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!

SC ICW day 2

   A very cold night, in a very nice anchorage. Are we still in new york? We ask that more then we thought we would. In fact I wonder if we brought the cold with us? Did our mast catch the cloud? Did we drag it kicking and screaming behind us?
   We shared the anchorage with Mon Tiki, Dogstar, and some random trawler. (do they name those too?lol)
Departure was about 10AM, much later then Mon Tiki, as he is an early riser, and Dana is not. (I am writing this at 5AM) Completely uneventful night.
   At this point we had not touched bottom again. That is a big change from the NC ICW, where we hit bottom no less then 4 times.

I often pass other sailboats on the ICW. Most are bare poled. I can never work out why. There are sailing opportunities every day almost. In fact, when I have even a little blow at least the jib is unfurled.

 
I am nearly the only one. In fact sometimes we kill the engine and drift at 3kts for a few hours. Free is free right? That is why we got a salboat. The less we spend, the more we save, the longer we can stay sailing and not working.

   This day went very well. It was uneventful, and again full of dolphins. We motored 5 hours, sailed 4 hours.

Being passed by Dogstar, a trio of happy folks on a small boat. 

This was our last leg of the day, we crossed the bay on sail power, and anchored at the west end for the night. What a nice chilly day of sailing, and motoring. We are still loving our trip, and cannot wait to continue. We are working daily to adjust to this life, and we are loving it.

The Megadock, and the first day on the SC, ICW

   After turning around we spent a day with Hootie and the blowfish. Not literately of course, but their yacht was docked 500' from ours. The Megadock in downtown Charleston, SC if very overpriced, and for no good reason. The price is $2 a foot, close to $100 for us, and it is nothing special. None the less, it was too cold to be at anchor, so we had to have power, and heat.

Hootie boat

 

While there, I was watching the forecast, and it was looking rough. I made the captains decision to stay on the ICW for a bit. We left the mega dock early in the evening, and heading back thru Elliot cut, for the third time. This time however we went to starboard.

   Dolphins are everywhere down here. If dolphins were rats, there would be an infestation.

  We went as far as we could, before our very chilly night.

The trip was uneventful. We have been eating mostly on board the yacht. Dana is starting to get the swing of living on a yacht, and cooking without refrigeration. Not an easy task. The meals are mostly sandwiches,  and pizza, and ramen. I am glad I enjoy ramen, for under 30 cents a meal, I can have a full belly. This is an important part of our voyage. The cheaper we live the less money we need to see the entire world. Our goal is to live on under $500 a month, with ALL expenses. We are going to prepare the yacht for life on anchor. Staying at marinas will not get us into a budget, low enough, to go on for a long time. I have been told that on $35,000 you can complete a circumnavigation. I want to do it for under $20,000. There will be places we will skip. Galapagos is off the list. Why? Simple, too expensive. I was reading a blog post last week, of a couple who just made the trip. They had well over $2000 into this one stop.
Things I can do with $2000 that do not involve a flightless bird sighting:
Replace my prop with a feathering prop
New bottom paint
Re-rig our foremast
New high end dinghy
New dinghy engine
A new main sail
A new Raymarine chartplotterwith change left over
All new running rigging.

Get the point? The stop there has become so overpriced, its a dumb move to make, for yet another volcanic island. And that is all it is. Now, if you worship Darwin, and believe all the fairytale's about (0+0=everything) it may be an important stop for you. But no thanks, I will save my money for an ice cream on the steps of
Piazza da Spagna.



   Here is Mon Tiki, the only other schooner we passed on this leg of the trip, and our new stalker :) We passed him, then anchored with him, then played leep frog with him for the next week, until he caught up with us yesterday in St Augustine.

 

Thank you Mon Tiki for the great photo of our boat!

Here it is.

 That's it for today!

False start

   I found Dana's limit yesterday :) Its 8' breaking waves. We spent 5 hours getting to the end of the jettys, And then after the 3rd or 4th deck wash Dana was done. We went back to Charleston, and spent the night at the overpriced docks. The forecast is for 10' seas for 3 days, so we are heading down the ICW to Savanna GA. a slow, shallow track, to see if we can find the bottom again. Once we get to Savanna Then we can run down outside to Jacksonville. Gag, i hate motoring, but I love my wife, so making her happy is important.

Departure day

   We have a 165 mile ocean passage to do this week. Forecast said 3-4' seas, 10-12kt winds. My, how forecasts change. So not we are facing another small craft advisory, this means it will be rough, and windy.
5'-6' seas will be the sailing conditions, with 7's Saturday night. We may see 12' sets. With the high wind we may just run the 90% jib, alone. With just this one headsail we will most likely go about 6-8kts. Should make for a quick passage. If money was not tight I would be tempted to keep going to key west.

   The waves are forecast to be right on the beam, woohoo, lots of rolling about tonight! The wind forecast says we will be sailing down wind. I am tempted to use the foresail, but the wind will be so high, 25kts, I would have to have 3 reefs in it. What I desire to work out is how do some sailors lash off the wheel, and in what conditions? I have seen it done on videos, but when? That would be a nice break to not use the autopilot. In fact we will try to hand steer most of the trip, with the exception of when i am sleeping on watch tonight.

It has been so cold here lately that the water from the hose was ice cold, after they turned it on today.

   Here you can see the condensation on the water fill pipe. Cold drinks today! 

   We finally have the dingy well secured, and no lashings on the deck. I ran the spinnaker halyard to the bow pulpit,  so it is not out of the way, and very secure. I guess if i was a pro i would use the spinnaker on this downwind trip, but if i get off a bit, we would broach, and Dana would be cross.

   Goodbye SJYH. I can say this place is very nice. There are a bunch of things i enjoyed,and a few i did not. The best part was the courtesy car. The docks are very clean, power is high quality. The inter net was sort of fixed while we were here, but they are strict on the policy's. Far from an open net. The staff is nice, most of them. There is a bar, and it does attract a roudy crowd, but is far enough from the docks, you do not hear them.

   

   What bugged me? There is an abundance of full time, multi-year, residents here. Many of those have very very very run down boats, and do not bother to keep them nice looking. One of them is building a pilot house out of plywood. The internet is restricted, and monitored. The area is nice, but far from anything, so you cannot walk someplace, you must drive.

Look for a video of our departure if I get the camera charged in time.

Subsidizing store bought food

   One big expense that does not go away is food cost. So the best approach for a long time cruiser is to supplement your diet on caught food. On the east coast that is done with blue crab. Today we experimented with a chick neck, on a line. the crab grabs the neck and hold on until the surface. I caught 3. Two escaped our net with a big hole in it. One did not.
   So tonight we enjoyed the company of a crab, and also the taste.

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Time to move on

   We are now preparing to leave. Off to face another adventure. This time I am determined to SAIL 90% of the trip. No more motor passages for us. I have the Large 155% genoa up on deck, ready to fly.

  

   It was folded by two girls with not much of an idea how to fold it, and finished by one girl, alone.

Should be a trip to get it on the furler. I hope to use all 3 sails on this trip. The wind prediction is 10-15MPH, with a low of 6MPH on our 3rd day, if we take three days. The waves are to be calm, 2-3'. 

   We went out provisioning yesterday, we loaded up for this three day trip, because upon arrival, we will be on a mooring. We are hoping to stay in FL for a bit and work, then make a big trip to who knows where. We have goals to meet, I hope to make them in 5 months. If they can all be made in 5-7 months, we will head all the way south. ALL THE WAY. 

     A bit of provisioning.

Until then,

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