This entry should be titled:
The Diary of a Mad Sailor
or How I Spent Four Days Waiting for Tropical Storm Ana to
Hit the North Carolina Coast.
But more on that
later. As you will recall, in our last blog we told you how many billions of
dollars we found on Blackbeard Island (rounding off to the nearest billion it
was zero). Our next stop was beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina. Because we had
such a great experience the last time we visited, we decided to stay at the
same marina; Lady’s Island Marina. TJ, the dockmaster, met us, caught our lines
and helped us tie up. More importantly, our friends Becky and Captain Mark
aboard their boat Sea Angel, one of
the few Jeffersons we have seen on the Waterway, were also there!! During our
time at Lady’s Island, we met with Mark and Becky a number of times. We went
out to eat once with them, we ate on their boat and had drinks. They even lent
us their car so we could re-provision and take a quick tour of Lady’s Island.
They are turning out to be some of our best cruising friends.
We stayed at Lady’s Island for five days. In addition to
spending time with Mark and Becky, we went to breakfast once at the Huddle
House, which is fast becoming one of Ann’s favorite breakfast destinations. She
had Pecan Pancakes. We also met Bud and Elaine aboard Diamond Girl. They are the new ICW cruising editors for Dozier’s
Waterway Guide.
After Lady’s Island, we anchored out two evenings, once at
the Church River and once at the Whiteside River. The Church River is about 50
miles north of Beaufort so it was a relatively short day. The cruise up the ICW
was idyllic and the weather perfect for cruising. That evening, I cooked steaks
on the grill, we watched some “How I Met Your Mother,” (about which I will
explain more later) and went to bed, fat dumb and happy. When we awoke the next
morning, it was windy and raining. It wasn’t terrible, but it did not look like
it was going to be another perfect day; oh the trials and tribulations of the
full-time cruiser. Making matters even more complicated was the fact that we
had developed a rather complicated plan for the next two days.
Just beyond Charleston are two of the worst trouble spots on
the ICW: one is just north of the Ben Sawyer Bridge (on our four trips through
there, we have seen vessels aground twice – and one time there were multiple
vessels aground). The other is a little further north – about a three mile
stretch just south of McClellanville, SC. Our plan was to hit the first
location on a rising tide, and, though the water south of McClellanville was
shallow, we thought we could make it through before the tide got too low. The
only way we could accomplish that magnificent feat of navigation was to hang
around the Curch Street anchorage until 1030-1100, then make the day’s run at
between 9 and 10 statute miles per hour. It was a great plan, but the lousy
weather made us ask whether or not we would be able to keep up our speed –
especially while passing through very shallow water.
The weather through most of the day wasn’t as bad as we had
feared and we made it easily. About 1400, though, it started raining,
thundering and blowing pretty hard. In fact, it actually hailed!!! Now we have
seen a lot of different kinds of weather in our travels, but we hadn’t seen
hail before. Because of the deteriorating weather, and because we had already traversed
the major trouble spots, we decided to anchor for the night. As it happened, we
anchored in the same place we did last year, Whiteside Creek, a nice enough
anchorage with decent protection from most winds and currents. Ann had to get out,
however, to prepare and drop the anchor, and to attach the snubbers. After she
did that and almost got dry, we decided that we really weren’t comfortable with
the way we had drifted, so we did it a second time. Ann got – shall we say – a
little wet that day? That is important because as soon as she finished and we
were comfortable that the anchor would hold us through the night, it stopped
raining. Of course.
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| Mother's Day Breakfast |
Although the marina was clean enough and the people were nice
enough, it was clear to me from the minute we arrived that this was not the
marina I thought it was. Not only were we exposed to wind and current (which in
nasty weather could be a VERY bad thing), but we were right next to a busy
bridge that had traffic ALL night long. Moreover, there was a small Coast Guard
station right next door. Now, I generally think very highly of the Coast Guard.
