Monday November 11: Somewhere on the Ashepoo River!

It was a leisure morning yesterday as we passed by Charleston. The sailboats were out in force but sadly there was little wind for them as the harbor was one of the calmest of the several times we have crossed it.

We traveled only 11 miles - big day! It was a welcome short day after the previous day of 60 miles. With the sun setting at 5:30, the limited cruising time is really impacted.

The St. John's Yacht Harbor on the Stono river south of Charleston was a nice place to stay. Easy to dock and nice facilities. Plus a loaner car!

Few of the marinas on the east coast have loaner cars so it's always nice when we can find one that does. Our destination was an auto parts store to pick up another gallon or two of oil for the engine. Our goal is always to have enough oil for an oil change plus a filter of course. The oil gets changed every 200 hours or about every 40 days or so.

This area had lots of live oaks with their Spanish moss hanging from the branches. It's always fun to see when the trees span the entire width of the streets.

It was pizza for dinner. AWESOME!! It's been a long time that it's been pizza and a football game but yesterday was the day! The Browns had a bye week but we enjoyed watching the Bengals play the Ravens. Such a great play at the end of regulation - just to lose in overtime ......

We left this morning with the current headed our way about 9:30. Because the engine is still prone to having water enter the cylinders, we have to shut off all water valves that allow water to enter the engine. So each time we stop, Steve has to shut off the engine water intake immediately after the engine is shut off. Doesn't sound like a big deal but it involves opening the entire main cabin floor.

Leaving in the morning is the reverse process so it takes us a bit longer to get going. The day was again a wonderful travel day. Light winds, sunny but cool.

The nice part of traveling these rivers is much of the travel is in very wide spaces with wide channels and deep water. Way less stressful than traveling some of the waters we've been in lately.

Steve spend part of the day working on polishing the stainless stanchions .... again. The salt water just really is hard on them. Lookin' good :-)

We ended up tonight at the B and B Seafood dock just a couple of miles out of our way. Sadly they ended up being closed today and tomorrow. Good news: the dock was free instead of $25. Bad news: no fresh seafood :-(


Usually we would go on to Edisto Island and visit Jim and Linda Murray for a day or so but they are in Florida moving their boat Selah back to Edisto unless they can sell her at a boat show in Florida.
Nice that we were able to see them in Canada this summer. They have become good friends and it is always enjoyable to be able to spend a day or two with them!

Steve tried three times to talk the guys working at the seafood place into selling him some oysters.

Apparently this place supplies a large percentage of the restaurants in Charleston with oysters! But sadly the answer was always: sorry - we can only sell wholesale. Steve thought of being a restaurant :-)

Very tempting though as the baskets of oysters were being wheeled past our boat :-)

In the meantime, I took a shower and hunkered down in the front bunk with my down boots and fuzzy Browns blanket. It's cold around here!

Note: the heater in the picture IS NOT on. We have no power tonight and still no battery charger so guess we'll tough it out :-)

On tomorrow to Port Royal - near Beaufort, SC.