Charleston and some numbers

Waterfront from our anchorage

Charleston, SC! I’m not exactly sure why Charleston is a milestone. Maybe it’s that my brother lives here. Maybe it’s because we may be done with the ICW, at least for now. (This last stretch today was ugly, with Kintala dragging her keel through the mud for nearly 1/4 mile even though we waited deep into the rising tide before leaving.) Or maybe it’s because I always thought of Charleston as being south enough to be out of serious winter weather. (Though it will be 29 degrees come morning; close enough to winter when at anchor.) Milestones are good places for reviews.

Old Charleston from our anchorage

 

We left Oak Harbor 54 days ago and have been underway 19 of those days; roughly 33%. With a total of 121:30 hours underway we averaged just shy of 7 hours per traveling day and (with 629 nm covered) a little over 33 nm / day at 5 knots. Wind and weather pinned us in Fisher’s Bay for a day, in the Solomons for two days, and in S. Santee River for another day. A day was spent in Mile Hammock Bay to visit. The Neuse River treated us to a mild spanking while the storm in Oriental was the worst we have seen, with boats damaged all around us on a scary night. Marinas = Oak Harbor, Calvert, Centerville, Oriental, and Barefoot; with the quality and amenities varying wildly regardless of price.

Things discovered so far:

I really like living on a boat.

An electric windless would be a slice of heaven.

Not having a work to report to and a boss to answer to IS the best revenge. (Though I'm still spitting mad that some obscenely rich people threw my job in the trash so they might be just a few pennies richer. Come the revolution ...)

Deb and I are an even better team than I suspected we might be.

Skype is my favorite technology. Doing this without a GPS and chart plotter would be much harder; but doing this without Skype would be impossible. I miss the Daughters 3, Grand kids 7 and Son-in-Laws 2 enough that some nights my heart hurts. Skype, blogs, web pages, and e-pictures make it better.

I can see some advantages to the whole power-boat-condo-on-the-water thing, particularly when it is wet, cold, and the days are short. But Kintala will do for the foreseeable future (and fuel isn’t getting any cheaper).

Sorry but I don’t like the ICW much. Had I to do it over Kintala would go in the Ten-Tom and we would be in the Gulf of Mexico now. (Yes Thorste
n, you were right all along. Please tell Joel and Emily.)

I was thinking our cruising life had gotten off to a slow and rocky start. But I guess we are doing okay.

What is it they say about glass houses??

I took this picture for my daughter who loves the tiny house concept. It's hard to get an idea how small it is until you look above the roof behind the trees at the balcony of the regular sized house next to it. The tiny house is about the size of the average garage.

This house took up half a block.

You know you're living large when you have this catamaran parked outside your condo...

One of the hundreds of derelict boats that we've seen, some of them even have people living on them.

Fort Sumter just south of the Charleston Harbor

The Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge is the longest single cable stayed span in North America