It's five months since my last update, and not much has happened. The
Phoenix still sits 'on the hard' in South Carolina as lawyers fight over the
corpse.
I opened the door to look out and found two kayakers, one was in the
water the other was yelling for help and trying to hold on to his friend while
they were being swept off with the strong current.
Next was the Goose Creek and Bay River mile 149.7 to mile 166.8. It was
along this section that I read the channel markers wrong and went aground. It
took me a while but I was able to back out and back on track.
There is an 89 year old gentleman named Fred Fearing who assigns slips,
and then invited all of us (there are 3 boats that came in) to a wine and cheese
party at his house at 4pm. Apparently he does this every day, and has been doing
it for twenty some years. He has been written about in many guide books.
There are all kinds of naval ships, I even saw four subs. Then there are
all the container ships, oil ships, even ships delivering coal. One ship was
lifted completely out of the water on some kind of barge. Ships are being worked
on all along the harbor, even at night with lights, you can hear and smell the
work going on.
By noon the wind had built to 35 to 40 knots, and the waves from 12' to
15'. I felt like I was in the 'perfect storm' as I give the motor more gas to
climb the waves and then fall off the back side and crash into the next wave
sending tons of water flying into the air.
By the time I rolled out of bed it was 9am, the boat was pitching and
rolling so that I couldn't make my coffee. I put up the mainsail, raised the
anchor and was underway in no time.
