Mike
06/16/2009, Charleston, S.C.

June 9th.... Charleston,SC

The morning was clear and hot. We had coffee in the cockpit and worked some puzzles before starting on jobs for the day. I took garbage to shore along with jerry cans to top off our fuel. The marina, which is huge, doesn't sell gasoline which I found interesting.
But the girl who was helping me pump diesel offered to take me to the gas station on her golf cart.

I talked to Dave and expect them sometime around noon tomorrow. Since we now know when we are going to be in Michigan this summer, I spent quite a bit of time on the phone making appointments.

Kathy cleaned the boat and emptied the garage so the Dave and Kristi will have place to sleep. I stowed the jerry cans and moved our fishing stuff to there home below decks.
We also sorted our charts and have a nice pile that hopefully they can deliver to our storage unit. We also sending some movies that we don't really need on board as well as some of Kathy's baskets that don't have a use on the boat. I hope Dave hasn't done too much shopping at the Outlet Malls.

We made arrangements to meet Steve and Kim at 1:30 for a trip into town for lunch. The Marina Van runs roughly on the hour so we had plenty of time for the 2pm run. We stopped at the Post Office down town and then walked to a restaurant for lunch. Steve and Kim had been to a place called the Blind Tiger that was close by so we ended up there. Kathy had a nice salad but the rest of the group had mussels cooked in shallot cream with a little Guinness at the end.... they were delightful.

We wandered around down town all afternoon shopping and ended up eating dinner there as well.

It was just getting dark as we motored back out to the boat.... another nice day in Charleston.

June 8th.... Charleston, SC

At 8am I wandered up to the Marina office and checked out. The Tide was going to be slack at 9 so I had a little time to rinse things down while we still had water. Kathy scrubbed our cockpit seats while I finished up last minute boat things.

When 9am rolled around we walked "Sapphire" half way out of the slip, aimed her stern in the direction we wanted to go, and put her in reverse. We still never really know what's going to happen when we're in reverse for any distance, but this morning there were no serious surprises.

We motored about 200 yards out into the Ashley River and anchored. The tidal current rips through this section of the River but the mud offers good holding. The problem is that as slack tide approaches, boats don't swing the same direction so positioning is important.

Once we were settled, I began the task of tracking down the reason behind our overheating problem. When we were on the Ocean, about half way through our 50 hour passage I noticed that our temperature gauge was showing more engine heat than normal. The alarm never went off but the exhaust looked almost like a combination of steam and water. There appeared to be about the same volume of water in the exhaust as there normally is but I really couldn't be sure.

Anyway, I checked the system and found nothing that seemed to be out of place. I suppose it's possible that the 89 degree water temperature of the Gulf Stream was just enough higher than normal to cause the problem. When we lowered our RPM's to 1700 from 2000 the engine temperature moved down to normal so I don't think it's critical at this point if we just keep our eyes things.

Since I was in the engine compartment, I changed all the fuel filters and tightened up some hose clamps on fuel lines that seemed to be a loose.

Meanwhile, Kathy was online making airline reservations for a trip back to Michigan during the summer. We'll be in Michigan from July 16-August 11.

After cleaning up, I poached some shrimp for dinner and got them in refrigerator. When I went to make cocktail sauce though, I remembered that the catsup was one of the condiments to go during our recent refrigeration challenges. I jumped in the dinghy and headed into the marina to walk over to the convenience store. I tied up at "Fine Lion" and Kim saved the day with a half cup of catsup, saving me the hike.

The evening was uneventful. The shrimp were wonderful and we hadn't had any since Florida in December, which made them even better somehow.

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Mike
06/16/2009, Charleston, S.C.

June 7th... Charleston, SC

Did he mention yesterday that he and Steve ate 7 dozen raw oysters ??? (Okay, Kim and I maybe ate 6 oysters)

I spent an hour or so wandering around talking to folks on the docks this morning and then met Steve at 11 for a run out to West Marine. The marina van makes a trip out there once a day at that time. The store was brand new and having grand opening specials. I did lots of looking but most of the things we need will take Kathy's ok. I did order some stabilizers for our outboard and will have to go back this week to pick them up.

At about 1 we headed out for lunch with Kim and Steve to the King Street Grille. We had a nice meal and then walked to Harris Teeters which is the nearest grocery. After loading up a cart we called the marina van to pick up. Kathy and Kim stayed downtown shopping while Steve and I returned to put things away.

After finding places for all of our purchases, I filled our water tank and made two trips to the fuel dock to fill jerry cans and top off our tank. I still need 10 gallons but can pick those up any time.

Steve and Kim wandered down to visit for a while and then we ate the rotisserie chicken that we'd picked up earlier. It was quick and easy.

Two more episodes of "Cold Case" and we're done for the day.

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Mike
06/07/2009, Charleston, SC

June 6th... Charleston, SC

After some coffee I began putting things away and straightening up the boat. I replaced the sink, which had to be removed to access the compressor portion of the refrigerator and turned on the water system.

Things were going fine until I tried to flush the new toilet and it clogged. I hesitate to write a blow by blow account of process I went through to remove the clog and put the new toilet back together, but suffice it to say that it wasn't fun.

After getting cleaned up I wandered over to "Fine Lion" to pick up our frozen food and chatted with them for 30 minutes or so and made plans to go into town around noon. When I got back to the boat Kathy informed me that the toilet was again clogged. Wonderful...

As an expert on the inner workings of our new toilet and its drain system, I psyched myself for another round of fun. I had learned some things earlier in the morning and had deduced that the clogging problem was not the toilets fault but that of the drain hose. (I hesitate to add here that I, Kathy, had advised replacing all hoses in said area when replacing the toilet.) Over time, the inch and ½ hose forms a layer of what looks like a calcium deposit. In the process of installing the new toilet I had moved the hose around enough to break some of the deposit away from the inner wall of the hose which collected on a low spot and caused the clogs.

So I removed and loosened the drain hose on each end holding the bottom on tightly to the toilet and then quickly moved that end to a bucket. We ran a water hose through a hatch and I had Kathy turn on the water which I ran through the section of drain hose.

Then I took the hose to the dock and pounded it with a hammer breaking loose about a half of bucket full of calcium deposits. Finally, after putting things back together, we had a working toilet.

By this time it was about 11:30, so we called Steve and Kim to delay our trip to town for an hour which gave us time to clean and disinfect the boat as well as ourselves.

We ended up meeting them at 1pm and took the marina van into town where we shopped a little, but spent most of the afternoon at an oyster bar. We watched the Belmont race, wandered to another oyster bar AND ate more oysters and we wandered around a little more and ended up at the Roof Top above the Library for the sunset and the first two periods of the Redwings game. Charleston is a wonderful city to wander around at night.

We got a taxi back to the marina and hit the sack...it had been a long day.

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