But this was the first one I had seen or heard a Coast Guard Station that used
bugle calls. Bugle calls!! In the Coast Guard!! In the morning they played
“First Call”, “Assembly”, and “Reveille.” I didn’t pay close attention to the
evening calls so I am not sure what they played. At least, though, I didn’t
hear "Charge!"
After Georgetown we went to Osprey Marina. It is kind of out in the middle of nowhere between Georgetown and Myrtle Beach. Why did we stop there, you might ask. Because it has some of the least expensive fuel o on the ICW. After Osprey we went to Barefoot Landing Marina in Myrtle Beach. Whey did we go there? Because Ann wanted to. Apparently she wanted to buy a fish ... you'll have to read her explanation below.
After Georgetown we went to Osprey Marina. It is kind of out in the middle of nowhere between Georgetown and Myrtle Beach. Why did we stop there, you might ask. Because it has some of the least expensive fuel o on the ICW. After Osprey we went to Barefoot Landing Marina in Myrtle Beach. Whey did we go there? Because Ann wanted to. Apparently she wanted to buy a fish ... you'll have to read her explanation below.
We were going to stop the blog here, but then we got caught at
St. James Marina waiting for Tropical Storm Ana. On Wednesday we zipped past
St. James as I was listening to the weather. Our plan had been to anchor out at
Carolina Beach for the next couple of days before heading towards Oriental, NC.
Carolina Beach is on the beach (duh), has a boardwalk and sounded like a lot of
fun. As were proceeding down the Waterway, however, we heard that a low
pressure area from the Bahamas might cause some bad weather over the next
couple of days. Well, being prudent (read chicken) boaters, we decided that
with that kind of warning, we probably ought not plan on anchoring out. So we
turned around and went the mile or two back to St. James Marina, where we had
stayed many times before.
The weather wasn’t as bad on Wednesday as had been predicted,
but they told us that the really bad stuff was due to arrive on Thursday, so,
of course, we stayed another night. On Thursday they told us the worst was
coming on Friday, and on Friday … you guessed it … they told us it was coming
Saturday. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we walked the area a little and Ann
took Spot for a few strolls on the dock, but really we really had nothing to
do. I was … I was … I was … going wacky! That was all right, we figured,
because we would be out of there is a couple of days.
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| Tropical Storm Ana as seen on our Garmin Weather Program. The symbol for our boat is just to the right of the symbol for the Tropical Storm |
Other than that, we watched the weather. And I played
computer games. And I read. But good lord, trapped in a 52 foot long boat for
24 hours day after day after day after day after … I
was going truly stir-crazy.
By Monday, the storm had abated and we were back on our way
to Mile Hammock Bay – Thank Heaven!!!
Our Television System
We have decided that sometimes these blog entries read more
like a travelog than a cruiser’s blog. So, periodically, we are going to tell
you something about the boating part of our cruising life. Sometimes it might
be interesting, and sometimes not, but, hey, at least it will be a change of
pace.
I mentioned earlier that we watched “How I Met Your Mother,”
on TV. In general, there are four ways that we could watch TV on our boat. The
first, of course, is satellite TV. There are two kinds of satellite dishes that
cruisers usually use, and one is much better than the other. The first is a
simple satellite dish that is substantially the same as the kind you might have
at your house. The trouble is that these dishes only work when you are in a
marina or in an anchorage where your boat is completely still (which hardly
ever happens). You can set them up on your boat or next to your boat, point
them at the satellite and voila – television!!
The second kind of antenna is much better on boats – and, as
you might have guessed much more expensive. It is a dish that automatically changes
its azimuth as moves so that it continually points at the satellite. This is
the kind they use on cruise ships. On the move or in an anchorage when you
might twist and turn, the dish should keep pointed at the satellite and
continually give you a signal!!! Wow!!!
We don’t have either of those.
