Wrapping it up

 This is a mojito night.  We had a couple of white knuckle moments today. We had to time our departure schedule based on the tide schedule.  At low tide we would have run aground, so we waited for a little more water.  We had a bridge to go under, we called the operator for a lift (actually it was a swing bridge, they rotate horizontally instead rising vertically). He stopped the traffic for us and commenced swinging the bridge open.  At that point the water was flowing, guessing, 2-3 knots pushing us wherever it wanted to.  We tried to get centered and go through the bridge fenders but the tide had other ideas.  We ended up going in the out and not exactly straight.  That was pucker factor 3.  We apologized to the bridge operator for going through the wrong side and for taking so long, the current was not our friend today.  Speaking of which, we normally run about 1700rpm and go about 7.3-7.6 knots. Since we were trying to stay in the higher tide times, we punched it up to about 1900 rpm (doubling our fuel consumption) and we were only able to go about 5.1 knots.  It seemed like we were crawling not cruising.  At one point we were going with the current and went the fastest we have ever seen this boat go, 11knots.  Woohoo! Our other pucker factor moment

Kodak moment, 11 knots, it’s a record!.

Weekend warriors on the ICW.

We should remember not to travel on the weekends.

Snappy Grillers before.

Snappy Grillers after, with mojitos.

Narrow but pretty.

was a waypoint that wanted us to go across what appeared on the chart as land, not water.  David has discovered Bob 423, a YouTube channel that gives very updated information about the ICW, the shoals, tides and any other obstructions to avoid.  Bob 423 said go across “the land”, it really is water now and deep enough for safe passage through it.  We throttled back so low we were just crawling again, PHEW, he was right as rain, no problem!  We were so glad to get to our marina today, in fact, we were so excited we didn’t get our lines rigged for docking in a timely manner.  It was truly a three ring circus as we scrambled to get the right lines in the right places, we looked like total amateurs.  Captain Bernie would have flunked us, we were so embarrassed, I tipped the guy on the dock $20 and told him don’t tell Captain Bernie about this.  For $20, he saw the humor in it all.  Next came the unpleasant job of emptying the freezer that was LOADED with spoiled rotten beef, chicken and my Detweiler’s hotdogs.  The dock cart was full, the horrid stench followed us, Ellie’s pooie bags would have been a better whiff than the stuff we were putting in the dumpster.  After a 9 hr day, we decided to wash the boat, ha, gluttons for punishment.  Wanting a simple dinner, I pulled out Snappy Grillers.  I didn’t have much faith they would be very good but when David brought them in from being grilled, they looked edible.  We ate them all!!! They were really good after all! Today we went from Beaufort SC to Charleston SC, 9 hr run, 60 miles. Hi to Tara! There we were 85 views today of the blog, I thank each one of you for stopping by!