SC ICW, 3rd day, and Beaufort, SC

   The 3rd day of our journey we woke up early. We had a goal that day of stopping at the free dock in Beaufort, SC. The day however started out rough. The windlass has been finicky. The bolt that holds the shaft, and keeps pressure on the clutch was not installed when we bought the boat. I reinstalled it before we left, but not very far in. The threads were goofed, so I could not get it in very far. It pulled out again. So I had to screw it back in a bit, tighten the clutch, and try to get the anchor up. Unfortunately we were at a 90 degree angle to the anchor. It was not budging. Why were we 90 degrees to the anchor? Me and my stern anchor.... I put it out on 10' of rode so the boat would spin more slowly, only it hooked up overnight.
   Regretfully I cut the stern anchor free. Goodbye 15# anchor I found in the lazerette. This makes me rethink our primary. Every time i have tossed this anchor over, it has hooked up. It has hooked up without me even setting it. Well we may make our primary a danforth. It has worked great in every condition we have tried using it in. I cannot say the same of our QCR. It must be set to work.
   After getting the QCR back in the bow roller, we were off. 12 miles to Beaufort.


   It was a very windy day, and quite chilly. When we arrived at the free dock, after passing under the swing bridge, the wind was blowing hard north. Dana set the fenders on the port side. I brought the yacht parallel with the dock, about 20' out, and we were pushed sideways, very hard. I would estimate we hit the dock at about 2kts sideways. It was fine thou, we had 6 fenders, BIG fenders. So the landing was soft. We tied up, and went into town.

   The town is a nice clean town, and all the shop keepers were friendly. We stopped at the a BBQ joint in downtown. The food was ok. The service was ok. Not anything remarkable, but not bad. We then popped over to the local froyo for desert, then back to the yacht for the night.

Tomorrow I will post the details of the robbery that happened this very night. So check back in the morning!