We found out last night that the lady that was injured aboard the big motor yacht behind us is OK. We found that out in the best possible way, by meeting her and her husband when they came to us to see if we had the wifi user name and password. She's going to have a nasty bump on her forehead for a while plus a scar to tell stories about, but it was good to hear that she had been fully examined including a CAT scan, and the hospital saw fit to release her. Good ending to that story.

This morning started off on an exciting note - several of the boats at the dock were trying to get away early before the bridge stopped opening for the rush hour traffic only to find out that the bridge tender was stating that the winds were too high and that he wouldn't open until they died down. At nine o'clock they tried again only to again have the bridge tender refuse to open once more based on high winds. The only problem was that he was saying that the winds we blowing at 30-35 mph and we were seeing 20 knots on our instruments. Needless to say the boats waiting for the opening were not impressed especially as most of them were deep draft and needed to be 20 miles upstream past the brickyard before the tide got too low. That is a shoaling choke point. There was a great deal of cajoling, threatening, calls to the mayor, calls to the bridge supervisor, calls to the US Coast Guard, before finally the bridge opened at 1000. Most of us were wondering if they had merely exchanged a delay here in Beaufort for a delay waiting for the tide further up when they reached the Brickyard. Our turn will come tomorrow, but the weather forecast is for lighter winds so hopefully we won't have the same problems. We have done our course planning and have discovered that if we get through the bridge at the 0900 opening and make an honest 6 knots through the ICW we could make Charleston by 1830 tomorrow evening. As of right now that is the plan. For those of us that chose to stay on the dock for another day, we are getting together for a "Patience Party" to celebrate our laidbackedness.

Today we took advantage of a walking tour from a company called the Spirit of Old Beaufort and spent a wonderful two hours walking around the old town and hearing about its history. It is the oldest permanent settlement in the USA and has had an extensive history of commerce, plantations, slavery, union occupation and service to the Confederacy. Our tour guide (photo in the gallery) was a veritable fount of information, telling stories, anecdotes and even singing to us once in a while, and on one or two occasions making us sing along too. We found out that live oaks are so called because they are never without leaves. In fact, they are an actual evergreen with new leaves pushing out the old ones so the tree is always green. We also found out that the ferns that grow on the top of the horizontal boughs of the live oaks are called resurrection ferns because they appear to die and turn brown between rains only to spring back into full greenness upon the next shower. We saw houses that served as the set for several movies including Prince of Tides, Forest Gump, the Great Santini, the Big Chill, to name just a few that I recognized. Plus we even learned about a fellow called Smalls who was the first black representative in the US and who did much to help rebuild the area after the Civil War for both the black and white communities. I have put several more photos into the gallery taken during this walking tour.