Summer Breeze cruising in our back yard!

May 10, 2017, Wednesday. 

In the Lowcountry, there are plenty of beautiful spots to explore and for us to continue to learn how to handle Summer Breeze. So we decided to head out for a couple of days.  We left the dock at 8:30 am right at high and slack tide with a successful and easy launch. 

😄👏😄  

We've been out of town and I've had a sinus infection and finally I'm on some good drugs so we decided I could recuperate on Summer Breeze for a couple of days. This is our 2nd voyage since bringing her home. The dolphins even joined us and swam at our bow on our way out. Unfortunately, I didn't get a perfect pic. All you can see here is their splash but it was pretty awesome!

2 dolphins swimming along our bow as we head out the creek

1st mate Bella

We decided to go the S Edisto River and explore up the river past the cut where we hadn't been before. It took us about 2 hours to get there and after cruising up and down a bit, we decided on an anchorage. The big annoying horse flies had been out so we were also looking for a bit of a breeze to help with that. After chilling out there for a bit and having lunch, we realized that we weren't as comfortable there as the water (we were up river a bit) had tons of cloudy silt and sand going by. Probably not good for the engines if we ran the generator later. So we picked up anchor and moved down river where the clouds of silt weren't. We anchored again at Raccoon Island anchorage spot (Active Captain) where there were 2 other trawlers already anchored up for the night. We had noticed a steady parade of sailboats and motor yachts cruising north as we headed south. It was a beautiful evening with a bright orange sunset followed by a perfect full moon. 

After a little happy hour and a nice shrimp and pasta dinner, we settled in for the night with the port holes and doorway all open as there was a gentle summer breeze blowing. Well at midnight, the current changed direction, the wind stopped and a swarm of mosquitoes flew through the boat! So up starts the genny and the AC and Bruce spent the next half hour killing mosquitoes! Then we had a quiet night! 

Thursday morning, we hung around the anchorage but after another weather check, we saw that the rain forecast for Saturday morning was even stronger so we decided to move closer to the Toogoodoo for the night so we could come in at high tide around noon on Friday. We pulled anchor at about 11:00 am and had some trouble with the snubber getting tangled up in the chain and of course, the swivel shackle was twisted again. Captain vowed we wouldn't leave the dock again without getting that fixed!  The wind had also picked up quite a bit. 

We had a smooth ride though at low tide, we encountered shallow water in the ICW, not only in Watts Cut but also on the north side of the 174 bridge. The lowest we had was about 2' beneath our keel.  We entered Steamboat Creek and found a suitable anchorage for the night at about 2:45. We had a great afternoon and evening enjoying some warm gentle breezes as the winds slowed down a bit.  

Friday morning, we took the dinghy down and went for a short spin. We had been needing to get it off and get the motor in for a checkup. We can't get it off at our dock because the crane would set it on the floating dock and not in the water! We then weighed anchor at 11am in order to get back home with an manageable tide. I'm happy to report that we had a successful and 95% perfect docking arriving home at about 12:45. The tide was just starting to run out at a faster pace and we struggled a little bit getting the stern of the boat close enough but we managed just fine! Yeah!!!👏👏👏 

And I am getting ready for an art fair at the Tall Ships in Charleston so I was able to get more work done on one of my last paintings for the fair. Though I need a name for this one! It's a boat I took a photo of at Bowen's Island. Almost done!

Bella wants to know if she can "go" on her grass now...???

A little bit about voyage #1:

I didn't log our 1st voyage as it was quite traumatic for us so I think I can talk about it now. About 3 weeks of having her home and realizing that we had 3 weeks of travel coming up, we really wanted to take her out. The weather was good but it was windy and gusty. So against any good Captain's judgement, we decided to go anyway. The tide was rushing out, the wind was blowing and our dock departure was not pretty. Ok, that's all I'm going to say about it except that we do have a little bit of repair (paint and swim platform trim) to take care of - all can easily be fixed. We spent the night mid-way in our creek as we we realized it was not ideal for us to be out. And we couldn't get the GPS to work on the nav system. Turned out it was a simple switch we had not realized had been turned off. Details! We had a great evening despite all that, and the next day we returned to the dock with a perfect docking. Yeah!