Monthly Archives: December 2012

Sunrise over Beaufort, SC.

Last June in St. Augustine we placed an order for new cockpit cushions that will be fabricated once we get back to Florida. We didn’t have them made while we were there because we ran out of time and besides we had spent enough money that month getting things fixed. When we got our hurricane-damaged dodger window replaced in Annapolis we picked up a pretty big swatch of our chosen cushion fabric and now after living with it for a month I decided I hate it. For the past couple of weeks we’ve been looking for marine canvas shops so we can peruse their swatch books and choose another fabric and tell our man in Florida what to order. Believe it or not, we haven’t come across anyone accessible to us. Looking ahead for options I found there are three on Hilton Head Island, so we left Charleston Monday morning planning to make a two-day trip down the ICW. We could have made an ocean run of it, but there was no wind predicted and we’d be motoring anyway so inside it is.

We got a late start when our anchor windlass jammed and we missed a bridge opening but after that the current was with us and we made great time on a gorgeous day through the South Carolina low country.

It even got warm enough to finally peel off some layers of fleece.

While we were underway, and before we lost all contact with the outside world as we often do in remote places, we got an email from a friend suggesting we consider a stop at Beaufort, SC. I admit we didn’t know much about Beaufort except that they pronounce it funny, but it’s on the way and we can certainly afford to put ourselves behind a day, so why not?

We anchored last night in Rock Creek, about halfway to our original intended destination, Hilton Head, and about 20 miles from Beaufort.

I got up at 6am as usual. Izzy and I enjoyed a quiet sunrise, then watched a stunning classic yawl leave the anchorage. She’s called Seminole, built in 1916 and completely restored.

I went back about my business inside with various morning chores, neglecting to wipe the heavy dew off my shoes. I know better. As I started down the steps to the pantry my feet slipped out from under me and I took a hard tumble down the narrow companionway, banging my whole right side and landing all twisted at the bottom. Ouch! Luckily nothing was broken, but I went straight for the Advil before the adrenaline wore off.

We got underway before 8am in wet fog that was supposed to burn off by 10. It didn’t, but by the time we dropped the anchor in Beaufort it was starting to brighten a bit. While Jack was cleaning the foredeck after anchoring I shut down the engines and went below to change into shore clothes. That’s when I heard an unusual sound. I thought maybe it was the solar vent in the starboard hull, which has always had a bit of a rattle to it. But no, it was coming from the bilge. I opened the bilge hatch and there was definitely a pump running, but there was no water in the bilge. I called Jack. He came down and checked the engine room and declared that dry. I ran up to the electrical panel and turned the bilge pump on manually just to hear the sound. Totally different. Ok, so it wasn’t that. By process of elimination it had to be the shower sump, which is odd because we never use that shower, but yesterday when I was making water I filled two Jerry jugs and set them in the starboard shower. One of them had been overfilled and some water sloshed over the top. But still, why was the pump running now?

I ran upstairs and got a screwdriver, took the top off the sump and found that the filter had dislodged and jammed the float switch to the ON position. Whew! Easy fix, but I wondered how long that thing was running, since I couldn’t hear it when the engines were running. Plus all that upping and downing didn’t help my hip from the fall this morning. More Advil.

We stayed aboard for a while to be sure we were secure because there’s an 8-foot tidal range here and a strong current. When we were sure we were well anchored we dinghied to the town dock. As I was reaching for the cable to lock up the dinghy I whacked my head right into a piece of angle iron bolted to the piling. Are you kidding me??!

“I need to get you a helmet,” said Jack, and I wondered when that Advil was going to kick in.

We walked through downtown Beaufort to the old City Hall, now the Low Country Produce Market and Cafe, where we had a delicious lunch.

We picked up a walking tour map and set out to see some of the antebellum mansions Beaufort is famous for.

The live oaks are spectacular here.

We continued to explore the town until we felt we’d burned sufficient calories to earn an ice cream reward.

And it was at that point that I realized I’d lost my sunglasses. Jack parked me and my aching hip on a bench and retraced our steps until he found my shades at the tourist office where we’d gotten the map, and I was thinking my biorhythms must be way down.

Sun out and eyes protected, we finished our afternoon in Beaufort with a cup of coffee and a stroll along the waterfront where a group of men played bocce.

I’m glad we stopped here and I don’t blame Beaufort at all for my injuries and the pump malfunction. I’m just going to take more Advil and get out of here before anything else happens.

Underway in the ICW, South Carolina.

