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Miami Passage - Day 6, completed - October 12
Miami Passage - Day 6, completed - October 12
When we left you, we were rolling up to the City Marina, about 7 hours into our 6th day, to take on some fuel in Charleston, having burned 51 hours worth, which worked out to 71 gallons. Not our idea of fun financially, but it got us around Hatteras in the weather window we wanted, which was to say entirely benign, belieing the usual terror that passage induces in experienced cruisers and sailors contemplating it. Once clear of Hatteras, we worked entirely on the wind we had to get here, as seen in my prior postings. Now that we're here, and enjoying the citywide free wifi, Lydia's experimenting with Picasa. She's put up a few pix of the passage to Charleston... http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/S...h100108100708# We enjoyed being tied to the dock, where the security guy who rolled up in his golf cart as we approached and were tying off said it would be fine to do that, but definitely didn't expect the blindsiding hourly charge they laid on us when I went to pay for the fuel, especially the one where the fuel guys, despite our having been logged in for being there exclusively to fuel, didn't show up on our end of the dock until half an hour after opening, and then spent more than an hour fueling a big sportfish which landed just after us, but made us pay for that time, too. Our friend Larry, one of our Angels, happened to have breakfast the next day with a city councilman who was unaware of the practices of the City-owned marina, and was apoplectic about it. Perhaps that will change in the future. With nearly all of the face dock empty, and our departure immediately after fueling, we certainly didn't induce any extra cost to the operation. Larry's take on the City Marina is that they - and the city - ought to be encouraging, by whatever means, folks to come spend money which benefits the city, including making it easy for them to do that. Charging what amounted to a 50 cent premium for diesel fuel (the sportfish who took on over 2000 gallons made their hourly dockage incidental) just for tying up and having to wait until they got around to us didn't warm the cockles of my heart. We anchored out in an area just inside the confluence of the Ashley River and the Wapoo Creek, which minimizes the tidal influence on us, allowing us to swing more to the wind, and we've loved being out here. During our time in Charleston, Larry has helped us by resolving a problem with our wind instrument, trying to troubleshoot some inverter-induced problems, and generally acting as taxi driver and tour guide as we muddle through various purchases and returns of stuff not needed or inadequate to the task. As I write, on Thursday night, he's looking at a couple of handheld VHF radios of ours which display some connection problems. If we could have found it (it's mysteriously not where we thought it was), he'd have also looked into what we presume to be a power supply issue on a digital tape video camera. If time allows, perhaps Saturday he'll be able to help us troubleshoot some inverter-induced noise on various electronics, and some potential connection problems with the wind instrument. FWIW, Larry is the one who started me down the path to the very successful WiFi configuration aboard Flying Pig. He's a consummate electronics geek who enjoys buying supposedly dead, very valuable stuff, at thrift stores, and making gold out of lead. Having come in for fuel, anyway, we took advantage of the forced landing to avoid some very nasty weather. We could have easily taken it, but, if you have to be stopped, anyway, letting it blow out, and waiting for more clement conditions made a lot of sense. The fact of all the help Larry provided is a distinct bonus. At this particular moment (Thursday, October 9, almost tomorrow), we don't really know when we'll leave, and have not even looked at the weather downstream. We're waiting for a reply from one of our Saints which may divert our course from a nonstop to a one-stop, doing some payback in Saint Simons Island, with him and another of the Saints who also has a home and a boat there. If we make that stop, you'll hear about it in a future posting... As I write this part, on Saturday night, we are, indeed, going to Saint Simons, so our one-jump Miami passage will be at least a 2-stopper. While we're there, I'll dive an anchor which fouled (but he buoyed off) a couple of years ago, and help him set up a mooring in that location. He may join me for the trip to Miami, with Lydia and his wife driving down together - or not, depending on circumstance, but either way, we'll enjoy the time together with them. Saturday I did more boat chores, cleaning out the engine pan (the sub-bilge area under the engine) and installing another set of oil-absorbing mats, taking another set of hydrometer readings on our batteries (we have no dead cells and all the batteries are pretty close in range of each other, a good sign), and getting the halyards ready to hoist me to the top of the mast to manually rotate the wind vane to see what happened below. As it turned out, while we expected to get together with Larry again, he's under the weather (lots of it around here!), and by the time I'd resecured the halyards, we saw that the wind instrument was, apparently, working properly. It's possible that the prior lighting wires were contacting the post on which the arrow turned, limiting its movement - or, it could have been my applying Corrosion Block to the connector at the base of the mast. In any case, at least