Friday, November 10, 2006
Day 11
Tuesday November 7, 2006
Departed Hague Marina at 5:30 am under dark skies and rain. We stopped at Bucksport Marina for fuel. While there, the trawler in front of us on the gas dock flagged us down as we were pulling out. The interesting thing is that they were literally flagging us down with a Burgee of our yacht club! What a great surprise to find members of our small club in such a remote place. The nice folks were Elli and Chuck on their MY Rachel. They said that it’s been about 3 years since they have been down there. I guess they travel in a different direction.
Later in the morning it really started to rain. It came down really hard and reduced the visability to about 100’ or so. I brought the boat to a slow idle but soon found that I could not navigate by visual reference! All I had was my chart plotter for direction. A few minutes later it eased up enough to at least see the next markers. It rained for most of the trip into Charleston SC and we chopped up a crab buoy along the way (no damage). We entered Charleston Harbor just as sunset approached, but we were still about 40 minutes away from port. The problem was that due to all of the rain, fog was starting to develop. About 5 miles out of the marina, visibility really started to deteriorate, just at that time the “marine warning” feature of our GPS (XM weather) informed us of the fog. We finally picked up the entrance markers into the marina and arrived in Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina at 5:30pm after 85 miles traveled on this leg.
We pulled up to the fuel dock, took on 106 gal.of fuel and received our slip assignment. We parked the boat next to the aircraft carrier USS York Town, How cool it that! The marina is on Hilton property but the docks are run by another company. The marina staff were real nice and helpful but the hotel staff were a pain in the ass. The facilities were first class none the less. A very exciting and challenging day for us. We are loving every minute of it.
Departed Hague Marina at 5:30 am under dark skies and rain. We stopped at Bucksport Marina for fuel. While there, the trawler in front of us on the gas dock flagged us down as we were pulling out. The interesting thing is that they were literally flagging us down with a Burgee of our yacht club! What a great surprise to find members of our small club in such a remote place. The nice folks were Elli and Chuck on their MY Rachel. They said that it’s been about 3 years since they have been down there. I guess they travel in a different direction.
Later in the morning it really started to rain. It came down really hard and reduced the visability to about 100’ or so. I brought the boat to a slow idle but soon found that I could not navigate by visual reference! All I had was my chart plotter for direction. A few minutes later it eased up enough to at least see the next markers. It rained for most of the trip into Charleston SC and we chopped up a crab buoy along the way (no damage). We entered Charleston Harbor just as sunset approached, but we were still about 40 minutes away from port. The problem was that due to all of the rain, fog was starting to develop. About 5 miles out of the marina, visibility really started to deteriorate, just at that time the “marine warning” feature of our GPS (XM weather) informed us of the fog. We finally picked up the entrance markers into the marina and arrived in Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina at 5:30pm after 85 miles traveled on this leg.
We pulled up to the fuel dock, took on 106 gal.of fuel and received our slip assignment. We parked the boat next to the aircraft carrier USS York Town, How cool it that! The marina is on Hilton property but the docks are run by another company. The marina staff were real nice and helpful but the hotel staff were a pain in the ass. The facilities were first class none the less. A very exciting and challenging day for us. We are loving every minute of it.
# posted by Mario Gonzalez @ 10:15 PM 
