Hot Fun Days

                                                              Lady's Island Marina

When we pulled into Lady's Island dockmaster Steve said "here for a month"? We said no, "for a night" and he said "that's what they all say".  Well he was right.  We ended up staying four nights and had a great time.  Beaufort is high on my we could spend a few months here list!

We had a 4th of July potluck (camera acting up, no pictures to share) and borrowed Steve's wife Gloria's car several times for trips to Wal Mart and Lowe's.  We also were invited to participate in a 'float'!

Gloria, Jann, Nancy, Steve, Nancy, Tom
Gary delegated himself as dinghy driver...

We all put life jackets on, (legs through arm holes) jumped in the water and were carried about a half mile back to the marina by the current.  It reminded me of taking inner tubes in the St. Clair River when we were kids and floating from North Algonac to Pte. Du Chene.  Aaah, reliving my youth, only then we weren't floating with cocktails in hand....  

The "floaters"

this house was one of a pair of houses on the ICW North of Charleston with no other houses for miles
it looks like it is out of a Steven King novel....being eaten alive

We anchored for a night north of Charleston in a marsh creek by this ,what we thought was abandoned, wreck.
Turns out it wasn't abandoned after all, there was a couple there the next morning.
I guess they're living their dream, or maybe nightmare....

The ups and DOWNS of tidal water life....the "fleet" was beached!


AND....I have no shame by allowing this.....showers in 95 degrees have become a quick dip in the water, suds up and rinse off with our swim shower on the back of the boat.

It has been HOT over 90 every day with 90% humidity and it is usually as hot in the boat as out.  Bertha and Beulah are two hot mamas and it takes HOURS for them to cool down! Hence they keep the cabin a little too warm.  Thankfully nights have been bearable with our 12 volt mini fan blowing on us.
Most days we get a bit of a breeze because we always try to anchor in open areas where a breeze will catch us.  There is nothing worse than being in a wind protected anchorage surrounded by trees and bugs when it is this hot.  These days remind me of the lyric from Bob Seger's 'Turn the Page'...... "and the sweat pours off your body like the music that you play".  I know, I know, too much information.  But what fun is it if you can't feel our pain!!
  

BUT...we could be freezing somewhere or in the desert with no water around so the truth of the matter is we are very fortunate and we know it.

We fueled up yesterday in North Myrtle Beach and did the long trek through the narrow waterway....Myrtle Beach is VERY spread out...we arrived at 1:00 only to find that the Little River Bridge at the North End was "under construction" and wouldn't let us through until 2:30.

  

Oh Joy....here we were with a 42 Grand Banks in a narrow waterway right by a jet ski rental place and no place to go.  So we dropped the hook and took our licks.  The current kept us straight in the channel and the jet skis were a pain (but I do remember the mantra, "part of the journey") and we figured they could only go between the two bridges so they kept whizzing by for an hour and a half....it was interesting though.  They started out looking terrified and going by fairly slow and as far from our boat as they could get but after 30 minutes they gained confidence and by an hour they were what they thought to be professional jet skiers and they were seeing how many inches they could get away from our boat.!  At 2:00 I told Gary one of them is surely going to plow right into us we need to move!!  Luckily the bridge opened on time and we didn't get done in by a yahoo on a jet ski.  I'd say they were a pain in the a*# but when I was young I most likely would have been doing the same thing!

Here they come again!!!!!!

 2:30 the bridge opened right on time.....

and this was the hold up....trying to repair the damage a barge did going through,

it wiped out the entire east side of the bridge foundation

We should be in Carolina Beach this afternoon, we are waiting for the tide right now to give us a good pull out of the ICW and a good push up the Cape Fear River.  Our friends Jodie and Barry are transiting back to Florida and we hope to meet them in Carolina Beach.

I'll sign off with this photo.  We have seen a lot of nesting Osprey and I got this one on Bull Creek where we anchored the other night.

 Osprey one on the nest and one flying the coop!