for the moment, all is well with the wind instrument, and thanks to Larry's help, we can see it in the dark, as well. Back to Larry, as it turned out, our handheld VHF radio problems were only that the rechargeable batteries are toast - they work just fine with fresh AA batteries in the other battery carrier which replaces the rechargeable. And, this morning, he scored another of his 99 cent gold-from-lead purchases at the thrift store, bringing home a multi-hundred dollar Seth Thomas Quartz Clock. Now that he's got it home, he's looked into it and it was made in the early 70's, one of the first quartz clocks, with the ability to adjust the time in 5-second increments. He made a couple of very minor repairs and it works perfectly. He's a very happy camper, having scored a couple more of his bargains in the same trip. He's previously, in the same shop, bought a very handsome German key-wound striking clock which he quickly made work upon bringing it to his home, and countless other amazing deals. Every time he tells about one, I wish that I had access to that place, as it's clearly flabbergasting in its finds; marine gear, electronics, cameras and countless other wonders show up all the time. As a prior-life packrat, I'm envious to the level of bilious :{)) After our 1-2-3's (the boat chores), we feasted on the first of the tuna we'd put in the freezer. The winds here are building, so the grill blew out a couple of times, when I raised the lid, but relit and stayed lit once the cover was back on. Tonight (Sunday noon, as I write), we'll enjoy another feast, assuming we can keep the grill lit! The winds at the moment are 20-25, gust to 30, but the direction is such that the land mass on which both Ashley and City Marinas are located are between us and the mainland, which makes for a relatively calm water state, given that we're only about a half mile away. Where we're anchored has a shelf/shoal where we've nestled the last few nights, as the wind was in a different direction. We presume we've been "aground" (only at dead low tide) because we don't swing, but if it's aground, it's so soft that we don't feel it, other than the somewhat-larger-than-normal list from the wind. Perhaps it's the "pluff mud" which is on the other shore - so soft that if you fall off the dock into it you're up to your waist. A very nice anchorage, with the anchor in ~20 feet of water and our usual depth being somewhat over 8-10 feet depending on where we've swung. We went over to shore to fuel the Honda Genset and its fuel can, as well as to scrape some of the past couple of days' effluvia off ourselves in the showers, during the above mentioned blow and spitting rain showers. Refreshed, we retired to the boat to chow down on some more of the amazing tuna, but given the weather circumstances, elected to, instead of the grill, use our sauté pan. YUM! Tuesday morning dawned clear and relatively calm in the anchorage, and at 06:30 I got on the SSB with Chris Parker, our weather router. He said, unlike ashore, things were pretty rough outside, but subsiding steadily, to the point where there would be little wind at all on Wednesday. So, despite it being relatively rough (large waves, fairly high winds, initially), short of driving it (you know how we hate driving instead of sailing), today is still the day to go. So, anticipating a single reef and staysail as adequate to the task, but probably shaking out the reef and putting out the genoa later, as the winds died, we prepared to get under way. As we reflect on our time aboard Flying Pig, when we first took possession of the boat and headed out from Fort Lauderdale, the conditions were worse, so this really is of no great event, other than it's not "perfect" - and yet, if NOAA's predictions are right on, it may be, for us, "perfect" - our course of travel should make the winds a broad or beam reach, and with a reef and staysail, very comfortable level of heel. We'll see about that, of course, and update over Sailmail in a day or so. Our shortened track, as we arrived well before a full day had elapsed, was only about 30 miles on this leg. Yet, that averaged out, including the doldrums on the way to the dock once we got up the channel, to about 5 knots. Pretty good day, all in all :{)) We'll see how day 7 pans out - it may be just a very long day... So, as we leave you, we're heading out to Saint Simons Island. We're expecting between 24 and 36 hours of passage to the inlet, but it's another several hours up the channel and river to our anchorage as well as out to our turning point from here in the anchorage to the channel entrance in Charleston; if the weather holds, we could be at the Saint Simons Island inlet in less than a day. If you care to track us in real time, you can do so at http://share.findmespot.com/shared/f...PLcZGvSb3 nMe... If you're interested in the weather we're seeing, you can look at http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/AM/350.html?MR=1 and /352 and /354 (change the number before the .html for different areas), for the area we'll travel on the next leg. Stay tuned :{)) L8R Skip Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it however." (and) "There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts." (Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah) _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman...nfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to To unsubscribe send an email to The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboa...eaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/...ber/index.html |
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