Winter in Charleston

Jan 12 thru Jan 15

—Blogpost written by Bob

Saturday, January 12

There was a beautiful sunrise this morning at seven that peaked out from under the heavy blanket of clouds. It is now almost 10 in the morning and the sky is completely overcast and the outside temperature is in the mid-40’s. If it were colder, it would certainly look like snow was on the way.  Having grown up on the east coast, I know what oncoming snow looks like.

Sometimes here in Charleston it seems like
we are a pair of slugs, waking up only
to start our trek to our next meal.

At 11:30 AM we started out on our bikes on our 1.5-mile trek into town for lunch.  We went out for lunch at our favorite pizza restaurant, Mellow Mushroom.

Spartina grass grows in the tidal area
between the docks and land.
(This image was taken 
at high tide.)

The power boat in the foreground, ZING, is a 50-feet
long MJM power boat worth $2 million.  The boat 
in front of ZING is a Sabre 48 probably of 
equal value.We walk by these 
luxurious boats several 
times a day.

Sunday, January 13

Light rain was the prevailing condition of the day.  We caught the marina's courtesy van into town for lunch at the Brown Dog Deli on Broad Street, one of our favorite spots for lunch.  By the time we got back from lunch the NFL playoff games were underway.  My home team, Philadelphia Eagles, lost to the New Orleans Saints in the last playoff game of the day.

Today was one of those days where not much was accomplished nor did much of anything interesting happen.  You could say that this entire day was a nonevent, except for a great lunch.

Monday, January 14

The best way to describe this day is dank (it's become one of our favorite words since arriving in Charleston).  The sky was overcast and it a damp type of cold (40 degrees) that permeated the low country atmosphere around the marina.

Looking southeast from the 
main pier on a dank day 
in Charleston.

Pluff mud is an oozy, viscous, dark brown
mud comprised mostly of decayed matter
that anchors the roots of the spartina
grass.  (This image was
taken at low tide.)

The pluff mud shown in the above photograph is a very soft oozy mud.  It has a distinctive smell of decayed matter.  Egrets are often seen foraging for meals in the pluff mud.  While I have never tried walking onto it, I can imagine that a person would sink up to their knees and it would be very difficult to walk through it.

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Maggie left for the airport at mid-morning to visit family in El Paso, TX--she'll be away for the entire week.   The sun appeared by 2 PM though it didn't get much warmer.

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On this cold and damp day, the heat coming from the four ducts of our central heating system feels so nice and warm.  I installed our boat's air conditioning system myself about 20 years ago, running one small duct aft to the navigation station, one similarly sized duct all the forward to the v-berth and three ducts coming from a manifold (with internal turning vanes) into the main salon.  It has proved to be an excellent system and there is nothing I would change about it today.  When I originally installed the system, I used a 12,500 Btu air conditioner and this proved to be marginal--I later (about 10 years later) replaced it with a 16,000 Btu unit.  (Of course, in the heat mode it provides nearly 20,000 Btu's of heat.)

Tuesday, January 15

Today was overcast but not quite as cool as yesterday--it is currently 45 degrees outside.  We expect a warming trend this week, reaching near 70 degrees by Saturday afternoon.

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My goal for the day was to complete the installation of the autopilot remote, mounting the sender unit near the autopilot's course computer (under the forward section of the quarter berth).  Of course, the first step in this process was to remove all the things on top of the forward section of the quarter berth so that I could remove the cushion and the forward section of the supporting platform.  After I removed the quarter berth cushion and supporting platform and a ton of stuff underneath, I discovered that there was no unused connection as I thought.

I, then, took apart the instrument pod at the helm and looked for a suitable connection there.  After some thought, I realized that the connecting cables on the new RF Base are the old SeaTalk1 hardware while the newest networking system has SeaTalkNG cables and plugs.

With the instrument panel removed from the
instrument pod, one can see the single
connection SeaTalkNG cable on the
back of the autopilot control
head (bottom of image).

The back of the older instruments
have SeaTalk1 connections.

So, I figured I would contact Fred Street and confirm what I needed before proceeding any further.  I put the quarter berth back together but left the instrument panel loosely fastened to the instrument pod since more work will be needed there.

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Whether Maggie is here or not, I maintain our tradition of "happy hour" late in the afternoon. Today's drink is low-carb hot chocolate with a shot of Kahlua...yummy!  Stay tuned for my progress with the instrumentation issue...

By the way, Maggie maintains a blog and it is very interesting noting how differently she sees some things.  Check it out at AgingMermaid.blogspot.com!


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