We do have a cable and when we are in a marina that offers
cable service I’ll sometimes connect the cable and we can watch television –
obviously, though, that doesn’t work at anchor. So, we also have a simple old
fashioned TV antenna. Remember the days when you or your dad had to get up on
the roof and turn the antenna until it optimized the channels available? Well,
ours is a little more advanced than that in that it is contained within a
“dome” so it doesn’t really turn. But the channels we get depend on exactly
where we are and where the transmitter is. About 50% of the time we get nothing
– or stations with so much interference that they are unwatchable. The other
50% of the time we get somewhere between 4 and 8 stations. Now these usually
aren’t one of the biggies, NBC, CBS, ABC or CNN. Instead, we get various
shopping networks, sometimes a Spanish-speaking channel or two, and once in a
while we get one or more PBS stations. More often than not, however, we get
things like the ion network and METV. For those of you who have not seen METV
you are really missing something.
METV which stands for Memorable Entertainment Television
and it carries those programs of another time, when men watched westerns, women
cleaned and cooked in high heels and married couples had to be depicted in
separate beds. Yes, I am talking about the greats, shows like The Rifleman, Bonanza, Rescue 21, the original Star Trek, Perry Mason
and other shows of yesteryear. When you can’t keep up with the happenings of Madmen and NCIS you would be surprised at how interesting an episode of the
Rifleman can be.
Frequently, however, we can’t get any stations or can only
receive shopping networks. When that happens we revert to DVDs. Have you ever wondered
what it would be like to watch all ten years of Cheers, back to back? Or all the episodes of Bones, Big Bang or some
other TV show? That is what we generally do in the evenings. You would be
surprised how long these series can last if you are only watching a couple of
episodes per night on nights where you have nothing else to do.
The real reason, though, that we haven’t splurged on an
expensive satellite set-up is that cruising is still an adventure for us. Sure
there are a few hours every couple of days when we want to watch TV, but most
of the time we are enjoying our boat, our friends, the water and the wonderful,
wonderful outdoors. And even the best PBS shows can’t capture all that.
That, and the fact that most TV shows suck nowadays.
ANN’S NOTES: I was just going to let Michael send out the
blog without my notes, but then I started to look at the pictures and that spurred
me on to add, as my dad would say, “my two cents worth”.
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| And the fish I caught was thhhiiss BIG! And it was blue and it fit on the sofa and ... |
We have really had a nice time just taking it slowly, most
of the time the slowness was controlled by the weather or the talk of weather
to come. We spend much longer at St James Plantation Marina than we wanted. Our
view on the port side was nice, we could see the ICW and the traffic on it. The
starboard side was a different story, we had the Big D sign marking the dock right
in the middle of our salon window. As the tides came and went, the level of the
sign would appear to move.
We celebrated Mother’s Day on the boat, the rain was
so bad that I made Michael and I breakfast. It was very good and I even liked
making it myself. We did have a break in the weather one evening and we went
out to dinner at the marina restaurant. We sat outside and enjoyed the view and
each other’s company. Tropical storm Ana was something to be seen, the weather
screen on the Garmin was lit up like a Christmas tree. The wind was blowing at
30 MPH and gusting to 40 MPH. I was glad to be tied up next to that big D.
Before we went to wait out the storm at St James Plantation
Marina, we went back to Barefoot Landing Marina near Myrtle Beach SC. Michael
has talked to you about this marina next to the outlet stores. Really just a
bunch of beach types stores…But…they have a store that sells Life Is Good
t-shirts ( my favorite). They also have a cute gift shop that sells nautical
themed items. (Go figure.) I saw this cute pillow in the shape of a fish last
fall. I liked it and showed it to Michael. I Did not get the “that is cute, go
ahead and buy it” from him …so I put it back and then went into a year of worth
of buyer’s remorse. As you can see, it is now very happy with my other nautical
pillows.
The Spot Update…
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| Spot beneath the helm window. Note her left hind leg holding on to the curtain rod. |
She is getting longer and can jump to any place she wants. I
can tell when she is ready to make that jump … she wiggles her butt just before
the leap.
She loves to lay on the helm station and soak up the sun, at
times she is not very modest about it.
Spot makes us laugh and we enjoy her company as much as she
enjoys ours.
Thanks for reading…
Traveling Soul…OUT
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