Photo Blogerism

Beaufort, SC
32 25.84 N 080 40.30 W

Are we about to be run over by that super sized auto carrier ship? No.  If you look carefully, you can see the ship is not moving.  It is anchored out in the open sea.  Around here the continental shelf extends out 100-200 miles so the water is only 30-100 feet deep.  The ship was waiting to go up to Brunswick, GA. Look closely again.  The bridge is visible way up in the bow.  On most ships, it is near the stern and much higher to provide visibility forward.  I guess some engineer figured out that causes wind drag and wastes fuel.  On these RO-RO car carriers, nothing happens up on the top deck so there is no need for the bridge to overlook the deck.  I wonder though about the wind forces in a severe cross wind.

This is part of our escort corps.  Four frisky dolphins followed us for nearly an hour, much to our delight.  It would have been nice to have them jump and flip for us, but we would need to carry fish to feed them to entice that.

Bacci Ball in the afternoon on the lawn at the waterfront park in Beaufort, SC.  It is wonderfully symbolic of the laid back life style here.

I'm so proud of myself for inventing this new way to tie off our dinghy.  It works very well.  I use a four foot line to tie the dinghy's stern to Tarwathie's stern, and a twenty foot painter from the dinghy's bow to midship.  The lengths of those lines are carefully adjusted until the dinghy sits at an angle of 30 degrees relative to Tarwathie with both lines taught.  That way, she rides out there on port tack all day and all night in wind and current never making contact with Tarwathie's hull.  Works in all conditions except gales and dead calm.  In gales the solution is to bring the dinghy up on deck.  

You can also see our fender step, used to climb on board from the dinghy.  That works better than any boarding ladder and doubles as an actual fender.  Fenderstep is manufactured in Denmark.