8 November 2012 Oriental, North Carolina
It was sunny and a bit warmer today, but we still had the cabin heater running all day. We decided to stay in Oriental and paid $5 for a decent internet connection for 24 hours - both of us continued to look at places to visit on the way down to Key West.
We talked to our friend Mike on Skype and he’s okay with us getting some things delivered to his rental house in Florida, so I ordered a couple of small things and arranged for our mail to be sent out from the UK.
We walked around Oriental in the afternoon and then prepared the boat for sea.
9 November 2012 Oriental to Charleston, South Carolina (Day 1)
We were up early and left at half past seven heading for Beaufort. It was a pleasant enough trip down the ICW for a few hours. We anchored just inside the channel leading out to sea, so that I could go up the mast and replace the VHF antenna. I also ran the water maker for half an hour just to make sure that it still works after not running it for six weeks – the water is so polluted in the Chesapeake that I didn’t want to use it.
As we motored out of the channel, I called “Celebration” on the VHF to wish them bon voyage. They left for the British Virgin Islands this morning – they have a ten day passage ahead of them, but the forecast winds look like they should have a good trip. It was sad to say goodbye – we’ve bumped into them many times over the past eighteen months, but our paths are now diverging.
The wind was very light and slightly behind our starboard beam, so I dragged out our brand new cruising chute and deployed it. It was very simple to hoist with the sleeve that came with it and it looked fantastic. It was great to be sailing out at sea again and to make things even better, I caught a small tuna.
We had a great sail for three or four hours, but the wind gradually backed and we finally gave up when the wind was 60° off our starboard bow. The wind actually dropped completely while we were putting the spinnaker away which caused a little bit of chaos because the damn thing ended up plastered against the main sail. However, the sleeve did its job and I soon had it under control.
We motored for the rest of the day and by midnight the sea was glassy calm.
10 November 2012 Oriental to Charleston, South Carolina (Day 2)
It wasn’t too cold last night – we still had four layers of clothes on, but we didn’t freeze to death. We motored all night. It started to get light at half past five and the sky was impressively surreal - I took a great photograph of Venus and the Moon over the glassy sea.
We had several visits from Atlantic Spotted Dolphins who played in our bow wave for ages. I caught another small tuna, which had a big bite out of its side – something big had tried to eat it while I was reeling it in. Glenys rustled up pan-fried tuna sandwiches for lunch.
It remained calm all afternoon with no wind at all. The sea was so calm that I spent several hours down below at the computer, editing photographs and creating articles for our website so that I can publish them the next time we have a good internet connection.
We continued into Charleston after dark, which is the first time we’ve been into a port at night for ages. It was great fun – I’d forgotten how confusing it can be with all the various flashing buoy lights getting mixed up with the lights ashore. We anchored off the main channel opposite the Battery at midnight and had a couple of nice cold beers.
11 November 2012 Charleston, South Carolina
We motored around to the Maritime Centre Marina and went onto the fuel dock to fill up with diesel. The marina is a very small harbour owned by the city and only has space for about twenty boats. We were a bit early arriving and had to sit on the fuel dock for a couple of hours waiting for a boat to vacate the slip that had been allocated to us. I’m afraid that I had a sense of humour failure, being frustrated because I wanted to go for a walk around town and couldn’t – I need to chill out...
Eventually, the other boat left and we were able to move off the fuel dock and walk into town. One of the main streets in Charleston had been blocked off as a pedestrian walkway for the day and there were lots of people wandering around eating food from stalls and bars and listening to the street buskers.
12 November 2012 Charleston, South Carolina
I've been putting weight on and stiffening up because we’re not doing any exercise at the moment - we need to get somewhere warm enough to go swimming again. So, in a fit of madness, I went for a run for the first time for over a year. I only ran a couple of miles, but it was good to be pounding the streets again.
After breakfast, Glenys put a load of laundry in the free washing machine and I changed the oil on the engine. All this motoring down the Chesapeake and the ICW has added yet another 200 hours onto the engine.
We went on our guided tour of the Magnolia Plantation, which was very good. The plantation has been in the same family since 1676 and has some world famous gardens. The tour guides gave us the history of the plantation and the slave trade as well as walking us around the gardens and the house.
