The 2019 Holiday Parade of Boats in Charleston Harbor

After quite a few years of discussing it, I was finally able to get down to Charleston and do the Holiday Parade of Boats, put on by the America's Boating Club in Charleston.Bob had done it before, but it is a lot of work for the boats involved, and he needed a crew to help do it right.

Friday was a bit worrisome but the the rain was coming down in buckets, but Saturday came with clear skies. Bob had done quite a bit of prep work in advance on the turtles, and making sure all the lights worked. So we were able to just load the car and head to the boat and get her decorated. The wind was up during the day, and we had to wrestle with the decorations a bit. But the doves and the turtles were successfully mounted. The LED's were difficult to see in broad daylight, soto  when we ran our initial test, it was difficult to see if all lights were functioning. After much squinting, shading , and deliberation, we were able to determine that the green lights for the turtle carapaces were not lighting. But we were able to resolve the faulty connection without too much angst.

We fell short on making a string of blue lights look like waves though, and had to return to the house to get Ronda (who seems to have all the artistic talent) to bail us out. While Ronda made waves for the turtles to swim it, finale preparations were made to get under way and on station for the parade. We were also joined by Bob's nephew Conor and his wife Emily around this time.

We cast of and got on station in a timely fashion. Finding our place in line was a bit tricky, because all the parade numbers were mounted on the starboard side of the parade boats, but to get on station the incoming boats were seeing the port side of the boats inline. But after hollering "WHAT"S YOUR NUMBER" over to other boats once or twice, we found our spot and slid in to formation.

Once the parade command gave the call over the radio to fire up our our decorations and begin the parade, it was all very exciting. Bob and I traded off the helm multiple times. Manning the helm on this run was a challenge for multiple reasons. For starters, boats were not moving a inconsistent speeds due to the issue of having all types of boats in the parade. Additionally, being surrounded by bright lights and looking at other brightly lit boats made it difficult to see objects in the dark in between all these boats. There were spectator boats that were anchored precariously close to the parade route, as well as unlit nav markers and other hazards. To top it all off, there were other boats not associated with the parade sliding into the line, and some boats cutting across the parade route! But we kept our eyes sharp, and kept ourselves safe. There was a brief moment when we thought we had fouled the prop on something, but it turned out we were all clear, and we were able to finish and get back to the dock.

To bring this post to a successful conclusion, we attended the awards on Sunday, and the Black Dog was voted First Place in the Sailboat category!! Now we need to up our game for next time!

SAVE THE TURTLES!

Secured for Heavy Weather!

 



Yesterday turned onto quite a productive day. Bob was trying to get back into a workout schedule, se in the morning we got ourselves into gear and headed to Gritbox Fitness, where Cody (the owner) gave us an intense boxing workout and a smoothie.

 

Out next stop was the Black Dog and our unfinished project. When we had knocked off work yesterday, we felt we might need to temporarily abandon the project in favor of securing for the hurricane. Although we weren't expecting a huge impact, its better to be safe than sorry. Once we arrived yesterday though, we felt we only needed an hour to finish it off, and through ourselves into it, and finished it in about 45 minutes. The aft head is now working again!! After that, we cleaned up a bit, and unloaded unnecessary items from the boat and headed back to the house to clean up for dinner.

 

The night before, we had suggested a bit of a "hurricane party" so that we could have a night of fun before weather situation got bad (if in fact it was going to). Plus we thought Ronda might like a little fun after a day of evacuating patients. A small group consisting of Bob, Ronda, Cody, Ashley, and I descended on Zen Sushi and feasted! The restaurant is a very nice Asian fusion place, serving Thai, Malaysian, and Chinese cuisine as well as Sushi. It was good food and enjoyable company all around.

 

 

Of course no trip to Charleston is complete without a trip to Kaminski's, so I prevailed upon the group to retreat there for dessert. To mix it up a little, we went to the West Ashley location as opposed to downtown. They have so many great desserts, but for me I always get the Bourbon Pecan Pie, heated, with a scoop of vanilla. And I was very happy to be attended by so many friends to share the experience.

 

Today was another early day. Bob's parents were getting out of Beaufort to avoid the storm, so we needed to do a quick clean on the guest room in advance of their arrival. And we were done in plenty of time to greet them on their arrival.

 

One they were settled in, Bob and I went down to finish up on the boat. We ran the engine a bit, just because it hadn't been run un a while, and then secured from shore power and added lines. Right now, the prevailing concern is not wind, but storm surges. SO fingers crossed, but we fell like the appropriate precautions have been taken.

