Spring in Charleston

Mar 21 thru Mar 24

—Blogpost written by Bob

Thursday, March 21

While it was rather brisk in the early morning (only 47 degrees), the afternoon high temperature was a balmy 70 degrees.  It was a beautiful day for the first full day of Spring!  

We are starting to watch the weather forecast for next Friday (the day we leave Charleston) and beyond.  At this point it looks like we will have a beautiful day to leave with a high temperature of 73 degrees and partly sunny.  The wind prediction is for only 3 knots on Friday morning (which is good leaving our slip).  We intend to watch for weather windows along the way to possibly make jumps out into the ocean--a good possibility which could eliminate some troublesome areas along the ICW.

According to Weather Underground, we will
have nice weather for our departure from
Charleston next Friday morning.

We rescheduled our lunch at Cru Cafe after not being able to get a seat last Friday (3/15)--we managed to get a reservation a couple days ago for 1:30 PM today.  (This is the only restaurant in Charleston that we've needed a reservation for lunch--perhaps there are others that we haven't even tried.  There are simply too many good restaurants to try them all in one season!)

The food at Cru Cafe was amazing--I think this is my new favorite restaurant!  Maggie had French Dip and I had ginger-glazed salmon, both were accompanied by a tasty salad.  We shared a side of four-cheese macaroni which was absolutely delicious--I managed to get a picture of it before it was all gone.  (I didn't even think about taking pictures of our meals when they arrived at the table!)

Four-cheese macaroni at Cru Cafe.

The restaurant is located in an old home on Pinckney Street.  The main dining room is the the living room of the old house.  There is also outdoor seating on a large porch.  There is probably only seating for 20 people or so (and it wasn't all that expensive).

Before we knew it our day was over and it was time for happy hour (after an afternoon nap).

Friday, March 22

The day started with an outside temperature in the high 40's but it reached the high 60's by the afternoon.  The sky was clear and full of sunshine.  Today was almost a mirror image of yesterday in terms of the weather.

On this day last year, Lizzie died in a vet's
office in Marsh Harbour.  She was 
only six years old.  I will always 
remember holding her 
like a baby.

Today we met up with an old friend of mine, Jerry Mann, for lunch at Bull Cafe.  Jerry moved from Maryland to the Charleston area a number of years ago.  We met up with him on our first trip south when we were in Isle of Palms waiting to have our boat re-powered.

In the afternoon, I worked on an (alternate) ocean route to Southport.  Right now, the weather forecast is favorable for making this ocean route, with light winds out of the south and warm temperatures.  

This is a screen shot from Aqua Map, a new 
iPad app, showing our (alternate) ocean 
passage between Charleston 
and Southport.  

The (alternate) ocean route is 104 nautical miles long, sea buoy to sea buoy.  This would take about 18 hours plus a couple or three hours from the ports to/from each of the sea buoys.  We will be leaving Charleston at 9:45 AM (slack low tide) on Friday and arriving in Southport around 7 AM on Saturday.  (I'm not counting on any lift from the Gulf Stream because I think we will be inboard of it--in fact we might get eddies pushing us southward.)  This (alternate) ocean route cuts out all the nearby troublesome areas of the ICW.  I will keep an eye on the weather forecast to make sure that nothing changes over the next week--the decision whether to take an (alternate) ocean route or the ICW will be made on Thursday night when we publish our last blogpost from Charleston.  

Saturday, March 23

I woke up early this morning after tossing some alternate travel ideas in my head.  I realized that I really like to sleep at night instead of making a nighttime ocean passage and I prefer to avoid the additional risks of a nighttime passage (plus we left our offshore inflatable life vests in Baltimore).  So, I split up the previous overnight ocean passage into two shorter passages: the first (52 nautical mile) passage from Charleston to Georgetown and the second (79 nautical mile) passage from Georgetown to Southport.

The Charleston-to-Georgetown ocean
passage is 52 nautical miles long 
and will take about 8 hours.

The Georgetown-to-Southport ocean
passage is 79 nautical miles long 
and will take about 12 hours.

Both of these two passages can be made during daylight hours.  To make the first passage easier, we have decided to move our boat on Thursday afternoon to the outside of the MegaDock because we can leave sooner in the day since we don't have to wait for slack tide to get out of a slip. (Both of the above routes were plotted using Aqua Map Master, a great iPad app, even though we will not be using my iPad for navigation.)

Though starting out a bit cool, the day turned out to be beautiful.  We rode our bikes to One Broad Street for brunch.  (We had intended to go to Brown Dog Deli for lunch but they were packed.)  When we got back to the boat, I entered waypoints into our chart plotter for our two upcoming ocean passages and did some reading.

Maggie made delicious low-carb
daiquiris for happy hour.

Sunday, March 24

It's hard to believe that we have only five full days (including today) left in Charleston.  While I felt the need to get on the move northward, it will be a little sad leaving Charleston at the end of the week.

The sunrise over the marina
at 7 AM this morning.  It 
was quiet except for 
the seagulls.

I got up early this morning to start the crockpot--Swiss steak was on the menu for a late lunch.  We had another beautiful day in the making--sunny and warm with high's in the low 70's in the afternoon.

In the afternoon I finished reading Nigel Calder's book, Shakedown Cruise: Lessons and Adventures from a Cruising Veteran as He Learns the Ropes.  This book is available from Amazon.

The cover of Nigel Calder's book
entitled Shakedown Cruise.

Most sailors have at least one of Nigel Calder's excellent books, Marine Diesel Engines, Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual, or his Cruising Handbook.  This book (which was just published last year) provides a look into his personal life as a new cruiser back in 1986 and 1987.  It is a great read for any sailor but maybe not so interesting for non-sailors.

Our next blogpost will be our last one from Charleston.  Stay tuned for our last few days in Charleston before heading north...


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