A Restful Respite in Beaufort and Back North

First things first! The best of luck to the magnificent ladies of the Scarlet Knights as they face Livingston at the NJ State Fencing Semi-finals. I am sure it will be a tough meet, because no team gets this far without being good. I know the Knights will give them a hard fight. Good luck! And a special thanks to William, Christine, and Coach Lisa for making sure that I get updates in real time!!!

On to the doings off the Wafflers....

Sunday morning had us at anchor off of Morgan Island (the place with the monkeys). We had a late breakfast of eggs and toast, and raised anchor at 10:00. It was a largely uneventful motor to Beaufort. It took a bit of time because we were against the tides, but we were able to secure a dockside mooring, and we tied up by 14:00. Not a bad run. Beaufort, SC has a nice marina, and the crew unanimously voted to have showers ashore. Once we cleaned up, Bob's father, Clive (who lives in Beaufort), picked us up and we spent the afternoon chatting with Bob's parents. They are two very nice people, and this visit was too rare a treat for me. As a bonus, I was served a famous Clive Greaves' martini (delicious).  All good things must come to an end, and Clive dropped us back at the marina. We made a quick pit stop to Hemingway's, but they are sadly no longer doing the onion soup that so many of us love. We did dinner on the boat, and reminisced about old times. The evening was a bit of a blur, and there was some confusion about who served who what, but none of that is really important.

We were up at a good hour this morning, and met Bob's sister, Karen, for breakfast at Blackstone's Cafe. It is a favorite breakfast spot when we are in Beaufort. And today did not disappoint. Along with great food Bob caught up a little with his sister, who then nicely gave us a lift to West Marine for a part we needed, and then dropped us back at the marina. It is a bit of a shame that we couldn't stay longer because Beaufort is a really nice walking around town with a great deal of historic charm. But the tides do not wait for the Wafflers, and we were underway heading north just before noon. The weather was great, and we had a nice run up to St Helena Sound, even breaking out the spinnaker.

Our run came to a rapid halt when we ran aground just south of Ash Island, at the southern entrance to a channel that has a fancy name, but should really be named "The Too Shallow Channel". It has always been a bit of a hair raising channel to navigate because its extreme narrowness. But it seems like the dredging operation that has been ongoing has not yet reached the channel entrance, and we got stuck. Part of it was that we were at nearly dead low tide, part of it is that the charted depth does not match the reality (see the reference to ongoing dredging). So we spent a restful couple of hours aground. Some people will focus on the fact that we ran aground, but the real take away here is that WE FLEW THE SPINNAKER!!!

While waiting for the tide to come back in, we got some chores done, such as getting the dinghy inflated and some winch maintenance. We also regaled each other with tales from "The Art of Coarse Sailing". Eventually we re-floated and made good time to our anchorage just north of St Helena Sound.

Dinner was pasta and meat sauce, and we caught up with Bob's friend Christian, who is sailing with his wife to the Bahamas. We checked the weather for tomorrow, and things look good, but we need to leave by Sunrise so that we are not fighting a current all day. Let's see if we make Charleston tomorrow.