July 22
Well, Tropical Storm Franklin is proving to be a non-event to the US, so we are relieved not to be worrying about another storm already. Looks like we'll have nothing but local weather to be concerned about as we proceed north next week. Yesterday Barb remembered that she has a cousin who lives in the Charleston area. She made a call to her Mom and got the message relayed through the family that we were here. A couple hours later, her cousin Marsha called us. She lives in Summerville, about 30 miles northwest of Charleston. We made plans to get together for lunch today.
We spent a lazy morning with breakfast, showers, and reading. I started to plot where we go from here. About noon we got the call that Marsha and Robin were at the main entrance to the marina. We walked up and met them. They own a limo and Towncar service, so we were riding in style in a black Towncar. Our first stop was West Marine to pick up stuffing box material and a few other odds and ends. This is definitely the first time I've been driven to West Marine in a Towncar. Probably don't want to make a habit of it. They'll think I'm a rich power boater instead of a lowly sailboat cruiser. After West Marine, we went to a place called California Dreamin for a nice lunch and visit. We learned an interesting South Carolina tidbit - they are the last state where the bar does not have large bottles of liquor to mix drinks. They have racks of the little airplane-sized bottles. So each drink gets it's own little bottle. Another tidbit is that there is actually a state law that says unless the restaurant grinds it's own beef, they cannot serve a burger cooked less than medium-well. No Cheeseburgers in Paradise here. After lunch we came back to the boat and Marsha and Robin walked down with us to see the boat. We visited a little longer and then they had to get back to work. It was very nice to see them and swap stories for a while.
Once they were gone, it was back to boat maintenance reality. I am not sure if the rudder stuffing box can be repacked with the boat in the water or not. I don't know how much water will come in once I loosen the packing nut. Let me try to describe this contraption to the non-boaters. The rudder is mounted on a 2.8 inch diameter stainless steel tube which comes through the bottom of the boat under the water. Inside the boat, there is a threaded tube which is glassed into the hull. A big 4" nut slides over the tube and screws onto the threaded piece in the hull. This nut is larger than the tube, and you pack a special rope-like material in the groove between the nut and the tube. When you tighten the nut onto the threaded part, this material gets squished and makes a seal around the shaft. That's the theory at least. What was happening to us was that lots of water was seeping past this nut and into the boat. The first order of business was to loosen the nut and see how much water came in. Turned out it wasn't a lot more than was coming in anyway. So the old seal was not accomplishing much. Once I had the nut loose I used a special tool designed just for this purpose to pull out the remains of the old packing. This came out pretty easy. The packing material comes in several different sizes, and it was apparent that the old material was at least one size smaller than it should have been. The idiots at the yard I used back in Kemah used the wrong size packing material a year ago when they repacked it for me. These are the same guys that told me the whole rudder needed to be replaced because the shaft had some rust pits on it and it would never seal right. Well, there are rust pits on the shaft, but once I packed the new proper sized packing material in and tightened the nut, there was no leakage. The bilge pump has not run even once in the 18 hours between when I did the work and am writing this. It was running about 100 times a day before. So, even if the rust eventually cause it to leak again, I have definitely improved the situation. And, I know now that I can repack this myself, with the boat in the water. If need be, I can spend about $15 to repack it several times rather than $3000 for a new rudder.
After this job was accomplished, I went back to the task of planning our route from here. The weather forecast for offshore is for 5-7 foot seas and poor wind, so we are going to go up the intercoastal to Norfolk, VA. I spent a couple hours reading the Waterway Guide and reviewing the charts and made a rough plan of where we will go each day. It should take eight days to get to Norfolk. We plan to leave Sunday morning, so we will arrive the next Sunday evening. We plan to anchor each night, so it should be a cheap week compared to staying in a marina for four days.
