercises in the areas around the base which included Naval gunfire and landing craft maneuvers, and machine gun fire.  This is the area that we were heading through today.  Boaters had previously been experiencing 4-6 hour delays getting though this area.  However, due to my excellent planning, and knowing how the military operates, today is Martin Luther King Day, and they were shut down for the day.  We breezed through and arrived at the Dockside Marina in Wrightsville Beach around 5:00.  Also during today's trip, we had to carefully plan our travel time to coincide with the opening times of three bridges that we needed open for us. 

Here is Joe, proudly showing off his polished bell and ringing it to announce a helm shift change.

The Dock at "Dockside"

 

"Dockside" at Dockside Marina

19 January 2014, Sunday
Arose early for this 46 mile trip. We would stop tonight at Spooners Creek Marina.  We had stayed there on our way up the coast in June.  A very nice place.  When running on only the starboard engine, several days ago, I had noticed that we were not getting any electrical output from that alternator and we were not anywhere close to getting a replacement till we got to Spooners Creek. We refueled while that was in process, I mentioned to "John" that I needed to bicycle to the local West Marine for an alternator, hoping that he would take the hint and offer me a ride.  No such luck. We removed the offending alternator, unloaded one of the bicycles and off I pedaled to West Marine. (1 mile away)  As I got to the top of the hill, I checked my trusty google maps on iphone and followed the directions.  Two miles later, google changed its mind and sent me back to within 1/4 mile of where I had last checked the google map.  Now, this was a Sunday, around 4:00 in the afternoon and I was worried that the store would close before I could get there.  So, now pedalling my asoij%4 off, and taking a shortcut behind a shopping mall, which did not work, I reached the store only to discover that it would close at 7:00.  I was wearing my heavy coat, stocking cap and was sweating like a pig.  The girls asked me what I was looking for and I said a couch.   After resting, I showed them the old alternator and they said they did not have one.  Ah Ha, I replied, the West Marine store I had called previously (which did not have one) had checked the stock at this store and told me they had two on hand.  Then the girls decided that they should do a better search, and lo and behold, they had them.  Amazingly enough, they did not want the old alternator and there was no core charge, so now I had to tie both alternators onto the bicycle, along with some other necessities, and wobble back to the boat. So after 5 miles of pedalling I was ready to rest.  a couple of hours later we had successfully installed the new device and it worked. There are no pictures of this event because of the censor.

Windy and Cold

18 January 2014, Saturday

Departed early from Belhaven, NC, headed today to River Dunes Marina at Grace Harbor, Oriental, North Carolina.  This would be a 55 mile journey.  Temperature this morning was 26 degrees.  Our course today took us through a large open sound that was open to the 25 mph winds, very rough.

When we arrived, we went to the fuel dock first and topped off,  $4.74 per gallon, then moved to our slip. They warned us that they were preparing for below freezing conditions and that if we wanted to fill up on water, to get it done, as they were going to turn off the dock water. We checked in at the office and they asked if we wanted to keep our ticket open????  This was kind of a gated community/country club where generally you charged everything and paid your bill at the end of the month.  Risky.
They had a restuarant on the second floor of the main building that almost was too nice for us.

Beth's Dinner

As we wandered throughout the building we noticed a lady setting up an easel in the main lodge room, Beth asked her what was going on, and she replied that it was "game night".  Poker, Pictionary, and who knows what else.  As we lingered expectantly, we did not get an invite to stay and play.  We asked out waitress if we could actually pay cash for our meal and not charge it to our "ticket" and she said yes, great.