Last night we had an interlude with a mud wasp. Jeff found a nest starting on one of our lines in the boat, so he knocked it off. The wasp that had been inhabiting the nest decided to start to make a new nest on our bed! Jeff got in bed to a rude awakening. Needless to say, there was some screaming to be had. We finally threw our Waterway Guide Book on top of the wasp and proceeded to beat our book to death with our fists. Well, it did absolutely nothing for the wasp. We ended up wrapping all the sheets up (book still on top of wasp) and shook them out overboard.

Today we pulled up our Bahamian moor without any issues. We had to wait until 9:00 for the first opening of the Wappoo Creek Bridge. We made our way up to the Ben Sawyer swing bridge on the north side of Charleston and had to wait for an 11:00 opening. So we got fuel and ice at the marina next door.

It was pretty uneventful on the ICW today. We saw a lot of boats on the water: fishing boats, people out with their families, tubing and water skiing. And many dolphin sightings again. In fact, right after we got to our anchorage, we heard a sound. I thought it was a horse, but there are no houses or farms around where we are. We're in a desolate area and can only see one house in the distance via our binoculars. Jeff said it was a dolphin that made the sound, but I didn't believe it. Then we saw the two dolphins coming through the creek. They hung out for a while (probably feeding -- there are a lot of fish jumping out of the water around here).

Speaking of our anchorage, it is infested with mosquitoes and horseflies!! We were dealing with the horseflies part of the way up the ICW today. When we anchored in the creek, we still had some buzzing and biting around us. Just as the sun was setting, the mosquitoes started coming out and they were brutal. Jeff put the plastic sides on the back of the boat and we already had the screens down on the front, but the wind was blowing the mosquitoes right in every nook and cranny that they could get in. After swatting and smacking the walls and ceilings for a while, we realized we were not going to win the battle. So we went down in our hull and put the hatchway door up so we could get the heck away from those bloodsuckers. The place looks like a war zone and we have a lot of cleaning up to do!!

We have some serious advice: Beware of anchoring in marshy areas in South Carolina!!