2006.12.07
It’s 2100 and I am tucked into our bunk with my baby Dell on my tummy….we’ve just finished the dishes after a boatmade spaghetti … comfort food which is just what we needed… it is blowing quite hard but we are swinging from probably over 100 feet of our new ALL CHAIN anchor rode so we should be good.
This has been another interesting day….
Actually we had 3 days of total civilization in Charleston SC, we took a taxi this morning to pick up a part (an oil filter) which was in another part of town and got quite an education from our black taxi driver… apparently the civil war began right here and 40 percent of all slave trade took place here as well. Charleston is the only state in America to still fly the CONFEDERATE flag and they still have a Confederation holiday… it does not look like they got over loosing the war yet…. And that was a couple hundred years ago!!!
We cast off at noon with Jem, L’Equipe left at 0800…. The trip was quite uneventful but at 1545 all of a sudden the bottom came up fast .. we called Jem to warn them and before we had a chance to slow down we were hard aground…They thankfully went around us and stayed in slightly deeper water… we tried and tried to get off that shoal to no avail, we were good and stuck in nice soft sand…. I poked a boat hook and tried to push us off Venice gondolier style…with the weight of the boat and the current going against us it was mission impossible..
We finally gave up, David lit his pipe, which is a sign of something …although I am not sure what and shut off the engine… I was then allowed to call “Boats US” to request a tow as it was starting to get dark and we were still quite a distance from our projected anchorage…
After speaking on the VHF with a very nice dispatcher lady who gave our coordinates to a towboat captain we just sat back and waited. The captain finally called us back and told us he should get to us in about 3 or 4 HOURS… and it was rapidly getting darker… so we started the engine and with Soli’s helm hard to starboard David slowly got her to pivot and got her off the shoal!!!
We then had to navigate this very shallow stretch of the ICW in almost total darkness…watching the depth sounder… shining a spotlight to find unlit shoal markers until we finally reached our projected anchorage a couple of hours after sunset (I did not take pictures even though it was a beauty).
Jem was there… we could see their anchor light…what a sight that was and they greeted us over the VHF ….so here we are nicely anchored …. We have marked a waypoint on the chart plotter and I will go and check it before I close the light to make sure we are still in the same spot … good night!
It’s 2100 and I am tucked into our bunk with my baby Dell on my tummy….we’ve just finished the dishes after a boatmade spaghetti … comfort food which is just what we needed… it is blowing quite hard but we are swinging from probably over 100 feet of our new ALL CHAIN anchor rode so we should be good.
This has been another interesting day….
Actually we had 3 days of total civilization in Charleston SC, we took a taxi this morning to pick up a part (an oil filter) which was in another part of town and got quite an education from our black taxi driver… apparently the civil war began right here and 40 percent of all slave trade took place here as well. Charleston is the only state in America to still fly the CONFEDERATE flag and they still have a Confederation holiday… it does not look like they got over loosing the war yet…. And that was a couple hundred years ago!!!
We cast off at noon with Jem, L’Equipe left at 0800…. The trip was quite uneventful but at 1545 all of a sudden the bottom came up fast .. we called Jem to warn them and before we had a chance to slow down we were hard aground…They thankfully went around us and stayed in slightly deeper water… we tried and tried to get off that shoal to no avail, we were good and stuck in nice soft sand…. I poked a boat hook and tried to push us off Venice gondolier style…with the weight of the boat and the current going against us it was mission impossible..
We finally gave up, David lit his pipe, which is a sign of something …although I am not sure what and shut off the engine… I was then allowed to call “Boats US” to request a tow as it was starting to get dark and we were still quite a distance from our projected anchorage…
After speaking on the VHF with a very nice dispatcher lady who gave our coordinates to a towboat captain we just sat back and waited. The captain finally called us back and told us he should get to us in about 3 or 4 HOURS… and it was rapidly getting darker… so we started the engine and with Soli’s helm hard to starboard David slowly got her to pivot and got her off the shoal!!!
We then had to navigate this very shallow stretch of the ICW in almost total darkness…watching the depth sounder… shining a spotlight to find unlit shoal markers until we finally reached our projected anchorage a couple of hours after sunset (I did not take pictures even though it was a beauty).
Jem was there… we could see their anchor light…what a sight that was and they greeted us over the VHF ….so here we are nicely anchored …. We have marked a waypoint on the chart plotter and I will go and check it before I close the light to make sure we are still in the same spot … good night!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete