Clogged Drains, Plumbing and New Galley Faucet

This photo was taken by Bruce with his Nikon that I only know how to turn on and off. My cell phone photos are mostly pretty good but when I saw this one! Wow! He took it last Sunday and he just now downloaded his photos.We were sitting on the flybridge of Summer Breeze for happy hour and the sun was starting to set. 

The marsh was glowing and the water reflections and heron were pure eye candy for us. 

This is South Creek, just behind Botany Bay Beach off of the N Edisto River before it empties into the ocean. Our newest and best anchorage yet!

 I'm not sure if I mentioned a few days ago when we ended our Winter Cruise to Charleston that we had a clogged sink in the master head plus the galley sink due to common thru-hull on our last night out. We had tried EVERYTHING! 

It was a good thing that we had already been scheduled to be home the next day as it was not going to unclog. We think it was because of the cold, cold water temperatures and the little bit of cooking we did with olive oil on the salmon and tacos night, then on top of all the years of other stuff. That cold water temperature just congealed it all. He tried a sink plunger, boiling hot water, the zip it thingys, no not long enough as the clog was down in the piping going out to the thru hull. 

Yep, he got to break down all the pipes. Not what he wanted to do. That did the job though as he was able to reach the mucky yucky parts and clear it out. Then the rebuild started which is not always easy and he wanted to rebuild it so he could access any trouble areas easily in the future. 

Rebuild successful. Leaks? Yep! 

Try again, got it. 

Since he was all up in the pipes both below the master head sink and up above in the galley sink, he says, this is a good time to replace the galley faucet! We were waiting until the countertops were done (which we are starting soon!) but this was a good time. Several stops at the stores in town later, we got the right one. 

Below is the old faucet before he tore it out.

 The new faucet. Actually looks similar to the old one. Since the sink is not a large one and we really don't want to put a larger one and lose counter space, we were limited with this style. 

See the fog through the window? 

It's NOT a good day to be out on the waterway! 

Our countertop fabricator is coming out this week to see what we can do! Guess who is really excited about this project?

January 24, 2018, Winter Cruise Day 4, Heading Home

We had a calm night in our new spot in the creek and we had a great sleep, missing sunrise again. In the photo of the chart plotter, you can see where we anchored in Church Creek off the ICW close to Wadmalaw Sound. 

 We weighed anchor at about 10 AM to head home. Still working the docking with a rising tide and we have to make sure we can cross the sand bar. It was a bit cooler today but the sun was shining and there was barely a breeze making it just perfect. 

We were out of Church Creek by 10:15 and entering the Toogoodoo Creek by 11:15. 

Bella is enjoying the warm sunshine through the Isinglass in her chair.

The dolphins were really enjoying the breakfast menu along the way! They were absolutely everywhere! I tried to capture some photos but it didn't work out well. They are too fast for me. Bruce suggested that I try a video and that worked better.

Here is an image of our travels the last several days. We always forget to log the mileage when we start but we have a general idea of how far we go. Basically, we just did a circle tour from home to Charleston and back. 

Winter Cruising Day 3

Well, the storm was a "nothing" for us on the water (Thank God!) but we did have a couple of awake moments at night and we think we did drag our anchor just a bit last night but all was still good in the morning. We had rain about 2 AM preceded by some weird chain or snubber noises before that. After deciding that all is good by Rosie at 1:30 AM and Bruce a bit later, we awoke to a somewhat quiet morning but we only had 2' of water below our keel. Not where we anchored!  But since all was still good, we waited untill high tide and decided to move up the creek just a bit where we might not drag, being the drag queen we were last night! In the mean time, we missed a sunrise photo. We just did some regular household chores, like organizing a closet, grocery lists, changing light bulbs... you know, just regular household chores. At about noon, the tide was higher and we decided it was time to move up the creek just a bit for the night. Storms had been still predicted but the storms never hit with the full force we expected. That is OK! So we moved just a little bit up the creek and spent the day doing chores, I (Rosie) did a bit of gallery work online  and on phone (have cell phone and lap top, will travel! Right?), Bruce read after finishing his chores, then I painted a Toogoodoo 365 painting from a photo I took a couple of days ago. So it was a quiet day on the water, a bit windy here and there but quiet as the night hit. Tomorrow, we will go home and dock. The winds will be a bit less but a bit cooler. That is ok because we got a bit of winter cruising in after all!

