June 2, 2008.

It’s Monday here in Charleston. We’re stuck here until at least Friday as prisoners of Lenscrafters. When we were in the Bahamas Christy had a problem with her glasses. The surface of the lens deteriorated in such a manner that it looked as if there were a million tiny cracks across each lense. She said it was like looking through a fog.

So we decided to hit a Lenscrafters as soon as we got back to the states. We found one in Lake Worth and after an eye exam they had to order new lenses, the problem was that it was going to take 10 days to get them. With our boat owners insurance requiring us to be north of Savannah, Ga. by June 1st sitting there waiting was not an option. Besides we don’t really like Lake Worth that much. So the plan was that when the lenses arrived they would make the glasses and send them to us in Vero Beach. You wouldn’t believe how difficult this process is. When we explained that we live on a boat and that our shipping address can be a bit bizarre at times people just turn into idiots. Everybody nods their heads like they understand and then our stuff gets shipped to God knows where.

After ten days sitting in Vero Beach waiting for her new glasses, Christy called the Lenscrafters in Lake Worth and was told “Why yes, your new glasses are sitting here waiting for you to pick them up” Arrrrgh! This was the same woman we dealt with while we were there, finally she agreed to ship the glasses, which were FedExed to us the next morning. Happy ending? No.

Christy got them and wore them for a day, all the while complaining that something was just not right. We hopped on the bus and headed to the local Lenscrafters in Vero and found out we’ve got big problems. It seemed that the glasses were in fact made correctly to the prescription that the doctor wrote in Lake Worth, but the prescription was wrong! Way wrong. According to him her eyes had miraculously gotten 3 diopters better than they’ve been in over 20 years. But even more miraculous was the fact that he didn’t think it was noteworthy enough to mention it to her. This change is so radical that Christ himself would have had to make an appearance to perform this miracle. I’d have remembered if that had happened.

So then she had to have another eye exam and that prescription is completely different than the first. It is close to the prescription in her old glasses so it stands to reason that this one might be accurate. They didn’t have the lenses in stock and we didn’t want to wait 10 more days, since we had already been in Vero for almost 2 weeks.

Armed with this new knowledge we headed for Charleston, SC to make the boat insurance people happy. Now, north of Savannah we have the time to make sure this gets resolved.

We found the local Lenscrafters and explained everything that had happened so far. So now they are going to remake Christy’s glasses but the lenses once again have to be ordered, so we’re stuck until they come. We’ll see what happens.

We’ve spent the last couple of days biking around Charleston, doing a little shopping and eating and exploring. There’s a boat over in the marina that I thought was picture worthy. That’s the difference between our boat and a really high dollar boat.
Transom windows to die for, hydraulic roller furling, a windlass the size of our generator and the boat came with breasts.

Yesterday we spent the entire day on the boat. It was 95 degrees with a heat index of 105. Being out and about was not on the itinerary. There was a decent breeze out on the water and we have our boat shades up so we were as cool as was possible. Even still, we literally laid in front of the fan and read all day.

The anchorage here on the Ashley River has a very strong tidal flow, so for 6 hours we face west followed by 6 hours east over and over again. There are quite a few local boats that never leave this anchorage, the people live on them and work in the city year round. As a result some of these folks have put in their own moorings for their boats.

So if we have out a hundred feet of chain when the tide switches, we actually move 200 feet the opposite way. The moored vessels might only move 50 feet total so you have to be aware of who has what going on when you pull in and drop the hook.

Last night a big catamaran came in and guaranteed himself a shitty night. He pulled close to a boat on a mooring and dropped his hook. He drifted back, set his hook and was pretty satisfied with himself about a hundred and twenty feet from the local. I was gonna call him and point out that it was slack tide so everything wasn’t as it appeared but another boat hailed him on the radio first. The other boat was closer to the catamaran and he just wanted to tell the new guy in the neighborhood how much scope he had out. Sometimes people like that can be a pain in the ass but in reality they just want everyone to be safe so you just grin and bear it. Not this guy though, he replied tersely that he knew what he was doing. I’d heard enough, I was not getting involved.

At about 0330 we had a front come through. It blew 25 to 30 for only 5-10 minutes with rain coming sideways from every direction. We were up closing ports when we heard shouting so went topside and spied the catamaran tangled with 2 of the moored local boats.

Once we were buttoned up tight Christy went back to bed and I watched to see where the cat was gonna reanchor once they got themselves untangled. It took about 10 minutes to free themselves and retrieve their anchor. Then they spent another 15 minutes circling, looking for another spot. Thankfully, they finally decided to go to the city marina and tie up to one of the floating docks.

As quickly as it came upon us the storm was gone and the night became calm once again and I was back to bed.