My sister and I spent our childhood watching — or more often marching in — parades. Our little town needed no excuse for lining up the various school, church and civic groups and parading down MacDade Boulevard. So sitting on a curb watching marching bands, scout troops, animal rescue leagues and anyone else who wants to march is a blast from the past for me. Sunday was Charleston’s annual Christmas Parade and we weren’t going to miss it.

We picked up Alan Saturday morning and walked to Marion Square for the weekly farmers market. And what a nice market it is! Lots of produce, locally made cheeses, spices, plenty of craftspeople, coffee and pastry vendors and tables everywhere to sit down and eat or just appreciate the scene. There was also live music and a couple of street performers on the fringe. There was a Reindeer Run that ended just before we got there so we saw lots of runners in shorts and t-shirts but it was still a a little chilly for the rest of us. Jack and I checked out every produce vendor, then went back and bought two big bags of fresh vegetables. When we got home I washed, cooked and froze some of them because we have limited fridge space, and cooked up a dinner that featured fresh collards and tomatoes. It felt like a splurge because we have a hard time finding good produce in many of the places we’ve been lately. That situation should improve as we get further south.

We learned there was a lighted boat parade Saturday evening but it started on the other side of Charleston and we weren’t sure the boats would come all the way around to the Ashley River where we’re anchored. Jack parked himself in the cockpit to keep watch while I made dinner. This was the first night in months that we could be outside for a sundowner. We turned on the VHF radio and listened to “Parade Control” trying to get the boats lined up in the right order. It was chaos. Imagine all different kinds of boats trying to stay in line, moving very slowly and flighting a breeze, current and wayward crab pots. Periodically the Judges’ Stand would get on the radio and request that the boats run closer to shore so they could see them, and the boats would complain that it was out of the channel, or there were crab pots, or they were just following the guy in front. During all of this we couldn’t see a thing because they were on the other side of the peninsula. Finally we heard Parade Control tell the boats that the parade was officially over but that the people in the Ashley River would love to see them if they wanted to continue around. Eventually we saw some of the entries, and by this time they were no longer in a line but rather meandered upriver, many through the anchorage, causing all of us to bounce a bit and making photography next to impossible. Still, it was fun. We cracked up to hear the holiday playlist one boat was blasting, including “Superfreak” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Oh, and we also hung a few Christmas lights on EV.

Foggy morning.

I’m a walker, and it’s a good thing, too, because living on a boat and without a car you end up walking a lot. Long walks to the grocery or to tour a city give us much needed exercise and also make for a more intimate experience with a place. We were first here last December during our initial boat-shopping grand tour to see a lovely catamaran named Suzanne. Jack went all gaga, I liked the way she looked outside but not the accommodations, specifically the bathrooms. Jack wanted to put an offer in right away and I wanted to wait and see more boats before I settled for something that didn’t ring my chimes. In any event, we didn’t spend any time in Charleston because we had to high-tail it to our next boat-for-sale.

This time, with the anchor down securely and a short nap behind us we took a reconnaissance lap with Alan from Snow White and made the obligatory coffee shop visit to plan our stay here. On Friday, with Alan feeling a little under the weather, Jack and I set off to explore by foot. We had both read South of Broad, Pat Conroy’s love letter to his hometown and were eager to explore. Right away we could see that this is the best kind of walkable city, where a turn down any street reveals stately houses and lovely gardens. Every gate beckoned toward landscaped alleyways showing a hint of what may lie just beyond our sight.

We wandered over to the City Market. Markets are my favorite place to go everywhere we travel. You can get a sense of a place easier in the market than anywhere else. This one is mostly local artists and craftspeople and very little food, unfortunately, but still, we walked from one end to the other, oohing and ahhing over the wares. We’ve never been souvenir-buyers and are doubly not now that we’re living on a boat, but we appreciate the skill and creativity of those who make a living making beautiful things with their hands. We especially enjoyed the women making sweet grass baskets, since we had seen a PBS episode of Craft in America about this art form. (This is a wonderful series about all kinds of American arts and crafts — worth watching!)

One of the few food vendors had this for sale:

I was taking a photograph when the vendor asked if I’d like to try it. I let out an unintentional gasp of revulsion and said, “Oh my goodness, no. I’m from the north! We don’t do that!” He smiled and said, “That’s right, I forgot.” I could have been more diplomatic, I guess, but I had just seen this and it had turned all of the good things I’d been feeling about Charleston slightly sour.

Not long after that we were meandering down Broad Street when we saw a horse drawn carriage of re-enacters on a tour of the city.

Again, my reaction was revulsion and swift. There were two men on the corner hanging Christmas decorations, one on a ladder, one on the ground. When the light changed and the carriage passed by I turned to the man standing near me.