Reading and relaxing on Summer Breeze

Paint time!

Toogoodoo 365, Jan 18

 Happy Hour Views

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Winter Cruising Day 2

January 22, 2018

What a beautiful sunrise! Looks like it might be a painting...

We pulled up anchor at 8 AM. It was a calm and brisk morning. The marsh is beautiful in the morning light with dolphins everywhere. It is a rising tide at about mid range and we needed to follow the same path out of the creek because of the sandbar. We exited with lots of water under our keel by positioning ourselves parallel to the dock at about mid creek and pointing the bow just to the right of the Seabrook water tower. (These notes are for our future reference as this is a great anchorage.)

This is the view leaving N Edisto as we passed Botany Bay Island.

We were out of the N Edisto River channel by 9:20 and heading NE towards Charleston harbor, passing Seabrook, Kiawah, and Folly Islands. We could see both the Morris Island lighthouse and the Sullivan Island Lighthouse. 

The weather was projected to be a high of 70 today inland but it is definitely cooler out here on the water! 

We entered the jetty channel between Green 16 and 17 markers, a 3 hour offshore trip. This is our 1st time in the Charleston channel with Summer Breeze and we were immediately faced with sharing the channel with Allie B and a barge but had plenty of room to spare. 

We passed Sumter Fort and the harbor was beautiful and very calm.

View of Charleston waterfront and the bridge

Wappoo Creek and Elliot Cut had a raging current which kept us watching the rocks. 

With the approaching storm tonight, we hope to be anchored where it will affect us the least. Most of the anchorages along the ICW don’t seem ideal to weather out a storm so we kept moving on towards Church Creek. We have spent a couple of nights there and know that it is a good anchorage and safe harbor.

We actually got to Church Creek sooner than we expected. We had slowed down through Wappoo Creek and Elliot Cut but made great time the rest of the day. It got quite warm as well, enough to take off the jackets and sweatshirts! 

Here at Church Creek, we went around a couple of the bends in order to be protected from any winds that may come from tonight's storm front. We will hang here tomorrow until the front passes and then decide about the next day. 

Happy Hour

 Sunset, Church Creek, just off ICW 

We traveled 73 miles today

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Winter SC Cruising

January day in the Toogoodoo Creek

Yes it has been since the 1st week of October since Summer Breeze has been away from the dock. Hurricanes, rain, holidays, valuable family time, snow storms, ice, wind.... have kept us away! We had some time blocked off on our calendars for a January trip but the weather has not cooperated and it seems that we might be blessed with a couple of wonderful days now. So, off we go for what we think might be 3 nights, Sunday through Wednesday for some coastal cruising, 

still learning Summer Breeze.

Pelicans flying across the creek at 10 AM

Bella in her boat bed

 We left the dock at 10AM this morning with an incoming tide and we had a smooth departure. The incoming tide seems to to suit us. It is a beautiful day with no wind and the water is as calm as can be. It took us about 2 hours to get to Botany Bay Beach so we tested out South Creek entrance for a possible night anchorage and at high tide, we found it sufficient and then we tested it going out again at about mid tide to confirm that we could leave early in the morning. It was fine. Being that it is a beautiful day and calm waters, we exited the creek and decided to go play offshore for just a bit.

We cruised to Red#6 buoy and the turned around so we could get back into South Creek before low tide. Offshore is smooth as glass today and we are hoping that it will be the same tomorrow for an offshore trip to Charleston.

We got back into the creek without any worries and decided we would be fine for the AM departure and we anchored about 2 PM. We had thought of putting the dinghy down and exploring the island but it is a bit cold out even though it hovering in the mid to upper 60s and it cools off real fast in the afternoon. So, we just relaxed and had a nice evening in the creek.

We hope to leave early in the morning to leave the creek at about mid tide and go offshore to the Charleston inlet, past Morris Island Lighthouse and by Sumter Fort and then back into the ICW through Wappoo and Elliot Cut to anchor by St Johns Yacht Club. We hope because it will be a bit rainy on Monday night, Tuesday morning. This should position us well for an ICW return while we have experienced some good offshore time.

I decided to capture the image of our nav charts of our location last night. It was a good one! Protected, easy access to Botany Beach if we want, easy access to offshore or anywhere around Edisto. We will be here again!

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