Drone on

Getting off the dock at Ashley marina was kind of fun. We left with an outgoing tide, which created a current that was pushing us out of the slip. As soon as we got out of the slip I pivoted the boat to exit the fairway, but the current kept pushing us towards a parallel dock in front of us with lots of boats anchored bow out (anchors towards us yikes!). We managed to make it out before hitting anything, but the pucker factor was registering for sure.

When Louise went to bring in the fenders she brought in some stowaways. One of the fenders was low and so was dragging in the water. Turns out the rope at the bottom of the fender made a nice environment for some sea-roaches. These are arthropods that live in the ocean and look nasty. She broke out the broom to sweep them up and dump them over the side.

We passed by the next marina, and hovered beside a super-yacht while waiting for Stulie to get underway. The super yacht also had a tender nearby. This is a second super-yacht that carries the spare boats, jet skis and helicopters for the super-yacht. Passing out of Charleston harbour, we heard a container ship trying to hail a sailboat on VHF. The sailboat was in the ship channel in front of the container ship, and did not answer on VHF. Suddenly the container ship let out five horn blasts. This is a maritime danger signal. This woke up the dufus in the sailboat and he got out of the shipping channel.

Passing one of the ICW cruise ships. There is a small fleet of them that travels back and forth along the ICW. We even saw one of them anchored overnight. Cool cruise, but $$$.

As we were travelling along, we listened to some interesting exchanges on the VHF. A Navy spotter plane and a patrol boat kept contacting various boats and requesting that they alter course to the east to bypass a certain area of the ocean. One boat did not respond to the Navy's hail, and eventually they Navy plane told them to stop immediately. The boat was advised that they were about to enter an area of the ocean where the Navy was conducting a live-fire exercise. Eventually the boat complied with the warning instructions, but dude, when you go boating on the ocean keep your radio on!

The rest of the day was pretty smooth, although the wind picked up steadily as we went. As we travel, we set the VHF radio to monitor all the most commonly used channels so that we don't miss any radio traffic. As we were approaching the turnoff for our anchorage, we heard two boats complaining about other boaters on the ICW, and how they drive too fast, and blah blah blah. Grouchy-old-man-get-off-my-lawn stuff. Coming around the last turn before the anchorage, we passed two large motor-yachts going the other way. As they passed us they got on the radio - these were the two grinches complaining about all the other boats. "I don't usually care much for Canadians, but that red boat had a cool name, iFloat". Nice that they liked our boat name...

The anchorage was pretty windy, but it was very large. There was no wind protection, but we were well protected from waves. There was one other boat in the anchorage, a Kadey-Krogen. We were not sure if it would be good to raft in the strong wind, but I found a shallower spot to drop anchor near the leeward shore, and we set solidly, so were confident we could raft with no problem. This turned out to be the case, as we did not move at all that afternoon. Later in the afternoon, two sailboats came into the anchorage and set anchor, followed by another Mainship. Around supper the winds died off and we had a nice quiet evening.

Sunrise in the anchorage. Mainship on the left, Kady-Krogen under the sun with a sailboat behind it.

Each of the boats leaving the anchorage had a large group of birds following. They were scooping up fish that were stirred up in the boat's wakes. Just like Deadliest Catch! In other sections of the ICW we have been followed by swallows who hunt the bugs that sometimes swarm around the boat.

Next morning we set off with light winds. As we were passing through a long narrow section, I saw something ahead in the water. Initially I thought it was a big log, but as we approached Louise exclaimed "that's an alligator!". Sure enough, there was a large (8 foot) alligator swimming across the ICW. As we approached he dived under the water, but re-surfaced behind the boat near shore. Within a few minutes, we saw two slightly smaller gators (approx 6 feet long) in the shallows near shore, and then we saw one more six-footer swimming across the ICW in front of us. So cool!

The big gator was checking us out as we went by. 

We arrived at the Harbourwalk marina in Georgetown exactly at slack tide (no current) and got to dock with no current and no wind. Nice to have easy docking for a change. After showering, Louise and I went for a walk through the town and went through the local maritime museum, then bought some cheesecake and keylime pie from a local bakery. Back on the boat, we noticed that the harbour had filled up with loopers, so Louise organized a docktails with the local loopers using Nebo, a messaging and location app for boaters.