“That gives me the creeps. Does that give you the creeps?” I asked him. Both men were black.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Up north,” I said and he nodded.

“That’s why.” I was puzzled. Did he mean he was used to it?

The man on the ladder was half listening and asked, “Where did you say you were from?”

“Pittsburgh,” Jack said. “Go Steelers.”

The response was revulsion and swift.

“I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan. Step away from my ladder.” And then he laughed.

We waved and continued on our way. You don’t argue with a man on a ladder wielding a Christmas wreath.

There were galleries and more homes and gardens, enough to fill up weeks of wandering.

Eventually we made our way to Waterfront Park, where there are beautiful cast bronze maps showing the growth of the city by century.

We ended our day at a gem of a cafe with tasty croissants and the New York Times. It doesn’t get any better.

Even though this was only a one-day ocean passage, there were many factors to take into consideration when we planned it. When you drive somewhere you really only have to calculate how long it will take you based on how far it is and how fast you will drive. On a boat there are a couple of other important things to factor in. First and most important is the wind. Most non-sailors probably think the sails are like big bed sheets you hang up so the wind will push you toward your destination. In fact, the sails are more like airplane wings and the difference in pressure created by the air flowing on either side of the sails is what pulls the boat forward. You can read probably more than you want to know here.

We watched the weather reports, focusing on wind predictions, and saw that last Wednesday the wind was predicted to be from the northwest at 10-15 knots. This is a fairly light wind for most sailors, but we just repaired the mainsail and we wanted to take it easy on the first few times out so we could evaluate the repairs and look for any more potential issues in conditions where it wouldn’t be under too much stress. Also, the angle of the wind was favorable relative to our expected course. You can go almost anywhere on a sailboat, but you can’t sail directly into the wind.

The other important factors we needed to consider were the tides, both in the place we were leaving and in Charleston. If the tide was against us in either place we would be fighting a current pushing us away from where we wanted to go. And if the wind and current are moving in opposite directions, you can have a nasty chop that makes being on a boat an uncomfortable proposition. Izzy and I don’t like that at all.

I checked the tide tables to see when it would be best to leave Southport, and I also checked the tables for Charleston to see when a good arrival window would be. Then I did some calculations. If we were sailing at 6 knots it would take us so many hours, at 5 knots this many, at 4 knots that many, and so on. We chose our departure time accordingly and figured depending on the wind speed we’d arrive in Charleston between 7am and 12pm. Perfect. You never want to arrive in port in the dark if you can help it.

We had a perfect passage out the Cape Fear River with the outgoing tide pushing us along. When we got out into the ocean we discovered the wind was from the northeast, not northwest, so it was directly behind us instead of beside us. That meant we were going downwind, and this is the slowest point of sail. Seems counterintuitive, but downwind is the only time the wind is actually pushing you and you’re not taking advantage of the airfoil capabilities of the sails. You can see an overview of points of sail here.

We initially sailed “wing and wing,” which means one sail was way out on one side of the boat, the other sail way out on the other side. This is normally a pleasant, but not particularly fast, point of sail. I thought, if this keeps up my arrival predictions go out the window. But after a while, the wind came around to where it was predicted, from the northwest. On our course, that meant the wind was blowing over the side of the boat, or abeam. So both sails went out over the other side of the boat and were now functioning in their most efficient capacity, as airfoils. And we went fast. Oh no! I hadn’t calculated for 7 knots, let alone 8! That meant we would arrive in Charleston hours before we wanted to. But it was so enjoyable to be sailing after all the worry about our mainsail and all the motoring we’ve done since we bought EV, we just sat back and enjoyed the ride for hours.

I kept checking the weather reports and they said the wind would drop sometime in the evening so we decided to let EV strut her stuff figuring we’d eventually have to motor into Charleston. But the wind never died down. By midnight we were only an hour away from turning into the approach to Charleston harbor so I altered course a bit, taking us more downwind (slower) and away from Charleston (more distance.) But still, we’d arrive before daylight.

Finally, when Jack came on watch we reduced sail. In this case that meant we took down (doused) the jib, the one in the front, and we reduced the mainsail size (reefed) by rolling up most of it on our window-shade-like furler. That left us with just a small triangle of mainsail up and that finally cut our speed down to 4.5-5 knots. Still pretty fast, considering.

We probably should have reduced sail before nightfall when it’s easier to see what you’re doing and had a slower sail overnight, but sailors are almost always reluctant to do that when conditions are good and the boat is under control and moving well. We just kept thinking the wind was going to die down and we’d get as far as we could before we had to start the engines and motor in.

