TOTALITY 08-21-17

Eclipse day sunrise! 

Melissa and Caitlyn came in from Charlotte to spend the eclipse in the zone of "totality" with us in Charleston. We left early on Monday morning (8-21-17). The tide was still coming in but almost at peak so we wanted to leave the dock with the current still at our bow and of course we have a sandbar to cross! It was a beautiful sunrise, though cloudy. They were predicting about a 60-70% cloud coverage during the eclipse and a 30% chance of rain. And we had another successful and stress less dock launch! As long as we are at almost high tide with the current coming into our bow, we are getting this departure down!

Co-captains of the day are ready at the helm.

As so are we!

    

It was a nice relaxing ride to our destination just off of Limehouse Bridge. Not only would it be a great viewing spot but also a great people watching spot. There is a sandbar that pops up at low tide that makes for a place to swim in shallow water and hang out on a beach like sandbar.  There were other smaller boats and many kayaks that showed up. We lowered the dinghy and went over to the sandbar and played around with the dogs for a while before the eclipse began. The news media had said that animals may act weird and the weather may be weird. Whatever that means! Well as we played in the water, we were attacked by jumping shrimp! They would jump around us actually hitting us or landing on us! It was harmless though we did have a lot of squealing going on. One actually got stuck on Maya's fur on her neck. We laughed quite a bit about this after.  Then just before the eclipse began, the dark clouds appeared and we could see some lightening in the not too far distance but it was not on us. Dark clouds behind us with lightening, white puffy clouds moving around us hiding the sun here and there and blue sky towards the beach. Ok, the weather was weird and the attacking shrimp was really weird!

We perched up on the dinghy platform as the moon started to pass over the sun. The cloud cover was spotty as the eclipse actually began, but it was amazing to see! 

This photo with my phone doesn't show the eclipse at all! It is amazing how the special glasses clearly showed it all so well. 

It did get twilight dark for about a minute or so during totality and we could see the ring around the sun (Bailey's Beads?) and the diamond ring! It was suddenly quiet and then you could hear all the "ahs" and clapping and then it started to get light again. 

As the dark clouds got a little closer, we along with most everyone out there decided it was time to leave. The rain did start to come and we were grateful for the bimini and Isinglass protection on the flybridge. We stayed dry! We got to our overnight spot we had spotted last week and anchored at about 4:30. The rain had stopped by then and it was beautiful again. The trawler on a mooring ball was there as well as a beautiful double masted sailboat. This is a great creek for anchorage! 

It was a beautiful evening with lots of dolphins around us with some even coming right up to the boat several times to get a good look at us. 

We were gifted with even a more beautiful sunrise this morning. We left our anchorage at about 7:45 in order to catch the incoming tide at almost peak. Again, another perfect docking, the stress is still there but getting better!

Bella and Maya happy to be almost home! Oh, a Maya update! Last week, she would NOT "go" on the potty spot after I sprayed her with water. No problem on this trip! Guess she forgot that I did that. Though they did have a bath on the deck after the sandbar swim. So, we have clean and happy puppies after TOTALITY. 

A Case of the HANKLES

Have you ever heard of HANKLES? 

Sunrise on the Toogoodoo Creek. Looks like a painting to me for the Toogoodoo 365 Series!

It was a beautiful start of the day here last Sunday, so we decided to go scouting for our upcoming Eclipse trip towards Charleston and try out a new anchor spot for that evening. 

      

 Maya says "ok, if Bella says it's ok"! (We are dog sitting for Maya,  grand dog)

We left the dock at 11:30 AM as the tide was coming in and approaching high. If you remember, we have had some issues leaving the dock and popping our fender balls.  We are happy to say that it was the most successful and smooth dock launch we have had to date! We didn't bust any balls this time! 

Yes, it was a hot day but we had great shade under the bimini and a great breeze to keep us cool enough. We had not traveled towards Charleston yet on Summer Breeze, though we have on our other boats many times. The ICW can be a bit narrow on the way there and very shoaly. We made it close to Elliot Cut in about 4 hours but decided to not go into Charleston harbor as there was a ton of boat traffic between there and Limehouse Bridge. It is Sunday in August and thats what boaters do in the Lowcountry!  We found a couple of possible anchorage spots that we had hoped would be good for the upcoming Eclipse trip but they weren't really suitable to us. We turned around and went back towards home to a possible anchorage we spotted coming in that was off a side creek of the ICW. Turned out it was a great choice with deep water, lots of swing room and no boat traffic. All was good until when anchoring, we got 100' of chain out and the Windlass breaker kept flipping off so it was stuck. The chain would not move in or out. We texted our private 24 hour on call Captain advisor (son, Captain Bryan) and told him what happened and he says,

 "did you check to see if the anchor chain is kinked or hankled?"  Huh?

Hankle | Definition of Hankle by Merriam-Webster

1 : twist entangle. 2 : to involve (a person) in something by luring or enticing —usually used with in or on didn't want to join but they hankled him on.

Well, in our situation it was definition #1. We had our anchor chain all hankled, in other words, twisted and entangled all in the anchor chain locker but it didn't really get tangled until about the 100' length. Good and bad! Good that we able to anchor with 100' of chain out, which was good enough for the spot we were in. Bad in that we could not get any more chain out to use our snubber (another new word for me with Summer Breeze) and bad in that we had no idea how to get our anchor and 100' of chain back on the boat and against a current. Since we were safely anchored in a great spot we decided to stay and worry about it in the morning because we were worried that we may have only one chance to get it up. So, what are we to do?   Happy Hour! 

I have a funny side story about the dogs. This was Maya's first time on a Summer Breeze trip. I had hoped that Bella's potty spot would just be a natural for her. So first time to go "outside" was a breeze! Bella used it and Maya followed right along! I was thrilled at how easy this was. BUT I had the great idea of cooling them off as it was a hot day and even though we were in the shade, I wanted to make sure that they weren't getting too hot. So I lightly sprayed them down with the water hose. My mistake was that I did that right after their potty break. Turned out that Maya related going potty to getting sprayed with water. So Maya held it until the next day! Oh oh! My bad.

 It was a beautiful sunset. It started looking like this and ended up like the next photo. 

We anchored in Church Creek or maybe it was New Cut which is a great deep creek off the ICW. For you locals, it's the creek where the above trawler is on a mooring ball that we can see every time we go by.

The next morning, Bruce went down and untangled the anchor chain under the Windlass. Sure enough we were able to get the anchor up! Thank God! But we knew we still had a good chance that the rest of the chain was still hankled so we got closer to home and decided to anchor just off the Toogoodoo Creek in a wide and deep area of the ICW. We let out the first 100' with no problem and that point, Bruce went down and untwisted the chain as it entered the Windlass as I slowly bumped the chain overboard. Turned out it was full of hankles and we feel that happened when we took the chain out to paint 25' markings on it and since it was on our dock, it got twisted going off the dock into the boat. That's our guess. We got it all back and now we are "unhankled".

We will go out next weekend for the eclipse watch with Melissa and Caitlyn.  Jordan will be off at UNC by then and Matt will be at work. 

We arrived back to the Toogoodoo Creek about noon. It was a hot and still day. This photo is just around the corner from our house. Like this dock and walkway, there are many others along the creek and ICW that have not been repaired since Hurricane Matthew last October. And I'm happy to report that we had a very smooth docking and none of Bruce's new balls were popped this time! I think we are getting it!