Tuesday, May 5, 2015

A real Lady and ever so slowly

We are still sailing our plan and made Bull Creek easily. We had a favorable current most of the day. Bull Creek was a nice anchorage except it being a Sunday we had to endure a lot of small boat traffic and accompanying wakes -- there is a marina further up the river.

The next day we had a great run to Beaufort, SC. We had a favorable current all the way across both Calibogue Sound and Port Royal Sound. We made Beaufort around 10:30am. We thought about picking up a mooring at the City MArina but then would have to time the departure in the morning with the Lady Island Bridge schedule. We have heard folks rave about the LAdy Island Marina on the other side of the bridge and found they could accommodate us for one night. We took it.

TJ the Dockmaster met us at the dock and helped land us in a strong current. Once tied up and checked in which was a very pleasant process we had some lunch on board. Checking the literature they gave us we found that they had everything from drug stores, food stores, hardware stores, Laundromat, eateries all within 1 mile of the marina. No wonder folks rave about this place. We took a walk and took it all in. We stopped at the Publixs for some fresh veggies and lunch meat, checked both drug stores for the electronic fly swatter we had heard about from Madeline -- found one at Rite Aid and then back to the boat. We had dinner at the restaurant there called Dockside with John and Madeline from Chanceaux -- ohhh they beat us here because they went offshore for a while but found it uncomfortable and came into Port Royal the day before.

The shower and bathroom facilities are first rate -- very nice. Wish we could have stayed longer but because of the bad weather forecast for latter in the week they had reservations to honor and we had to leave -- we will be back.

Today we had a VERY SLOW run to Church Creek in SC. WE left on a rising tide and had a fast 7kt run to the Coosaw River then had to run for hours against the tide for all of the Coosaw, channel cutoffs, South Edisto River and North Edisto River. n the North Edisto our speed was in the low 4kt range!!

Church creek is a nice anchorage but we had some strong sea breeze against a strong current which has us forward on our anchor tonight. Not dangerous but annoying and noisy. The wind should lay down after dark and we will swing to the current all night which we are looking forward to.

Tomorrow it is only 18 miles to Charleston but the current is strong and will be against us near the end. Ohh well.

Not sure how long we will stay. There is an unusually early strong low pressure system building Wednesday which could be come a names storm and may impact South Carolina. We need more info to decide to either weather it at Charleston or move on to Georgetown, SC and weather it there.

Today all the models are mixed with some calling for 30kt winds and others for only 5kts. hat's a girl to do. Hopefully we can make that call tomorrow after checking the latest forecast in the morning. Obviously cruising is not as easy as sitting around and chewing the Lotus leaves.