We have arrived in Charleston, roughly halfway between Norfolk and Miami and a looong ways from Nova Scotia. We visited here on our way south in 2005 and found it to be a very difficult place to leave and, sure enough, we hadn't been tied up at the Maritime Center for much more than an hour before we'd received not one, but two invitations to join Thanksgiving dinners!

Anne and Leslie will be enjoying one of those feasts but Evelyn and I will be leaving the boat for a week: Evelyn has some long-scheduled appointments back in Nova Scotia and I have another quickie business trip. This is another way in which this cruise differs from our previous sojourn: We seem to alternate long periods of sustained movement with extended stays while I fly off on business of one form or another.

Of course this is only possible because of the team that Anne, Evelyn,and Leslie have formed. I can work from the boat because, for many hours each day, they are navigating and piloting and I can work belowdecks. I took the picture between phone calls while they took the boat through the Ben Sawyer bridge this morning after we left our gorgeous anchorage. Evelyn continued to drive all the way into Charleston and made a spectacularly good docking in very strong currents when we arrived. I'm by no means unnecessary, and they were gratifyingly happy to have me back after their mini-cruise without me, but they have become a great team.