In the evening, we spent some time visiting with Wayne & Nancy. We eventually borrowed a movie from them and got out of their hair so they could eat their dinner. We went back to our boat and watched the movie, then the local news, then some of the Tonight Show. It was midnight when we went to bed. I really miss the Central Time Zone's TV schedule. Waiting until 11 to watch the news sucks.
GPS N 32-46.795 W 79-57.308 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 1534.
July 23
We're going to be tourists today. We got up fairly early and had breakfast. After showers (this shower everyday thing could get to be habit forming) we got together with Wayne & Nancy and caught the marina shuttle into town. We had them drop us off at the South Carolina Aquarium. We purchased a package deal to see the aquarium and Ft. Sumter. We spent about two hours at the aquarium. It was quite interesting. They have several different environments represented which are native to the area. From mountain rivers to swamps to the shore and the ocean. My favorite was the huge ocean tank. It was three stories high and had many different varieties of fish. We just happened to time it right so that while we were at that tank, there were three divers in the tank feeding the fish. One of them had a full-face mask and had a microphone, so he could talk to the audience from the tank.
From there we caught the ferry boat to Ft. Sumter. Having forgotten most of what I learned in high school, I did not remember that Ft. Sumter is considered to be where the Civil War started. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union, based of course on the fears that the Federal government was going to outlaw slavery. When the state declared itself no longer part of the Union, the Federal soldiers at Ft. Sumter were suddenly the bad guys. They were asked nicely to leave, which of course they didn't. After asking a couple of times, the confederate troops started shelling them. After 36 hours, the fort was pretty much reduced to rubble, but nobody on either side had been killed. Ah the days when your badest weapon was a cannon ball that had a range of about 8000 feet. Eventually the Federal soldiers surrendered and were allowed to leave gracefully and get on a Union supply ship and go back to NY. The fort was used for various other military purposes over the years until after WW II when it became a national park landmark. It has since been excavated to reveal the remains of the original structure and a museum was built in the interior. It was quite interesting. It would be interesting to compare the story we just heard to the way northern history books tell it. While I can't quote examples, I have been told several times over the years that Civil War history is taught very differently in the south than in the north, even today.
From there we walked into the heart of downtown. Downtown Charleston is unique in that there are not any very tall buildings. We were told that there is a rule that no building can be taller than the tallest church steeple. There are hundreds of churches here. We first walked to the Meeting St. Inn to look for the owner. We had gotten an e-mail yesterday from Parrothead friends in Kemah that their brother owned this inn. He was not there, but we left him a note that said friends of his brother said hello. From there we headed to Margaritaville. We found it a few blocks away, but were disappointed to find that it is only a store, and not a restaurant. Well, we don't need anymore Parrothead souvenirs, so we backtracked a few blocks to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. We had a great meal. Mine in particular was outstanding. I had a shrimp pasta dish that was a bowl of penne pasta with a spicy sauce and shrimp. Normally I would expect a dish like this to have maybe six shrimp in it. This bowl had at least fifteen good sized shrimp. The place is a lot of fun too. If you are very familiar with the movie, ask your wait staff to play trivia with you. You may get a free desert or something.
Back to the boat by 19:00, we were all pretty tired. Wayne & Nancy retired to their boat. Barb and I did a few things in preparation to depart in the morning. I checked out of the marina and paid the bill. This marina has been wonderful, and I recommend it to anybody stopping here. As long as you're not tied up on the outer fuel dock, it is very stable, it has floating docks which is important with a five foot tidal change daily, it has great bathrooms and showers, a free shuttle to town, and the personal service is outstanding.
We plan to leave fairly early to start our trip up the ICW. We plan to make about 60-mile days and anchor each night. Hopefully we can stand the heat. Or, since we'll be motoring most of the time, we may just run the A/C off the batteries knowing we will motor and recharge them the next day.
By the way - the bilge pump ran this evening for the first time since I fixed the leak. Since the A/C units drain their condensation into the bilge, occasional running is expected. I hope this remains the norm instead of 100 times a day.
GPS N 32-46.795 W 79-57.308 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 1534.