May 28, 2008.

We woke with no alarm and set about getting ready to head up towards Charleston. Its about a 60 nautical mile trip on the inside. We were planning to split it up into a 2 day affair so there was no need to leave to early.

We can do 60 miles in one day but the tidal flow was going to be against us for at least the first half of the trip. We got underway just after 0800 which was about 2 hours before low tide. So the first half of the day was pretty much done at low tide.


We had at least 2 feet of water under us all morning so things went well. We did a better job of picking our way through the spot where we ran aground while traveling north with Freedom last spring. As soon as we cleared this area we started to get the tidal push in our favor.

We figured we’d just ride it til it died and then drop the hook for the night. But there was to be a problem. The wind which had been fluky decided to blow 10 to 15 for us. So now as the tidal push slowed the wind picked up and kept us moving along nicely. I hate to put it to bed with things going so well so we kept at it. When the wind started to die we found that we were far enough along that the newly ebbing tide was now sucking us towards Charleston at better than 7 knots. No brainer, keep going.

A mile south of Charleston there’s a lift bridge that’s closed from 1600 hours to 1830. Because of the terrific tidal flow we were there too early and had to wait forty minutes for the bridge to open. Once through the bridge we found an extremely full anchorage with anchored boats even encroaching on the channel. We wandered about a bit and were fortunate to find a good spot right in the middle of everyone.

After dinner we had a nasty looking front come through. It was different than most though as it brought no wind at all. It took forever to creep across the city and then the anchorage.
It brought loads of lightning, some impressive thunder and more rain than we’ve seen in ages. It only lasted an hour or so and just drifted away.

Boat Name of the Day: Paros….I have no idea what it means but the dinghy was Paro site, made me laugh.