Cleaning ... the bottom

Beaufort was the line where, in my head, things were going to get warm. How wrong I was. Leaving RE Mayo, was probably the coldest day yet. To make matters worse, the wind was howling, the waves were slamming and it had started to hail. I was not happy to say the least. The plus side, there always is a plus side, we didn’t have far to go. We stayed in yet another marina, it’s just too cold to spend the nights without heat, in Morehead City (across from Beaufort).

We had a decision to make, to either stay inside along the ICW or make a jump to Charleston along the outside. The weather was perfect to go outside, but the temperature is still just too cold. We’d be out for 30+ hours, that’s a long time to be cold. So we decided to continue inside until Charleston and jump outside there. It will take us 5 days this way, but it also guarantees us heat every night.

The run inside will take a total of 5 days. Most of it will run us just inside the ocean shore. The problem with that is that it’s often shoaled. The likelihood of running aground is very high. We are halfway through our first day and only Liberty hasn’t run aground yet. As they say in French “jamais 2 sans 3”.

When we ran aground, it was in the channel and we were able to plow our way out. We call that “cleaning the keel”. Our keel is now very clean. Ambition has also cleaned their keel. How they managed to run aground where they did was surprising. First of all they were no longer in the channel (My Dad won’t tell me exactly how that part happened). But all around them was at least 12-15 feet of water, they just couldn’t get to it. Thankfully my Dad finally took my advice and got SeaTow (CAA for boats). On the first leg down, he kept saying he didn’t need it. So it was SeaTow to the rescue. When they got him afloat again, the lady from SeaTow gave him some very wise advice, she said, “Stay between the markers Sir.”!!!

It’s tough looking for the markers all the time, we’re too busy looking for dolphins (we’ve seen lots) and watching the dive-bombing pelicans. It’s quite beautiful here, no wonder there are so many summer houses.