Plantation owners were very powerful and rich people. At the time of the Civil War there were around 300 slaves living and working on the Magnolia plantation. The average purchase price for a slave was $1,500, which is much more than I would have thought. In today’s money that would probably be $15,000, so the plantation had an investment of over £3.5 million in their slaves. It is said that the owners of Magnolia Plantation looked after their slaves, which is supported by the number that continued to work at the plantation after they had been freed.
I really enjoyed being driven around the “Swamp Garden” which is a cypress and tupelo swamp with alligators, heron and other wildlife. Alligators are weird things, lying for hours totally stationary with only a small part of their head and body visible – very creepy. There are old “Live Oak” trees all over the plantation with Spanish Moss hanging from the branches making it all look very “southern”.
We had dinner at Hyman’s Seafood, which is one of the most popular restaurants in Charleston. I just had to have Shrimp and Grits – it doesn’t sound the most appetising dish in the world, but was very tasty.
13 November 2012 Charleston, South Carolina
Glenys went into town to do a bit of shopping while I did some more laundry and pottered about. Our plan was to leave in the early evening and sail overnight to Savannah to arrive in the morning. It’s 100 miles from Charleston to Savannah - an awkward distance which we can’t do in a single day hence the overnight passage. The wind was forecast to be light until the afternoon and then pick up to 15-20 knots from the North as a weak front moves away.
We left the marina at noon and anchored just off the ICW in the middle of the huge Charleston harbour waiting to go. I hate waiting to leave - it’s very unsettling and hard to focus on anything constructive. We were so bored that we had an afternoon nap.
It started to rain heavily at three o’clock and still hadn’t stopped at half past four. The wind was picking up and it was cold and miserable. We decided to abandon the trip and motored further up the South River to the anchorage off the Municipal Marina. It was going dark by the time that we arrived and there was a strong tide against the wind which made anchoring difficult because boats were facing in strange directions and it was difficult to see where to drop the anchor. It took us two attempts to get settled.
14 November 2012 Charleston, South Carolina
It was a very grey overcast day. The weather forecast was predicting more showers today and tonight, heavy rain tomorrow and showers on Friday. It looks like we’ll be stuck here for a few days.
We spent all day chilling out and looking at our future cruising plans. I’ve collected a large amount of information about possible cruising areas and we started to sift through it all, working out where we really want to go. We’ve decided to still go to Cuba, but we’re now thinking of nipping across to Mexico for a month and then going back to the south coast of Cuba before heading down to Jamaica and then Panama for the hurricane season.
Longer term, we’re not sure when we’ll go through the Panama Canal. It all depends on whether we go down to Ecuador. The information that I have on Ecuador is over four years old and unfortunately we can’t get an internet connection to try to find out more.
We watched the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy with our dinner – best thing to do in this cold miserable weather.
15 November 2012 Charleston, South Carolina
It was another miserable rainy day. The wind was gusting up to 40 knots when we got up and all the boats in the anchorage were veering around madly. We went very close to one boat, so we pulled up our anchor and moved further out to the edge of the anchorage, miles away from anyone else - not pleasant thing to be doing in the lashing rain.
Fortunately, we were now in a position where we were getting a good internet signal, so we spent the rest of the day looking up information on more distant cruising destinations. It was almost surreal to be looking at blogs of people who have sailed to Ecuador, Galapagos and Easter Island, when we can’t even get a mere 100 miles to Savannah.
After much deliberation, we’ve decided that we will definitely go to Ecuador and spend a few months there before heading across the Pacific. It will give us the opportunity to travel inland - perhaps to Peru and Chile. Also we’ll be able to arrange a one month cruising permit for the Galapagos, which will be fantastic. We’re not sure whether we’ll try to go to Easter Island, but we’ll definitely head for the Gambier Islands rather than the Marquesas because it will get us away from the maddening crowds and there’s a chance that we could stop in the Pitcairn islands, which would be very interesting.
So our long term plans (subject to winds and whims) are:
Jan - May Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica
Jun - Oct Panama, San Blas, Fly to UK
Nov - Jan Transit the Panama Canal, Ecuador
Feb Galapagos
Mar Head across the Pacific