 

While there, we met Bob's neighbor at the marina, Mike. He owns a lovely 31 footer, and we all took a break from out labors to enjoy some water together on a hot day, and swap sea stories. He also let me take a little tour below decks. He is the latest in a string of nice people we have met while on or out on the boat. That is one of the enjoyable things about the sailing community, so many really nice people who you can share travel stories with, and who make you really feel like you are part of a large community.

 

Until next time...

Working the Boat, and Dorian Too!

The trip started out with the best of intentions of getting many projects done, and we started yesterday morning on the right foot. We got out to breakfast before 10 (ish), and stopped off at West Marine before heading to the boat. Our intent at West Marine was to acquire a new chart plotter, as our trusty GPSMAP 4310 has been misbehaving recently. In the end, Bob decided to let me have another go at the 4310, and we headed off to the Black Dog. It would not be our last trip to West Marine that day.

Once we got to the boat, we jumped right in to the task of fixing the aft head. The nylon tubing for the sanitation system was causing us some struggles, and we did everything up to and including using a heat gun to make it more pliable, but in the end, we felt like perhaps we didn't have the right fittings, so back to West Marine we went.

By that time, it was getting a but late (and we hadn't had a cocktail all day), so instead of heading back to the boat, we headed to the supermarket for supplies for dinner, and retired to the Greaves residence to dine. While we were out and about, Ronda cooked a roast beef of some sort. I have to say that for someone who doesn't eat meat at all, she did a bang up job with the roast! Bob and I accompanied our dinner with some gin and tonics made with Irish Gunpowder Gin, and garnished with thick wedges of grapefruit. We felt ready to hit the town after that.

And hit the town we did! Waffler friend and associate Ashly (Ronda's sister) got us tickets to the Forte Jazz Lounge. The had a nice wine and beer menu, and the performers were top notch. We met Ashley and her friend there, and we enjoyed ourselves for the final two sets of the evening, after which we stepped out for one last libation before calling it a night.

It was a pancake breakfast this morning and the straight to the Black Dog to finish up the two projects that we started. Unfortunately a third project cropped up. The heat pump for the A/C failed (yes we have the luxury of air conditioning while on shore power). Bob tackled that issue while I went to work on the chart plotter.. I am happy to report that one software flash upgrade later, and the device seems to be working as expected again. Bob was equally successful in getting the A/C working as well.

We resumed our previous days project with the aft head, which resulted in another West Marine visit and lunch at the East Bay Deli, and we continued to make progress on getting things repaired until we tried to install the new pump. The rigidity of the nylon tubing continued to frustrate us. Out last act of the day was to remove the whole apparatus to give us room to work on setting the hoses in a better position. The idea was to return tomorrow with the right tools to widen a hole in the cabinet, but it is not to be. Because the South Carolina Governor has ordered mandatory evacuations for some parts of the state, we are shifting gears, and I will be helping Bob make some preparations around here. The good news is that so far United says my Tuesday flight will not be impacted (Dorian is not due to arrive until Late Wednesday or early Thursday, and the current model is the impact being not to severe here). That is a good thing, because getting an earlier flight out is next to impossible.

The upshot is we may have a small informal hurricane party tomorrow!

Safety at Sea

It was a long day, but an instuctive one. This weekend we are all down at Annapolisdor USA Sailing's "Safety at Sea" course, presented by the Marine Trades Associatin of Maryland. The first day has been a great experience. The information was great, and there was a lot of it, with even more tomorrow.

Bill and I headed dowwn after work to Annapolis to meet up with Bob and Matt who had arrived earlier in the day. We made it to the hotel just prior to 10:20. Bob had checked in for us, so we did not have to deal with any of that. We were able to go directly to our room, and hve a quick touch point with Matt and Bob, along with a quick scotch (we are the Wafflers after all).

We were up at six so that we we could get to the Naval Academy in a timely fashion, get checked in, and get our seats. Ken Reade, the keynote speaker, was amazing, and had a lot of good stories to tell that he used to communicate good information. He was one of many speakers in the morning where we got information on interacting with the coast guard, man overboard maneuvering, damage control, and more.

After the morning lecture, we adjourned to the water for a demonstration by the Midshipmen (and women) of the Naval Academy of man overboard recovery techniques. They were awesome, and incredibly well trained. They put on a great show, and demonstrated what a well trained crew can do (video available on the Seafaring Wafflers Facebook Page). We Wafflers aspire to be as good.

The afternoon had more lectures. We got good information on using maintaining safety equipment, and a very interesting medical lecture that spoke about the dreaded sea sickness and hypothermia. These are two major items for blue water sailors.

Tomorrow we will have some damage control excercises, and an excersise in the pool in which we go in the pool in full foul weather gear and have to make it into the life raft. This should be an interesting exercise and is sur to generate some waffler sea stories.

Seafaring Wafflers Episode