Charleston SC....

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 
Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

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It has been a while since our last update. Mostly because we seem to have found ourselves in an internet BLACK HOLE!  Everywhere we try to access internet, we CAN'T!!! So today Shelley suggested that we walk about a mile to the closest McDonald's.  And so, FINALLY we are connected....  Which leaves me with the question; in the most connected country in the planet, why is it so HARD to get connected????

END RANT....

As far as life goes, it has been bitter sweet.  Bitter because we had to say goodbye to some awesome, incredible people who have become a wonderful part of our life. Sweet because we are making our way south!  

Our friends, Bill & Carol got up to see us off at 06:00. We left Myrtle Beach on Wednesday October 1st.. We sailed about 12 hours to Georgetown SC.  It was getting late and we decided not to sail overnight to Charleston.  Through the day we flew almost every light wind sail we own and made an average of only 3-4 knots.  The good news is the spinnaker we repaired in Fairhaven NY. held up!  We found what we thought was a suitable anchorage on Active Captain only to find the bottom was solid rock and after 5 attempts we gave up and sought out our own spot to anchor...  Eventually around 20:00 we were anchored and having supper....  We have  Fettuccine Alfredo because we caught NO FISH all day... 

Early on the 2nd we pulled anchor at 03:00 to catch the outgoing tide,  and motor sailed to Charleston SC arriving at 13:30.  Today our fishing luck changed dramatically.  Within a few hours we had 2 beautiful Bonito Tunas on board.  We filleted them both and froze one and BBQ'd the second for dinner... YUM!

We anchored across from The City Marina.  This marina has 19,000 feet of dock! We paid them $5 per day to use their dinghy dock.  If we were to stay there it would cost us $90 per night.... vs. anchoring for free? .... hmmm..... Oh, check out the crappy boats that do hang out there:

On Friday we began to explore our new surroundings and after getting some help from a homeless lady, made our way to the free bus service offered here in downtown Charleston.  What a beautiful, old south, city.  The people have really lived up to their reputation as "The Friendliest City in America."    Other than not having any internet luck, we have had a wonderful time.

On Saturday morning I decided it was time to solve a voltage  loss problem we have noticed since being disconnected from any kind of shore power.  Our wind generator and solar panels are working great and the house bank seems to be well maintained, however there seemed to be a 1-2 volt drop between the batteries and the distribution panel.  I know that when I re-wired the boat I ran a 0 gauge cable between the batteries and the buss bar just before the panel.  The mistake it seems I made was only running an 8 gauge wire from the buss bar to the panel.  After adding another 8 gauge cable, the voltage problem DISAPPEARED!  Problem solved... Cost = $0.  A good day.

After this, we walked downtown and experienced the open air Saturday market in downtown Charleston.  We bought some veggies and some shrimp.  We also went through a permanent "market"  called the "City Market".  No food, but lots of things to sell to the folks who come and go from the cruise boat dock just down the street.

The WEEKEND market

The City Market

The FREE bus

Taking heads off Shrimp

Veggies from the market...

The wind on Saturday was 15-25 knots out of the west all day, so along with a 3 knot tidal current, the boats in the anchorage were all over the place.  We ended up removing our anchor ball as the chain was constantly getting wrapped up in it.  I will say though, our new Mantus (85 lb.) anchor has met all our hopes and expectations.  It is holding really well.

Today, we hope to get some laundry done and eat a big shrimp dinner!

Cheers!