Island Pictures

Light House on Hunting Island

Hunting Island South Carolina

Mom and Baby Cumberland Island

Beached Cannonball Jellyfish

Horseshoe Crabs Cumberland Island Georgia

Sand Dunes Cumberland Island Georgia

The Golden Ticket

Continuing my story
We spent a very quiet night in the anchorage just outside of Charleston.  Next morning we prepared to leave it was cloudy and it looked like it would be a nice day.  Off on the ICW we went with the tide today we should make good time.  About 2 hours into our journey I looked behind us and I see a Coast Guard boat coming up on us.  I calmly take over driving so it doesn't look suspicious so Joe can go shut something down below just in case we get boarded.  And what do ya know we are going to get boarded!!  The Coast Guard boat pulls up beside us, I power back the throttle, they ask if we have gotten boarded recently,  I tell them no not on this boat, we had gotten boarded before when we were in Hawaii on a different boat.  Joe takes the lifeline down and we invite them aboard. Now we know they are out here to keep everyone safe so there is no need to get our hackles up.  We smile and say we are glad they are around,  and we proceed to cooperate in every way possible. There are two Coast Guard officers and a County Sheriffs Deputy on our boat and two more Coast Guard on the boat that stopped us. They tell me to resume normal speed and they drop back and proceed to follow us during our inspection.  They are very thorough and go through everything on the boat that needs checked, the head, life jackets, flares, whistles, air horn, all our documentation for the boat and others.  After about an hour they say we pass all the inspections and hand us a THE GOLDEN TICKET.  They tell us that we are good for a year so if we ever get stopped again within the year all we have to do is show our golden ticket and we should be good to go.  We say our thank you and wish them a good day and they are off.  After they leave we high five each other for passing the inspection.
That afternoon we are motoring along and we see storm clouds brewing ahead, our next anchorage is about 5 miles away, right where we are heading we look at our charts and we pull over in an anchorage because we do not want a repeat performance of the day before storm situation. We read in our cruising guide that this spot is buggy, boy was that an understatement, we get mobbed by bugs and mosquitoes it was like being in Minnesota at dusk.  We have to totally close up the boat and it is hot and muggy.  Muggy and Buggy all at the same time NOT a good combination!!! The fly squatter comes out and the bug spray is deployed.  I do believe we killed all the little critters.  They must not have seen humans for a while because the were relentless little suckers.  So sad such a lovely place to anchor and we can't even sit in the cockpit to enjoy our cocktails.  The storm we saw never did reach us but it is better to be cautious of these things. 
Our next stop is Southport North Carolina.  TTFN

Painted Water

Seeing old friends and stormy stuff

We pull anchor head through Watts Cut at mid tide we make it through the channel have a few more shallow spots but we are with the tide, heading for Charleston.  We are meeting up with our friends from Chesterfield Missouri, Denny and Shara Taylor.  They are on the east coast searching for a boat and happen to be in Charleston South Carolina to look at some boats.  We go have BBQ the first night they come and pick us up we have a nice evening visiting.  Next morning we get picked up at St. Johns Island Marina, wonderful place to anchor and they have beautiful facilities complete with restaurant and pool.  We go to another marina where we look at a Beneteau with the Taylors. Then we head over to the ferry landing and we buy tickets to go out to Fort Sumter, where the civil war began.  We board the ferry and get the tour and history of the Fort, it was worth the tour.  It is extremely hot and we are all done in and hungry when we get back to the van. The four of us head back to St. Johns Marina and have dinner at the restaurant there.  We say good bye to the Taylors they are leaving for Annapolis the next morning in search for their dream boat.  We hang out in Charleston the next day and take care of some business.  Next morning we head in to get fuel, water and ice.  Head out to Charleston Harbor put up the jib as our main is ripped beyond repair.  Yes we have to buy a new main sail it will be a huge expense.  Sailing across Charleston Harbor we run across a youth sailing school in their opti's.  It is blowing 12 to 17 and these little kids are out there having a ball.  We are looking to make the 6:00 opening on the bridge we are headed for then anchor for night.  Well we make it to bridge around 4:30 and we have to wait on the bridge meanwhile we anchor and wait as 6:00 approaches the skies start getting darker from the east and we hear rumbles of thunder.  We approach the bridge and the bridge master informs us that bad storms are approaching and that he will not open the bridge due to the storm that is about to hit.  Wind gusts of up to 40 we found out soon enough.  We turn back up the channel and it starts to rain hard we try to get farther but the storm is so bad by now that we can hardly see and the winds have piped up to gusts of 40 torrential rains.    We finally get an anchor down but we are in too shallow of water and the storm pushes us up on a sand bar.  Joe was smart enough to leave the motor running and in gear with the wheel hard over so we do not get pushed ashore.  I was hoping we do not have to call Tow Boat.  We are hammered by the storm for about 30 minutes then it starts to clear.  Bridge Master calls us and says he will open anytime we are ready.  We inform him that we are aground and we will be a while till we figure how to get off.  It took some doing and Joe crawled out on the boom, we pushed it all the way out and he was bounced up and down on it and he heard a pop.  He popped a rib out of place.  I could tell he was hurting but he kept working to get us ungrounded.  We finally got off the sand bar and we went through the bridge anchored just other side of bridge for the night in a very quiet place.  It has been a very interesting week.

Sail Problems

First day from Beaufort, July 20, we are heading north out of St. Helena Sound towards the Edisto River and Watts cut.  We know we have to make Watts Cut before low tide.  So we are sailing along have both sails up the wind is with us today. Pretty uneventful day until ...... we get to the entrance to Watts Cut.  The winds have picked up to about 15 to 20 during the day and when we go to drop sail we jibe and our main sail rips.  As we prepare to drop the main it tears more and more.  Nothing we can do at the moment.  Then we are trying to to furl in the jib and the spinnaker line gets wrapped in the sail and it is flapping and snapping like crazy Joe finally gets it unwrapped and we try to head into Watts cut.  It is now close to low tide and at the entrance we touch bottom we are afraid to just plow through the rest as we will have to wait for the tide to come in and we do not want to run hard aground.  So we turn around and head up a small creek where we know there is enough water to anchor for the night.  It is getting dark and it is time to quit for the day. We will assess  the damage when things are calmer.