May 8 & 9

May 8th. Well we’ve been here for a couple of days waiting out a big wind storm. We’ve been very fortunate as we’re in a seam between the wind and the calm. The wind is from the north and 20 miles to the west of us it’s blowing about 5 to 10 knots. While 30 miles to the east of us the Coast Guard is being kept busy saving the unwary boaters who were caught out. Out there it’s blowing a steady 35 knots with much higher gusts.

We’ve seen short half hour bursts into the high twenties but it’s been basically less than 15 knots while we were here. So tomorrow looks as if it will be the day to get underway for Charleston.

The Ladies Island Swing Bridge is 300 yards north of the marina. There’s a fixed 65 foot bridge about 2 miles south of here that was hit by a barge. The damage was fairly mild but until the bridge is repaired all the traffic from the barrier islands has to come across the only remaining bridge. This leaves the Ladies Island Swing Bridge overwhelmed with vehicular traffic. Now the bridge only opens at 0515, 1015, 1415, 2000 hours and then on the hour all night. So we’re planning for a 1015 bridge opening to start our trip to Charleston.

May 9th. We’re still here. The wind has been building and I don’t think we can get the boat off the wall that we’ve been moored too for these last few days. The wind has us pressed tight against the wall. We’re down at the end of a fairway with boats side tied along both sides. Once clear of the wall we’d have to back down a hundred yards of boat lined fairway with a pretty good crosswind blowing, oh yeah, and there’s adverse current too, Lol.

We’ve just seen on CNN that the storm has been named. So here we sit as the first named storm of the season runs its course offshore. It looks as if Charleston, 50 miles to our north is going to get the brunt of the rain and because of the counterclockwise rotation of the storm we should only see the winds after they’ve worn themselves out coming across the land.

So we’ll be patient, enjoy our surroundings and make the best of the situation. It’s just starting to rain…..