TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We had a nice overnight at Tom’s Creek, but we did have a good bit of wind after the rain, and then it turned pretty cold that night. It was a little above 60 in the boat when we woke up. We pulled up the anchor with only a little bit of trouble after so long without practice and were on our way at low tide. It was a little touchy coming out of the creek, and we saw a big sandbar that wasn’t visible when we entered the creek. Luckily, we avoided it coming in (and going out). Seems like we chased the low tide most of the way to Charleston, very skinny water. We had a very cantankerous bridge tender who made us wait and wait to open the bridge because he didn’t think we were close enough, so he wouldn’t open it, but once Bill explained that the wind was so strong we didn’t want to be close to the bridge, he finally opened it. It was cold and very windy today. We’re tired of this cold spring-I mean it is almost May!!! I’ve had on my only pair of blue jeans for two days (and now I feel badly for laughing at the golfer from Michigan who had to play in Bermuda shorts in 50 degree weather because he’d only brought blue jeans to HHI.) At least I can wear jeans on the boat.

We arrived early in Charleston around 1:30. We’re staying at the City Marina which is also called the Mega Dock, an apt nomenclature. The place is spread out, with huge mega yachts, and the longest docks you can imagine. We are near the end of the face dock on the inside. It takes approximately 8 minutes to walk to the marina office, showers, and restrooms. We filled our tank with about $30 of diesel (at over $4 per gallon), but we weren’t complaining as we noticed the numbers on the pumps for other vessels. Some were $400 to $500, but I saw one that was $3250 for 715 gallons, and Bill noted one for $5400. Wow! We had a drink in the cockpit before enjoying a nice dinner at the dockside restaurant. By the way, I give a thumbs up to the Charleston City Marina bathrooms and showers-some of the nicest we’ve seen. Tomorrow we’re headed north again, hopefully to anchor midway between here and Georgetown. The weather should again be relatively cool, but the wind shouldn’t be more than 10 knots-a blessing after 23 knots today.

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