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Smelly, noisy trip.

340/150 mpg @ 1.7 gph = 3.85 mph

for 3 1/2 days. !!!!!

Cheers

DSK wrote:

Scott Vernon wrote:

do tell.

Well, the whole Charleston cruise is a nice story. A bit long. We went
to an AGLCA rally and also to meet relatives. A bit of a hurry on the
way down, took 3 1/2 days to make the 340 miles (which is good time on
the ICW). The weather was mostly cold & rainy until the day after the
rally.

We had beautiful weather for a tour of Charleston Harbor & the Stono
River with nieces & nephew aboard... megayachts, historic homes along
the waterfront, dolphins, Fort Sumpter... as a bonus, there was a big
E-Scow regatta going on in the harbor. We watched some of the spinnaker
runs and finishes. Another day we went up the Cooper River to check out
the port facility (keeping well out of the way of some big ships) and
the "former" Navy base which still has some activity. There is also a
boatyard or sailing club going on there, a bunch of boats including a
big (50' or maybe 60') catamaran and what looks like an aluminum BOC boat.

The trip back had a few interesting & fun moments. Our departure, at a
time of limited visibility and strong current, was planned carefully.
The wind cooperated with my maneuver to prevent the current from shoving
against any other boats, we got away clean. The rain cleared up and we
had a nice trip past McClellanville and the Cape Romain area (very wild
& unspoiled). We lost count of how many dolphins we saw. Anchored that
night in Minim Creek just above the Santee River.

The next day we went on a side trip... after going up the Waccamaw River
which is one of my favorites but has gotten developed a bit too much,
plus there was a lot of "snowbird" traffic on the ICW, we took a side
trip to Conway SC on the upper Waccamaw. Now this is really unspoiled
and wild... we went for almost two hours and saw no trace of mankind or
his works except for the very occasional channel mark (necessary because
the river takes some bends and has some large tributaries). It would
have been nice to spend a day or two there but we had enough time
pressure that we just cruised past, then went back down and anchored at
the ICW junction. This was a beautiful spot too.

(side note- I put a trip line on the anchor because of the likelihood of
snagging an old dead tree on the river bottom, but it wasn't needed)

Next day we went to Bald Head Island, which forms Cape Fear. Along the
way we had a little drama, in the form of a traffic jam at a bridge and
a barge running aground just behind us. He had swerved to avoid some
stupid fishermen anchored in the channel. I had deliberately revved up
the boat to pass the barge a short time earlier, which was good because
he blocked the channel for much of te rest of the day. This day we also
saw & passed a LOT of big crab-crusher type sailboats which would have
been better suited to transiting offshore instead of putt-putting along
the ICW.

Leaving Bald Head was a bit of drama... there was a high crosswind,
toward the dead end of the between-pier channel. Fortunately most of the
slips were empty. I miscalculated how much room we'd need to swing the
bow into the wind, but we had poor luck with the wind this time and good
luck with everything else. We ended up sideways across a couple of empty
slips, after I missed gouging a 40+ foot fancy motor yacht with our
anchor by an inch or less. By brute force I shoved our bow around
(adrenaline is good) and we got the heck out of there.

The antennae breakage was later that day, and was just a stupid mistake.
We were going through the Wrightsville Beach bridge, clearance 18'.
There was a bit of other traffic distracting us, but basically I lowered
the mast and forgot to lower the antennae. Crunch!

That night we anchored in the New Topsail channel and it was beautiful.
The next day we made the remaining distance back to New Bern, having
some trouble with boneheads in sportfishermen dragging huge wakes... BTW
if you see a boat called "Reel Time" registered in Sue Creek Maryland,
expect a walloping huge wake even if he tells you he's going to pass
slowly. We got some pictures of him pulling a 4' wake past a nice
residential section along Adams Creek, the second time he passed us that
day.

We had a lovely ride up the Neuse River although since we were pointin
almost into the setting sun, the glare was a bit of an issue. We could
see the crab pots OK though. Arrived at our slip in New Bern, tied up
and heaved a big sigh. Washed the boat, a few glasses of wine with
friends, a last night aboard (for a little while) and drive home... man
the highway is so much more frantic & ugly than the waterway!

We took a lot of pictures, I will probably post a few of them to
'webshots' before long. We also burned a tad under 150 gallons of
fuel... consumption 1.7 gallons per hour. That's the story, or at least
more than enough of it for now.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King