Charleston South

Church Creek, SC
32 42.86 N 080 11.02 W

First manatee! Yesterday, just north of the Ben Sawyer Bridge and Charleston Harbor, we saw a manatee in the ICW. First one this season and the most northery one we remember seeing. (Robert, the lock tender at the north end of the Dismal Swamp Canal said that Manatees passed his lock several times.)

We got past Charleston Sunday afternoon by 1600. Hooray, that means that we didn't have to wrestle with the draw bridges during rush hour Monday morning.

We saw a Westsail 32 named W-Star anchored near the Charleston City Dock. I hailed her on VHF but got no answer. Why didn't we spend the night in Charleston. After all, it's a lovely city. Because our first year sailing we had a horrible experience with the river currents at Charleston City Marina. We swore never to go there again, and once we swear something like that, we hang on to it.

We're making better progress now. If we pushed it, we could be in Beaufort, SC by Monday night. However, there are some severe thunderstorms heading our way and a 70% chance of rain today and tonight. We'll probably find a secure anchorage and hole up until tomorrow.

Our plan is to leave Tarwathie at the Lady's Island Marina in Beaufort, and rent a car on Wednesday. We'll drive 5 hours to Fort Benning in Georgia for Nick's graduation from infantry school. Nick's family will be there. Dave and Cathy will come too. That's almost a family reunion. We'll miss only our Daughter Jennifer (who's in Vermont) and our grandson Bobby (who's in Fairbanks, AK).