D.C. Bound Day 3-4 The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

We had considered staying in Brunswick 2 nights to rest up, but after 10+ hrs. of sleep we felt great and ready to go.  Scott quite happily cleaned the anchor and muddy chain with his new pump.  Yes, I know I mentioned that before, but I must stress how the little things on a boat make him a very happy man!  We had planned to stay in the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) but the typical thing happened; plans changed at the last minute.  We decided to do another overnighter and go to Charleston.  Then even more last minute, we decided that we might as well go further to Georgetown, South Carolina. One reason we would choose to do an overnighter is to avoid coming into an anchorage or marina in the dark.

The good: it was spectacular in the ocean.  It was so calm and peaceful and we were as relaxed as the previous trip out.   Sunny, clear weather and even a nice following sea boosted us to 10.3 kt!  A following sea is when the current and waves are going the same direction as the boat.  Some types of boats react by yawing (think squirrely and out of control).  Kadey-Krogens respond with the rolling of the wave going beneath the boat and passing us up (similar to a sailboat).   We were running at 1600 rpm and would typically go 8.5 kt. so it felt like we were flying!  The ride was comfortable and it was so beautiful I felt like everyone should be out on the water that day to share that experience.  The bright moon, although not full, created a sparkling glow on the water just outside of the open starboard pilothouse door. It was like having a companion keeping me company during the night shift.

The bad: we did not use our time wisely, we did not sleep at every opportunity.  Scott took a 1.5 hr. nap in the afternoon.  He planned to go to sleep after dinner because I was feeling so good I could postpone my sleep shift.  However, he didn’t hit the hay until 11:30 and needed to get up at 1:30 to deal with the massive dredgers deepening the channel into Charleston.  We had to go across the channel and it was a bit of a mess with floats dragging behind the dredgers that did not show up on the radar or AIS (Automatic Identification System ).   I then slept 3.5 solid hours until 6:00 a.m.  I didn’t go back to bed because Scott thought we were about to turn into Georgetown.  Well, let me tell you, 3.5 hrs. of sleep is not enough for me and I got a bit cranky!  Seven hrs. of sleep between the 2 of us was not wise.  We didn’t arrive in Georgetown until 9 so I could have slipped in a bit more shut-eye.  Another “bad” element was the fact that in our haste to change plans yesterday morning we had not measured the distance into Georgetown.  We would have skipped it and simply gone further up the coast had we known it was so far inland.

The ugly: we got stuck.  Thankfully, it was mud and TowBoatUS pulled us out.  If we would have waited a couple of hours we would have slithered out of the mud by ourselves because of the rising tide.  After hearing rave reviews of Active Captain from other boaters ( an app where marinas and anchorages have crowd sourced reviews plus other features) we had committed ourselves to utilizing the comments on the website.  We won’t be doing that again.   The charts indicated something different from the reviews and we should have known better than to ignore the visuals.  With a few more hours of rest we might have made a better decision.  The true ugly part wasn’t just getting stuck, it was the additional work Scott had to perform as the result of being in the mud.   He had to clean the sea strainers for the 2 engines, for the 20 kw generator and the 2 strainers for the 4 air conditioners as they were full of mud.  A sea strainers protect the engines from not only mud but fish, debris, etc.  All of this on only 3.5 hrs of sleep.

We docked at Harborwalk Marina and plugged into the new GFI electric towers and nothing blew up!   It’s good to know that our electrical system is up to date. Had it not been, we would have tripped the breaker and would not be able to dock at any of the newer marinas.  It was nice to get caught up on 4 loads of laundry, fill up the water tank, take out the trash and enjoy an evening out with my husband at Buzz’s Rooster.