Sunday, October 20, Day 103

This morning when we woke at 7:45 AM it was about 63 degrees and cloudy. Today we went the short jump from Lady’s Island to Beaufort to meet up with SV Bentana. We cast off at 11 AM and about an hour later we rafted off Judy and Stephen’s boat. Unfortunately where they first anchored we had only 6 feet of water under the keel and at the 9′ high tides we thought that at Low tide we would be aground. Judy and Stephen were kind enough to raise their Anchor and while we were still rafted off them, motor up the creek and anchor in a location where we had 14 feet under the keel. Here we were closer to Lady’s Island Marina in Factory Creek and took the dinghy in so we could have showers.

On our way out walking down the dock I saw MV Sea Chanty. I knew that I had seen that boat before and thought and thought until I recall seeing them in Waterford, New York. Bill was out on the dock working on his boat when I talked to him to verify in fact they were in Waterford, New York for a few days. They are planning on going south to Florida and maybe over to the Bahamas so I offered for them to come over to Changes to talk about anchorages there as I thought we were going to be spending a couple days here. I was on the wrong page as Phil let me know, so I told Bill and Tamara to come over anytime they see our boat in the future. We had a nice time catching up before we went back to the dinghy.

Since I had good Internet I worked on downloading the Active Captain markers into SEAiq. It turns out that I need to purchase an upgrade in order to get the information from the markers on this App, so I’ll think about if I want to do that later.

Monday, October 21, Day 104

Today we are going to Hilton Head Island so at 8:30 AM we cast-off SV Bentana. We passed through Lady Island Bridge at 9:05 AM and then Port Royal Bridge 945am. We motored with a negative current until we reach Port Royal Sound when Phil put up the headsail about 11:17 AM and turned off the engine. The winds were northeast about 7 kts and our sail lasted 45 minutes. I later found out that Bentana also sailed across the sound.

1:35 PM Phil check the engine as the voltage didn’t look right. We have been motoring all day and the batteries should be charged more than they have been. So Phil will be checking on that later.

Changes motors at about 6 1/2 knot and Bentana motors at about 5 kts. We tried motoring at five knots so we would travel together but the engine vibrated too much so we went back to 6.5 kts and arrived at the Anchorage at 2:30 PM. Because of the current the anchor set at 50 feet of chain then we let out more chain while we waited for Bentana to arrive which she did about 20 minutes later. By 3:10 PM we had raised anchor and rafted off Bentana where we intended to stay until we left Hilton Head Island a few days later.

The entertainment for the late afternoon was watching SV Cool Runnings, a Benneteau 423, try to catch moorings in the near by area. Unfortunately for them the first one didn’t have a line present to attached to but they were successful with the second mooring. I knew that I had seen them before and sat to work thinking about where that was.

Phil and I put the engine on the dinghy and then took a trip into Palmetto Bay Marina to check out if we could leave our dinghy at the dock. Eventually we worked it out that we could leave the dinghy between a couple boats at the dock kind of far away and for free our favorite four letter word and we were able to get the password for the Wi-Fi. On our way back I convinced Phil to stop over at Cool Runnings to talk to them and it turns that we had seen them in the Long Island Sound area. They are from NYC but keep their boat at Brewer Pilots Point Marina in Westbrook same place our friends Chet and Carol keep their boat. Small world. They are also going south but have a part for the windlass coming in at a marina that is too shallow for them to dock at.

We had leftover seafood pasta, beets and steak with Judy and Stephen for supper tonight and introduced them to Canadian upside down fruit basket card game on our boat tonight.

Tuesday, October 22, Day 105

Today was a cloudy, rainy day. It was 54° outside and 62° inside the boat. We had a lazy morning and didn’t eat anything until I fixed some quesadillas for brunch. Then I started fixing some beans creole style for our supper. We decided to have dinner separately so I also cooked the clams we got at the farmers market and they were deeelicious!

The alternator still isn’t charging well putting out 25 Amps instead of 60amps so we ran the engine for an hour to charge our batteries. The solar panels don’t put out much without the sun. I knitted this afternoon and put up the window side panels when the rain was coming and they worked very well.

I forgot to tell you that Judy and Steven have a cat called Hobie that likes to visit us back-and-forth so we had the pleasure of Hobie’s company on and off throughout the day. He could squeeze through the window side panels as I had the zipper up partway making a cat sized door.

After dinner, we played Rumikin, using tiles you play a form of Rummy but can use tiles already laid down to build your straights and triples. Let’s me just say that it’s not my favorite game.

Wednesday, October 23, Day 106

It’s still partly cloudy at Hilton Head. Phil checked the alternator and tighten the belt which was slightly loose so now it’s putting out the 65 A that it supposed to be. We ran the engine and this time the batteries got charged well.

Being a nice day, the four of us wanted to rent some bikes and ride around Hilton Head Island since we have been on the boats for the past two days. I called around, found out that they deliver bikes, and all of a sudden we had to rush because the bike rental place had a truck that would be there in 15 minutes. I was almost ready so the four of us got into the dinghy and went to the dinghy dock and along the way the delivery guy called. Turns out he had arrived already rushing to get there and didn’t see us. He waited for us so it was no problem to pick up the four bikes with baskets and then head out for our adventure.

Hilton Head is very unusual as they have 60 miles of paved bike paths for the bikers to ride on all around the island. This is really helpful because Hilton Head Island is very developed and there is a lot of traffic on the roads making it unsafe if they didn’t have the bike paths. We rode to West Marine and on the way back we had lunch at Subway. Full we came onto the Legendary Golf putt putt golf course. One is Steve’s goals was to play golf on Hilton Head Island and as others were interested we decided we would do a round of putt putt golf. Phil and I each had a hole in one so we got coupons to have another free round of golf. Both of us couldn’t believe it. It was really quite amazing and I’m sure we couldn’t repeated if we tried.

After golf we rode our bikes to Publix, and then started on our way home. Unfortunately Judy fell off her bike while we were stopped to doing something, scrapping her left leg but she’ll be okay which are really glad to know.

During our dinghy ride to the dock, we had Steve sit up front which caused the bow to be really buried in the water so this time Judy being the smallest sat on the bow seat and we put all the groceries and bags in the stern of the dinghy and it rode a little bit better. Even so the wind had piped up being right on the nose, so we all got pretty wet on our way back to the boats. This is the not fun part of cruising but it didn’t take long to dry.

We had some more beans creole style adding brats and a vegetable on the side for supper. I think we just relaxed down below this evening instead of playing cards or games.

Tomorrow we are going to travel to Turner Creek which is the anchorage closest to Savannah Georgia.