Doing The Charleston!

SHIP'S LOG:

Monday's location: Church Creek 32'42.556N/ 080'11.022W

Well, I finally left beautiful Beaufort behind. I hated to do it but it had to be done. I killed millions of gnats and I am sure that i am on their "Most Wanted List." It must be why they seemed to come at me with such a vengeance!

Monday's jaunt wasn't particularly long as it was more for positioning than for real travel distance. I wanted to get to Church Creek , the nearest decent anchorage to Elliot's Cut. I wanted to be close enough do that I could guarantee that I would be there to catch the slack water and so get through the Cut unscathed. I did leave rather early, 8:44 to be exact. This was necessary so that I could get through the Lay's Island Bridge at 9am. The next opening would be at 10Am and the previous had been at 6am. So 9am was key so I that I would get in at a decent time.
W, especially where there are a loot of twists and turns and that trying to relate what you see on your chart and on your GPS screen with what you see outside the cockpit. It isn't always clear where your turns are. Sometimes I anticipate where I am going to turn too far in advance and what I take for my turn isn't it. Each day I lay in a course and the course is produced waypoint by waypoint as a magenta line on the GPS map. If you have the screen zoomed too far out, you can lose detail and if you have it zoomed too far in, you gain detail but often find yourself at a turn before you really realize it is approaching. Of course, the course you so carefully lay in doesn't always take you into safe water as the data on the maps can't possibly be undated to cover all the changes in the the water way. As it is, your "Magenta Highway" is more a reference that a strictly followed course. This can get you into trouble if you start shadowing another boat as he may not be going where you are. It happened today where a boat I had been following went right and the course went left. I almost followed the boat figuring the guy had made the turn before my plotted way-point. After all, how could be know. But zooming out, I found that the course was indeed bearing left and he was going I don't know where.

I was lucky enough to have a sailboat in front of me for a good part of the trip. His gyrations let me know when the water started getting a little thin. Tugs and barges rearrange the bottom depths by their passages so one must spend a lot of time looking for where the deep water might be. It is a good thing to have someone "break trail" as it were. It doesn't always work as I did "kiss" bottom today.

Speaking of tugs and barges, I had to deal with one making a turn int eh river just ahead of me, coming down stream while I was headed up. The tug was towing two barges, the first with excavating equipment and the second with long pieces of large pipe and I mean LoOOOOOOONG! They must have dragged a good hundred feet off the back of the barge so this was one heck of a long tug & tow. As he approached me he had to make a hard right turn and watching him swing this whole thing through the turn was something. He kept it marvelously under control and passed with know problem. Very impressive.

Got to Church Creek at 14:44 and dropped the hook, had supper, read a book and went to bed early. NOAA predicted the low tide, and so the slack water, would be at 9:50am Leaving at dawn (6:30) and maintaining 5 knots would get me there at 9:30 and give me 20 minutes of fudge time. And Oh How I hate to get up early in the morning!


Tuesday:

Curent location: Charleston City Marina: 32'46.520N/ 079'56.958W

Up bright and early, I made it to Elliot's Cut WITH AN HOUR TO SPARE!!!!! Once I got into the pull of the out going tide, ABISHAG just flew.At one point I had her at idle speed and was still doing 5 Knots! Suffice it to say that I had all the time in the world to set up for the passage through the cut which went off like nothing. No problems whatsoever.!!

On the way to the Cut, I met a guy paddling a canoe. He had paddled all the way to Florida from INDIANA! and now he was paddling back. He sure beats all us cruisers and loopers in our boats!

Just beyond Elliot's Cut is the Wapoo Creek Bridge(Bascule) and wouldn't you know it, they had eletrical probelm s adn it wouldn't open. Waited an hour for them to get it fixed and finally got through a little after 11 which is went the skies sent forth their voice. It was the usual, thunder, lightning, torrential rain and wind - no hail or tornadoes this time. There were three other boats waiting to get through the bridge and when we got into the harbor they continued north across the harbor and up the ICW. I have know idea where they were going but I hope they made it safe. Me, docked at the Charleston City Marina and that's the name of that tune. Once I was safely ensconced, I had a glass of wine and took a nap. It rained on and off all afternoon but I am safe and sound. NOAA said there was only a 30% chance of rain in the Charleston Listening area. Once again, we were just plan luck. NOAA is calling for rain on Thursday, but there is only a 40% of it happening. Thank goodness I am on a boat! ! ! !