One of the loopers at docktails posted on Facebook.

After docktails, we went on our scooters to a Mexican restaurant with the crew of Stulie to have dinner. The occasion, our 36th wedding anniversary. 😎

Louise got fajitas, the plate was HUGE. She could barely eat half of it, so got the rest to go. All along this trip we have found the best food at Mexican restaurants. Super tasty and inexpensive. Also, we always get leftovers.

Louise got so many leftovers we both had breakfast burritos for the next two days.

After a leisurely breakfast we set off for Wacca Wache marina for fuel. This marina, which was on our route, was reported to have very low fuel prices, so we stopped in for fuel and to get pumped out. When we arrived, there was already a large boat docked and getting fuel, so only one of us could get fuel at a time. We docked up and got fuel and pumped out while Stulie hovered in the river nearby. Once we were refuelled, we switched places, with Stulie fuelling while we hovered nearby. The tidal current in the river was pretty strong, so we trundled upriver for a bit and then drifted downstream past the marina. We did this a couple of times while waiting. On one of our passes, this twit in a pontoon boat left the dock and headed right for us. He came very close to side-swiping us while attempting to avoid a no-wake buoy. Why he didn't just go on the other side of the buoy I have no idea, however Louise noticed that he was on his phone. Idiot.

This navigation marker had a huge nest constructed on top of it.

We saw at least one baby bird in the nest, although it (they?) were pretty big. 

Once Stulie finished fuelling we set off for our anchorage for the day at the Enterprise passage, a bend on a side channel of the river. We set anchor in a shallow spot so we could minimize the amount of scope we set out, then rafted as usual. 

While we were enjoying the afternoon heat, Chris broke out his drone and caught some footage of the anchorage and the boats. He used to be a professional drone pilot in a past life, and got some amazing footage of the anchorage set-up. 

A series of videos that Chris shot with his drone of our two boats rafted in the anchorage.

Shortly after he recovered his drone, the sky got dark and the temperature dropped and we started to hear thunder rolling. We got hit by a heavy thunderstorm, big raindrops and lots of lightning and thunder. Louise put on her bathing suit and went out onto the stern to take a shower, but she found that the rain that was coming down was freezing cold, in fact there was hail mixed in with the rain. We got some berry-sized hailstones, and were a bit concerned about damage to the boat, but thankfully the hail did not last for too long. Once the rain passed the anchorage became super-calm and we passed a quiet night.

It was pretty hot and humid, so Louise decided to shower in the afternoon. She did this by standing on the stern during the thunderstorm. Turned out the water was freezing cold. So cold in fact that we got some hail as part of the downpour.

Grape-sized hail stone. 

Big-assed raindrops in this storm.

The thunder storm was pretty spectacular, lots of big riandrops, lightning, thunder and even some hail.

DIY salad with blueberry balsamic vinegar, olive oil, feta cheese, romaine lettuce, raspberries and chopped pecans.

We decided the next morning to get underway as soon as it was light enough to see. A few miles from the anchorage was a swing bridge. The bridge had a lockout period between 7:45 and 8:45 when it would not open so it could accommodate the local school busses, so we needed to get to the bridge before then. We arrived around 7:20 and got through. The journey this day was through lots of no-wake zones, as this stretch of the ICW is lined on both sides with McMansions, each with its own private docking complex. Luckily the tidal current was pushing us, so we did not loose too much time and arrived at our destination, the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club just before lunch.

Our view out the front window in the morning at the anchorage. The part of the ICW we are now in is fresh water, which means that the spiders are back. We have a few huge ones around the boat. Even though we toss them overboard every time we get a chance, there seems to be an endless supply of them, and they are all BIG.

Waiting for the swing bridge. We missed slack tide, but luckily we got there before the tidal currents got heavy.

Along the way, we passed through an area called the "rockpile". The ICW in this region passes mostly through a sandy, muddy tidal swamp area. The banks and bottom are relatively soft, so if you ground out, the damage will be minimal. One section of the waterway passes through a very rocky region, in fact the channel had to be blasted through. This area, about 5 miles long, is called the rockpile. There are danger signs everywhere. Over the years I have read about this area, as lots of boaters talk about how dangerous it is, but we found it was no big deal. There are areas of the Rideau, the Trent, and Georgian Bay which are much scarier. 

