We spent a very comfortable night in Tom Peter's Creek. We highly recommend it to cruisers as a good anchorage with a relatively good protection from the winds. The only down side is that it is a mile dingy ride to a beach where you can walk the dogs, but fortunately, Screech had her dingy in the water, towing it through the ICW and they have a 15hp motor so can make that trip is double quick time.

This morning we got off to a late-ish start at 0900 aiming for Charleston at shortly after lunch hour. As we were weighing anchor I happened to look back at Screech and saw her with her stern almost on the shore. Granted it was a very narrow creek that we were in but you still don't expect to see a boat the size of Screech (47') be able to get that close. Jay could have stepped directly ashore from his transom. Apparently their fuse on the windlass had blown when raising the anchor. It was a 125A fuse! Luckily he had a spare handy, but 125A?! Our new windlass only calls for a 75A breaker and we are using one rated for 50!.

We caught the tidal current and "roared" along at over 7 knots for a lot of the trip and even made over 10 when we came through Elliot's Cut. Barb had found us a dock space for $35/night at the Carolina Yacht Club, a very prestigious place with a formal dining room that requires jacket and tie. Normally the price is $1.50/ft but since we were leaving early the next day the Dockmaster cut us a deal as they have a big Easter Regatta starting here tomorrow for E-class Scows which we have been watching trying out during the afternoon today. Wow! Can those things ever move!

We met West Fraser and his charming wife at their gallery in town. That's him in the picture for today's post. He has informed us that there is another painting on Cumberland Island but he would give us no clues where he put it. He was very glad to see us and took some photos of their own for their website and for a press release about PIAT - Paintings In a Tree. I have to talk our friends and artists Al Chaddock and Roger Savage to do something like that too.

We have not been able to tie into a wifi hot spot here at the dock but we'll look for a cafe or something. Otherwise we will have to wait to post.

Tomorrow we had intended to head outside to Georgetown which we will reach around 1800-1900 with any luck. It is calling for SW winds at 15-20 knots so we were hoping that will hold as a forecast and we'll be able to make some time. However it is 20 miles shorter to go through the ICW so after a discussion and watching the new forecast of higher winds and even higher waves outside we have decided to stay in the ditch to Georgetown.

Whoa! More excitement! Just as we were putting our heads down for the night there was a great howling of sirens and horns and we looked out of the companionway in time to see the fire and police pull into the club parking lot. A few minutes later we saw great clouds of smoke billowing out of the clubhouse and it was obvious that there was a serious fire somewhere in the building. What a shame - a hundred and fifty year old clubhouse at the minimum damaged by a fire. Let's hope it can be repaired. I wonder whether they'll be able to continue with the regatta tomorrow.