Stay Over Days in Beaufort SC

—Blogpost written by Bob

Afternoon of Saturday, May 9

During the afternoon at Lady's Island Marina I removed the cabinetry in the companionway for access to the shift linkage and tried to troubleshoot the "shifting delay" issue we have been experiencing.  I found that the place where the outside of the cable was fixed to the transmission was loose. I took it all apart, cleaned it well, and reinstalled it, making sure it was tightly secured.  I tested it afterward while in the slip and it seemed to work  fine (though maybe a tad mushy).

Maggie made beef stroganoff for dinner, one of my favorites!  We had a very peaceful evening onboard without once thinking about turning on the TV.

A view of the sunset from the
cockpit of s/v Rainy Days
on Saturday, May 9.

The boat between us and the sunset was a Westsail 28, a baby sister to the more famous Westsail 32.  The owner is taking it from his homeport in Florida to a place in North Carolina where he can spend hurricane season restoring it to it's original glory.  He has already replaced the inboard engine.  The Westsail 32, in particular, starting the popular sailboat cruising revolution in the 1960's. 

Sunday, May 10

The sky was overcast when we got up this morning for start of our second day in Lady's Island Marina in Beaufort SC.  The sun peeked through the overcast sky at 8:45 AM as we were getting ready to leave (using the marina's courtesy car) for the nearby Publix supermarket for provisions.

The new normal in a supermarket is
face masks and 6-foot distancing.
In Publix, all the shopping
isles are one-way only.

We felt that we were very lucky to get paper towels and tissues this morning at the grocery store.  We noticed that some items were limited to one per customer and some others two per customer.

Warped boards and peeling paint
on an outdoor table top
at the marina.

When we made reservations at this marina, I assumed that they had a fuel dock--they don't.

So, rather than backtrack through the Lady's Island Swing Bridge, we decided to transfer diesel fuel from our three  jerry jugs on deck into our fuel tanks.  The primary tank was now full and the auxiliary tank is about 4 gallons short of full and all three 5-gallon jugs that are on deck are empty.  (Hmmm...I wonder why I smell like diesel fuel?)

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In the afternoon the sun was out full blast and the outside temperature got above 75 degrees F for the first time in several days.

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We went over our travel plan for the next week and it will be an advantage for us to split our next (planned very long) day into two (shorter) days.  We are trying to work around slack low tide at Elliott Cut and the Wappoo Creek Bridge opening--both of these places are just south of Charleston SC and we would like them to occur near the same time in the morning.  This means that we should transit them on Wednesday, May 15.

Call it Happy Hour and dinner.

Stay tuned for our continued progress up the ICW...


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