We were assigned the last slip on B dock, which put us right beside the shore. Fortunately there was no wind, so we were able to get in without grounding, although the dock hand slowed up the procedure a bit.

They tucked us in right beside the shore. Yikes!

At many marinas, the dock hands try to secure you in the "perfect" location on the dock, and to help with all the lines and connections. They hang around waiting for a tip. Very few of these people are boaters, so they do not tie the boat well - instead of using the lines as they are intended to be used, they just tie you as tight as they can. We usually just want the dock hands to ensure we are secure on the dock - at least two lines tied, then we want them to go away as we prefer to set the boat up the way we want.

Eventually Louise got the dockhand to just tie us up where we were, and we then re-tied everything and got plugged in. Very freaky to see how close we were to the shore, the depth sounder showed 0 feet under the keel. This is actually a common thing, as the sonar will often read weed tops instead of the bottom. I tested the depth with a boat hook and we were fine.

Not much room beside us and the shore. Al least they have a piling to keep us in deeper water, but our depth finder showed 0 feet under the keel. This happens sometimes when there are weeds, the water is deeper, the sonar just reads the weed tops. When this happens at slips or anchorages, I check using a boat hook to make sure. We had just enough water under us. 

The The Myrtle Beach Yacht  is right beside a McDonald's, and Louise and I decided to go there for lunch, because, why not? 

We lazed around on the boat for a bit, then went over to Stulie to plan our next leg. We plan our travel about 5 or 6 days in advance. This gives us enough time to book marinas, but is a short enough time window that the weather forecast is semi-reliable. So far this spring, we have been planning hops of about 3 to 4 hours travel time, but once we hit Cape Fear we will switch to longer legs as the next section involves traversing some large bodies of water. Usually the worst part of the process is contacting marinas to make reservations, but this time everything went smooth, painless and fast. Wow.

Louise made a small supper for us as we were still semi-bloated from our McDonald's binge, and then we went to the Officer's Club at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club for drinks. We needed to show a guest ticket to get in....

Boat name of the day: GitYaSome

South Carolina

Our next stop was Beaufort, South Carolina. Beaufort (the Beau pronounced like in beautiful) is located on an island, and is famous as the first place in the U.S. to free slaves after the emancipation proclamation. Just after the Civil War began, Northern navy forces sailed into the area and captured the islands and towns. Because of this, white residents fled the area leaving behind their slaves, who were freed by the U.S. 

Forrest Gump was filmed here. The bench describes different scenes from the movie. They used various houses in Beaufort as the locations for the film. Even the Vietnam sequences were filmed here, on one of the nearby islands.

Harriette Tubman was active here in Beaufort. She was involved in a battle and she was brought south to help the new freed slaves integrate into paid work.

The U.S. soldiers set up a system to educate and pay these former slaves, and the system created became a template for the transformation from slavery to freedom for other areas after the war. After the war, the area was the first in the U.S. to have a racially integrated government. 

Louise being super-cool.

Check out the motor on this dingy. The guy has mated an old outboard lower unit with a lawn mower engine.

Lots of old ships anchors here, some of them are so rusty they look like they will fall apart.

Giant boots for taking nerdy tourist photos.

The waterfront is a really well-kept part kere. One interesting twist was to make all the park benches into swings.

Has been a long time since I saw one of these in the wild. No road salt so cars last longer.

Beaufort arsenal. Amazing how small these old military installations are. The ceilings are all very low as people back in the day were, on average, smaller than they are today.

Courtyard of the arsenal. These cannons have a caliber of just 3 inches, and were made around 1850. Amazing how much technology has advanced over the last 180 years or so.

Last fall, coming down the rivers, I noticed an oil leak on our main engine. The leak was not large, a few hundred mL every few hundred hours, but it was a leak and so no bueno. It took me a while to trace the source of the leak, but I eventually ran it down to the raw water pump. This pump is gear driven and lubricated by engine oil. There were two possible sources of the leak, a gasket and an internal seal. Based on where the oil was coming from, it was not possible to narrow it down further than that. Since the pump was 20 years old, I decided to change it out, together with the gasket at the same time. I did not have the tools to change an internal seal, and it was easy to source a replacement remanufactured pump. Also, if the seal had failed, best to replace the pump just in case as preventative maintenance.

