The heat is down to a balmy 95 degrees today and that actually is much better than a few days ago. We are keeping an eye on the tropics and the tropical waves leaving the African coast and hopefully, no dragons will be born any time soon. If one does approach Charleston while we are away, we will have Why Knot secured to this floating dock which has about 15 feet of extra pilings at high tide. We are told that large boats seldom leave this dock for hurricane prep. Not sure what that really means, but this is a sturdy dock with huge cleats.
Fort Moultrie looking across Charleston Inlet
Until the trip for the "Big Fix", we are tugging on the leash. The extended time here actually takes us out of the cruising mode and into the live aboard mode. There is a difference for sure. As and example, we do not stow stuff for sea if we are to be in one spot for several days. That means that we are like sort of messy ground hogs in that we consistently decrease our living space by leaving stuff out. Every now and then, we stow stuff just to keep from dealing with it. There is no better way to ding your pinky toe than kicking the folding bike at 0300 hours when it is not where it is supposed to be. We are gradually consuming the over provisioned food locker that we really did not need to so provision. After all, we were not planning an ocean crossing. We have found that red wine does not disappear as fast as the whites so we still have a rather generous supply of Merlot and Cabernets which must be aging nicely in the middle head locker. We are also into sharing dine out meals so as to eliminate the doggy boxes that take up so much room in our whopping 3 cubic feet refrigerator. We buy stuff in square containers so that they stack nicely and not smash toes as we dig for things. A can of peas can actually cause one to invent new words when it achieves terminal velocity on the trip from the cabinet to your big toe. For sure there are new dings in the dance floor which is preferable to a purple toe nail. To achieve that one must be somewhat act like Kato in the old Peter Sellers movies. By that, I mean one must detect the change in air pressure as said can departs the shelf and accelerates to full damage mode in mid-air. Then if one is fully awake, one can sometime switch to cat like reflexes and move said toe just prior to impact. If not, one can speak to one's inner self with newly invented words whilst apologizing to one's mate that just awoke to the commotion.
The Charleston Harbor Control Bunker circa 1944 embedded in Fort Moultrie. The rooms above were operational during that time and controlled shipping, sub nets and mine fields guarding the approach.
One constant procedure we have yet to perfect is the necessity to answer the call of nature at night while trying not to awake the mate. One of us must crawl over the other to make the trip. The one on the outside is in the preferred position since no crawl over is required. Our cabin has a rack that is smaller at one end than the other, so we have tried head to toe sleeping but the crawl over requires a direction change by the inside person prior to exiting the rack. Not good. This usually results in some sort of attack by the feet on the face of the other. This is especially not good if Bear is the kickee. The evolution has thus far gone through several changes with the best option being the one on the outside moves to the inside if the inside one leaves- sort of like log rolling. I know, I know this is TMI.
Today, two French flagged boats arrived sans quarantine flags. Methinks they have been here in the US for some time. They managed to dock down current along the Megadock without taking out any other boats. The first boat captain stepped off the boat, thanked me for helping with his lines then said "Damn what a current". Ya think? It was about 4 knots. Does not seem like much but if one is trying to be dead stopped in a particular spot along the dock, it can get interesting. The other boat came by the cleat I was manning and tossed me a big dock line. I expected to see him back down and stop forward progress. He did not do so and we tested burst strength of his line and the cleat. It worked but I was thinking about the whip lash if it had parted. It was braid on braid and made some really funny sounds as it stretched. Did I mention that both boats were steel? It reminded me of the fellow we met who had a unique way of docking. He would pull along side a finger pier and toss a small grapnel hook with a dock line attached across the finger pier. The other end was around a winch. Once it snagged the other side of the pier, he would winch himself to the dock. Did not need "no stinking dock lines fore and aft" that way.
One negative about the cruise in this area: the absence of brisket BBQ. There ain't any available, jest pig. I tell ya, it ain't right. Jest ain't right.
BF (Big Fix) minus 14 days. More later. Still chewing on the leash.
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