Mighty Fine Arrives at its Summer Home ...Osprey Marina, Myrtle Beach S.C.
14 May 2017 | Osprey Marina, Myrtle Beach S.C.
Craig, Sunny usually, 83 degrees, Rain yesterday.
What a whirlwind last few days driven mostly by tide state and weather. From Beaufort we did an 80 mile day to Isle of Palms the other side of Charleston so we would be set up for high tide going through McClellanville, a notorious liw spot on the ICW. At low tide parts are 4 ft or less...Mar-a-Lago needs 5 ft, us 4 ft. Isle of Palms Marina was very nice with a hige on site genetal store. We didnt get a chance to walk over to the nearby beach...maybe next time. We had cocktails on Mighty Fines lido deck and watched a SUP boarding club go for their weekly paddle. All levels if ability and amazingly, nobody fell in! The next morning we were off to McClellanville 20 mile away and we got there with plenty of water. Our Navionics plotter got us through all the shallow parts without a hitch. Crowd sourced sonar is amazing and they are the only ones with it so far. Then we had the scare of our lives....we couldn't find Dylan! When horse flies show up he goes to a little safe spot next to our drivers console and our settee. A nice little space wear we store our life jackets. Well, Donna noticed he wasn't there! I slowed the boat down while Donna checked in and out of the boat....she looked everywhere. We started freaking out and wondeted how he could have gone overboard without us knowing. I felt around tje life jackets whete he usually is...still no Dylan. I had just contacted Brian to see if he had seen him go overboard....I called his name one more time and looked at his cubby hole and he was there! I thought I must have missed him when I felt around the life jackets. Phew, we were still shaken pretty good but wete so relieved. We looked down again and....no Dylan! Come on! This dog is Houdini on steroids. So I poked my head down into his hidey hole and low and behold, way inside in a space I didn't know existed, was a little scared whiye dog! This space goes behind the settee way back in and somejow he discovered it and went in. He had never done this before. Well, I was afraid he would get stuck, especially with his life jacket on. So, I reached in and dragged him out....he was not happy but we sure were. The emotions from low to high to low to high were just overwhelming....we felt tremendous guilt when we thought he'd gone over the side and frustrated when he disappeared again to complete elation when we figured what had happened...terrible experience except for the outcome. After that we cruised on up to Georgetown after spotting a couple of alligators! We imagined a little white dog swimming with gators.....gave us the shivers. Our pkan was to anchor at Georgetown for 2 days but plans changed when the weather report came in. Rainy and thunderstorms for Saturday. We ate at Buzzes Roost on their new deck...very nice...and walked around this cute town, one of our favorites. We decided to leave Friday for our final destination of Osprey Marina up the Waccama River but first we would have breakfast at Thomas diner in town. A place right out of the 50's with very good food. Donna and Jane went shopping in town for a few hours and Brian and I took a cab out to Walmart to get a new bilge pump for Mighty Fine. The old pump had been giving us problems foelr a few weeks and it finally died. We have 2 other pumps working so we werent in serious danger. So around 12:45 we all heade up to Osprey Marina fighting the tide all the way.....knocked a kt or so off our speed but we got there around 5:00 pm. We fueled up before we went to our summer slip but we did have an incident fueling that I wont talk about here. Lets just say it involved a miscommunication between us and the person manning the pump. Imagine a pink fountain going all over your boat! Lol. We chose Osprey because it is fresh water and a Hurricane hole. The folks that run it are very friendly. Besides Myrtle Beach is a pretty funky place! Last night we went to dinber by being picked up by a loxal Italian Rest....very nice and our last meal with Mar-a-Lago ast they press on to parts north and eventually home in Toronto. Mar-a-Lago's salt water days are coming to an end. We will miss them but know some how in the future we will see them in a boat in Florida again...right guys? They shoved off this morning at 7:00am and Donna got up to see them off unbeknownst to me. I just saw the inside of my eyelids! Have a great trip Mar-a-Lago! Oh, I forgot to mention, I made like a contortionist and fixed the bilge pump yesterday....took awhile because of the horrible place it is to get to, but it is done, although, I still might put in a check valve to keep all the water from flowing back into the bilge after its pumped. If I don't the pump tends to cycle on and off which is annoying, Tuesday we head to Deltaville in a rental to go get our car and bring it back down here so we have wheels gor the month while we are here. 350 miles each way...ugh. Donna will drive the HHR back behind me as we return to Osprey. A month from now we will head to Vt and the RV, our summer home. The next adventure will be taking the RV to Maine and the Canadian Maritimes....stay tuned dear readers. Its been a great winter and we are looking forward to the sumner before we return to Marathon next winter....life is good and Happy Mothers day. Check out my new hat that Donna got me in Georgetown. I wilk blog a few times through the summer and especially on our Canadian tour.
Fair Winds and Calm Seas