One nice about having a Cat engine is that it is easy to get parts. There are Cat dealers everywhere, and since these engines are used on all kinds of heavy equipment, parts are always in stock. As well, Cat offers re-manufactured parts. They take an old part like a pump, re-machine it and replace the bearings, seals and other small parts and you get a used part that is like a new part.

When we were in Jacksonville, I ordered a new pump together with all the gaskets and O-rings needed to re-install it (Cat uses O-rings for most seals - nice) and spent a day replacing the old pump. This required removing the pump from the engine, and taking it to the Cat dealer. When you by a re-man part, you get a discount on the part when you return the old one (core). Well, it turned out that the old pump had a gear on it, while the new one did not. We had to remove the gear from the old one and transfer it over. Luckily we went to a super user-friendly dealer (RingPower). They arranged for one of their machinists to transfer the gear over. 

The old pump with the gear still attached. Lucky for us the local Cat dealer had a large machine shop, and they swapped out the gear for us onto the new pump.

The new pump went smoothly into place, the only difficulty was the weight - diesel parts are HEAVY. The pump has been run for about 50 hours now with no oil leak. Nice.

BIG tidal swing here (8 feet). This is the approach ramp to the dock at high tide.

Same approach ramp at low tide. The angle goes from a gentle slope to almost 45 degrees.

Our second day in Beaufort was a weather day. Although it was sunny all day long, it was also very windy. The wind was pretty gusty, with a steady 30 kmph "baseline", and so we had whitecaps in the harbour. The fenders got a workout until the direction shifted to be more on the nose. We went for another walk around town in the afternoon, then returned to the boat to nap.

Too true!

Small outfitters store that specialized in fly fishing. They had racks of different flies.

They use sea shells as aggregate in some of the concrete here.

Go on a horse and buggy ride at your own risk!

Around sunset the wind died out and, after supper, we played Mexican train dominoes with Chris and Julie. Our first time playing this game, and we all ran out of table space for the domino trains so had to bridge over in a few spots.

The winds completely died out during our third day in Beaufort, so I took the opportunity to wash the canvas. When the boat was stored in the yard, we picked up a lot of dust on the canvas. The best way to wash it is to remove each piece and wash it flat on the top stern deck. This can only be done in light winds, and today was the perfect day to do it. 

After cleaning the canvas I celebrated with a nap.

That evening we hosted docktails beside iFloat, with the crews of Stulie (Chris and Julie) ; Sunset Seeker (Ed and Carole) and Amberina (James and Anisa),  who were new loopers, only 4 days into their journey, so this was their first docktails. 

Sunset on the docks.

The next morning the water was flat calm as we left the dock together with Stulie. We arrived at our anchorage at Edisto creek around noon and got set in. We had the place completely to ourselves, no boat traffic whatsoever. That afternoon we held a planning session to book our next leg of marinas. This can be a somewhat frustrating experience, as marinas do not always answer their phones, they never post prices on their websites, and the dock-booking apps only let you try one booking at a time. Eventually however, we managed to plan our next week of travel and get the necessary bookings. That evening, we played dominoes again.

In the game you have to connect dominoes in long "trains". Boats have limited space, so we quickly ran out of it on the table and had to go to zig-zag formations.

Early the next morning we set off for Charleston. Our marinas had requested we try to time our arrival for slack tide (when the current stops) so we had to make sure to leave the anchorage on time. As usual the anchor was stuck in the thick mud, but it eventually came out and off we went.

Eagle hanging out in a dead tree.

The morning started out with no wind whatsoever, but as we approached Charleston of course the winds picked up. We arrived in a stiff headwind, and so docking took some extra time, but we got set in the slip without incident and tied up.

Big tourist market on Market street. The old market building has been turned into a tourist trap. It is four blocks long.

