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.