As it turned out, the combination of altering course and shortening sail put us into the harbor at daybreak, perfectly timed to have enough light to pick a good spot to drop the anchor. And then the Coast Guard spotted us. They were friendly and polite but we so wanted to go to sleep!

All in all, it was a good test for the repaired mainsail, which looks good except for the missing #4 batten, and we love how well EV sails, at least in optimum conditions. We know it won’t always be that way but we’ll enjoy it whenever it is.

We woke to a bitter cold cloudy morning in Southport Harbor. We really wanted to take on fuel, around the corner at Southport Marina, but last night on the VHF they said that they had a 100-foot motor yacht at the fuel dock and they had no idea when they were leaving. For a change starting a little later dovetailed into the outgoing current for the Cape Fear River so we were hoping that the behemoth would leave early. The marina didn’t answer until 8:05am. The fuel dock was open for business. We pulled the hook and said goodbye to our private little anchorage.

The navigation staff nailed the Cape Fear Inlet current and soon we were rounding Oak Island Light with Bald Head Island just off in the distance (Oh I can just hear the snickering).

Two flawless hoists and we were flying along wing and wing at 7-8 knots in a freshening north breeze that NOAA said would die in the evening, so we thought let’s make hay while the makings are good. It was sunny but quite cold but we didn’t mind at all. This is what we paid for!

I saw some strange splashing coming towards EV on an intersecting course. Dolphins! I don’t know how fast they can swim but to me they looked like they were really working hard, right in front of the bows. (Picture missing, because the photographer was too busy yelling “Marce, Marce, dolphins!”)
We had decided to run the rumbline straight across from Frying Pan Shoals to Charleston which brought us out into the Atlantic further than most of the boats we could see. The wind backed around to a broad reach and went up to the high teens. EV was really strutting her stuff now and we were touching 9kts frenquently.

Dinner was served on the aft promenade deck.

It was after dinner that the skipper was informed by the head of navigation that he had the old girl wound up and going way too fast and her carefully crafted plan allowed for reasonable deviation from standard norms, in terms of average speed, but that this was ridiculous. The fun had to stop!

Now I tell you dear Escapees, I’ve spent a good part of my adult life trying to improve the speed of sailboats, not going slower. That’s when the skipper’s razor sharp mind came up with a plan.
It was a simple plan, which is always the best. I began to think back about all the times the trimmer or after guard or wife laughed and remarked that it’s no wonder we are so slow, just look at that…we’ll say jib, just to make the point. You couldn’t get arrested trimmed like that! It’s no wonder our friends are doing a horizon job on us. So rather than reef the main, because NOAA promised the wind would be dying this evening and we are going to need that sail, we over-trimmed the jib, let the main out to spill what was now a wind in the high teens, put the propellers in neutral which alone should be worth one knot of extra drag.

She would not slow down. She just refused to go slower. We were looking at a 1am arrival at the Charleston Channel markers, still going at 7 kts. and we decided that we didn’t want to go into that busy harbor in the dark.

It was time to do in the dark what we should have done in the daylight. Double reef the main and douse the jib. Apparently this night the wind was not going to die. We headed her up into the wind and soon realized that the jib down haul was fouled up again. I carefully made my way up the side decks to the front of the trampoline becoming airborne after every wave. Marce kept Escape Velocity into the wind. After laying down on my back I was able to pull down the jib and lash it down, without being launched. I confess The Skipper was a bit shattered.

Still too fast but it bought us enough time that if we altered course we could drop the main at an outer channel marker, and slowly putt into the harbor at daybreak. The off watch says ,”make it so.”

The plan provided by our crack navigation team worked to perfection and it even felt a little warmer as we turned into the Ashley River. I could feel the bed calling me and that’s when I saw the coastguard launch’s blue light flashing. Not now, not within sight of our anchorage! They were as nice as could be but five extra adults suddenly in EV poking into everything was more than our tired brains could process. Izzy took one look, tore off and tunneled into all the extra crap that is piled in the guest room and went to that happy place in her mind that doesn’t move, doesn’t inexplicably have storm troopers everywhere, and looks a lot like Western Pennsylvania. When they asked for my driver’s license I said sure and reached for my wallet…no wallet! Eventually Marce remembered that I had changed pants when it had gotten so cold and hopefully it was there. It was.

As the last guy left he said “nice kitchen.” Nice folks. We passed the routine safety inspection and dropped the anchor by 8:13am.

Ashley River, Charleston, SC 8:13am