Charleston, SC

We had a pretty easy trip from Fernindina, FL to Charleston, SC. Just about 24 hours travel time and light winds between 5-15 knots. Perfect traveling conditions.

Why are they all trying to hit us???

No stress other than the traditional midnight excitement as we passed Savannah. Obviously, Savannah remains a hub of shipping. You can see the traffic jam we sailed through in the picture to the left. This is our AIS display onboard that picks up broadcasts from other ships and plots their name, callsign, heading and speed on our charts. We are in the center of the display sailing North while the three ships highlighted in red (for danger) all seemed to be taking aim at us!! We ended up holding our course while each of them took turns passing within a mile of us over a period of time no longer than 15 minutes!!!

We pulled into Charleston at about 10:30am. Right as the breeze started to come on pretty strong and as the 250+ boats sailing in the Charleston Race Week were heading out to their race courses. Nice timing!

The Fleet tried (and failed) to all dock at once!

Later that afternoon, after watching the demolition derby that was the return of those 200+ boats, we ran into Erik Shampain for a record third time on this trip. (We saw him in San Deigo racing Etchells. We saw him in Acapulco racing big boats, and he's here now sailing the CRW.)

Next we tracked another friend down. Bill Sandberg (from American Yacht Club) is down working with the race committee and we arranged to grab a ride from him over to Lyn and Peggy Comforts place for dinner. Dinner was great, we shared lots of stories and heard a few as well.

Today, I am sitting on the boat hoping that it doesn't blow away!! From the current weather forecast....

...GALE WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EDT THIS EVENING... ...TORNADO WATCH 150 IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EDT THIS EVENING... .THIS AFTERNOON...S WINDS 20 TO 25 KT WITH GUSTS TO 35 KT. SEAS 4TO 6 FT. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND TSTMS LATE. SOME TSTMS MAY BESEVERE WITH DAMAGING WINDS...LARGE HAIL AND WATERSPOUTS.  

It's currently blowing a steady 25 with gust to 35 at the dock. The front is about an hour away, and Debbie has deserted me for the safety of the bar at the head of the dock! 

More soon, I hope! 

-Jim