After lunch, we took our scooters into Charleston and walked down Market street to see the tourist sights. We then went along Bay street, through the super-high-rent district to visit the museums at the Exchange and the old slave market. The Exchange was originally built on the sea wall, but now is several hundred yards from the water. Over the centuries, this area has been a kind of garbage dump for ship's ballast and also for household stuff. This has created lots of man-made land so now the Exchange is several hundred meters inland. This building was the first location for municipal offices and held things like the sheriff's office and tax collector's office. After the revolutionary war, this place became a jail known as the dungeon. We took a tour of the dungeon, which was basically a large communal space for prisoners. One of the key ways they used to prevent escapes was through malnutrition. Weak prisoners could not run away. The Exchange was also where the Declaration of Independence was ratified for South Carolina. George Washington walked the same floors we did.

Dungeon under the exchange. It was actually just a big basement, but was called the dungeon because of the horrific conditions that were there in the early 1800's.

After the exchange we went to the old slave market. This was an interesting experience. It was packed with people, but was totally silent, like a library or a church. The displays were pretty explicit, and showed many of the horrors associated with slavery. 

The next morning, we walked to the local grocery store for provisions. Coming out of the store we saw a large protest along one of the river parkways. This was part of a large protest called 50501, and was a call for the observance of the rule of law.

Bunch of little fish on the dock. There are herons here that fish from the dock. One must have stashed his dinner and been scared away?

Back on the boat, we did a few boat chores. I installed a second USB outlet on the flybridge and also worked on the upper tach. It has been reading erratically lately. A few days ago I tightened the contacts, but this only gave a temporary fix. This time I took each connection apart and cleaned each contact with emory paper. 

With that finished, Bruce and Sandy arrived for a visit. They had driven down from their house near Charlotte, and took us out to lunch at a place they knew called Red's Ice House.

St Michaels church in downtown Charleston.

Later we went to the Battery, which is an old fort on the waterfront in an uber-high-rent area. The homes nearby were from another world! Lots of money here. 

Bruce and I at the Charleston battery.

Selfie with Bruce and Sandy. They visited with us on the boat briefly after we saw the town, then they had to get home.

Rainbow Row - houses on Bay street. Each house it a different colour. The bolts on the pink house were added to stabilize the structure against earthquakes and hurricanes.

Houses here are built long and narrow as the property tax used to be based on street frontage.

Its a Jeep thing.

The next morning we did a few small boat chores, then took an Uber to the Patriot's Point museum. The USS Yorktown and USS Laffey are docked here (WWII aircraft carrier and destroyer). We spent quite a bit of time talking with one of the volunteers at the Yorktown, who it turned out, used to be a pharmacology prof. in Philadelphia. He had also served on the New Jersey, and was able to tell us lots of interesting history about the ships here. We then set off on the self-guided tours (there are four), which take you through pretty much all areas of the Yorktown. The boat is big, but not as big as we were expecting. Apparently a WWII aircraft carrier was much smaller than a modern one.

View of the Yorktown from the pier.

Arresting gear. When a plane lands on the carrier, a tailhook on the plane grabs a "wire" (1.5 inch thick steel cable) which then slows the plane to a stop. It does this by expending the energy into this machine, which is a big oil-filled piston connected by sheaves to the arresting cable. The piston is about 50 feet long.

Example of a Mitchel bomber of the type used for the Doolittle raid.

Navy recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

Bunks in the chief's quarters. They had similar bunks in the enlisted section that were stacked 3 high.

Engine controls in the carrier.

Aircraft launched torpedo. This thing was only about 6 feet long, had to be small enough for a plane to carry it.

They had a bunch of jets on display on the flight deck. All the WWII aircraft were in the hangar deck.

The ladders that you had to use to go between decks were really steep and narrow. 

Valves near the engine room turbines. The ship was powered by a boiler which fed a steam turbine. This fed some reduction gears which turned the prop shaft. The prop shaft was 2 feet in diameter!

Vulture's row. This is where sailors go to watch aircraft landing on the carrier.

The Laffey carried an anti-submarine drone from the 1960's. The QH-50.

We got to see the engine rooms, arresting gear and catapult systems, in addition to the various spaces for the crew. In the hangar deck, they had examples of the various types of planes used on the carrier throughout its lifetime, which began in 1943 (this boat was the replacement for the Yorktown that was sunk at Midway) and ended in the 1970.

We had lunch in a seafood place near the restaurant. They were serving a special Easter menu, so we got hosed on the price, but it was really tasty and cool view.

Back on the boat, we both grabbed some nap time after having walked through both ships.

Boat name of the day: Phuket