Sunset Beach, NC to Brown Island, South Santee River, SC
Last night's anchorage was close to my sister's serene stomping grounds of Bird Island and the Kindred Spirits Mailbox at Sunset Beach. Kind of tough to be here when she isn't, but her family is currently on an adventure of their own: an amazing bike trip through Hawaii! I guess I'll have to give her a pass this time.
You might be surprised at how comfortable it is to sleep on a boat — you literally have to remind yourself that you're not on land, because unless you're in a bumpy anchorage (which you of course try to avoid but can still happen), it's a lot like being in your own bed at home. And quite possibly a lot better, especially when you wake up to the sound of the water lapping against the hull. It does not suck.
The image at the top illustrates our exit route from our anchorage back to the Intracoastal Waterway around 6:30 am. It was a bit tricky since we were traveling before the sun came up, but between the full moon and Skeet's trusted guidance, we did just fine. The inlet was super choppy so we had to stay as far to the right as we could to avoid the turbulence, and managed to return to the waterway unscathed.
I spent the day continuing my efforts to restore order to the absolute chaos of the galley and my bedroom, which I'm pretty sure will have to be an ongoing effort as I try to figure out what makes the most sense to store where. I've already lost my supply of resealable vacuum sealer bags (!!!) because I put them somewhere so very clever that even my most clever moments of clarity can't bring their location back to my battered brain.
Thankfully before those bags so rudely hid themselves from me, I managed to go on a sealing spree to give me more room in the cabinet where I store dry goods. I was on a ROLL and then disaster struck. Where are those damn bags???
But all was not lost, because speaking of vacuum sealing, which I seem to speak of every single day of my one-dimensional life, I found this coolio gadget that vacuum seals the mason jars hanging next to the fridge. Because of course I did. It apparently removes the extra air so your ingredients last longer. Or it could just be a total scam as I can't prove whether it works or doesn't, but let's just say somebody out there is very happy that they pocketed my gullible 20 bucks.
I've talked about trying to keep track of what we've got on board, and one way I do that is by keeping a write on / wipe off list of our food inventory. I'm not great about updating quantities, but at least we have a pretty good idea of where we're starting. This list comes from what has worked for us on the previous two trips. I'm famous for stocking food and then promptly forgetting what we have, especially once it's buried in a vertical freezer. Not a good look. I also scrawled out a sketch of what's on which layer of that vertical freezer, so I'll know, for example, that if I want to thaw a spaghetti casserole, I'll have to stand on my head to get to it because it's on the very bottom layer. Let's just hope my sketch doesn't suffer the same fate as my you-know-what sealer bags. 🙄
Here's the new location of our chest freezer, which used to live in the storage area underneath the pilot house. To make room for it, Ron took out a corner cabinet next to the fridge, a lot of which was wasted space because we couldn't reach the far corners of its storage potential. We lost a narrow drawer and narrow cabinet in the process, and kept their drawer/door faces (circled in the photo), and also sacrificed the cabinet above the freezer, but we feel like the additional food storage is worth the tradeoff.
Ok, time to talk about something else. You're welcome. And this something might actually be interesting. But don't hold your breath.
Two years ago, Ron left on this same trip with two friends, and I stayed back for the first month to help Skeet get to work and to school. During that time, I made up a project for myself to take pictures of boats going south as they passed by our house, writing down the boats' names if possible, and then looking for those boats once we made it to the Bahamas, with the hope of sharing those pictures with the owners.
One boat that stood out for its unique looks was this 60' Silent Yacht — Silent Yachts are the creators of the world’s first series produced, solar-powered electric yachts. Here is Motor Vessel (MV) Vanish going by our house in November of 2022:
The craziest thing is that the roof actually pops up to include a flybridge. Yes really. When it's flat like this, it maximizes the energy the solar panels can harness. Here's a photo from their website that shows the flybridge in the upright position:
So skip ahead, it's now February of 2023, and who do we see in George Town, Great Exuma, but MV Vanish! I found a gmail address for them and sent them my photo, and they generously replied with an offer to give us a tour of their boat. Ron's brother Taylor and his wife Keely happened to be visiting us at the time, so the 5 of us (including Skeet) met this nice family and had the unique opportunity to see the boat on the inside. Believe it or not I had the good sense not to embarrass myself or these kind owners by taking a bunch of pictures, but that doesn't mean the desire to do so wasn't there. Here's a glimpse of the inside thanks to the Silent Yachts website. It's pretty damn cool to say the least.
Skip ahead AGAIN, and it's now December 15, 2024, and we just saw MV Vanish docked at Cricket Creek Marina in Little River SC! I emailed them to say hello, and learned that they'll eventually head to the Bahamas again after getting some work done on their boat. Even if they leave a month from now, they'll probably catch up to us in a day. 😂
It's been fun to witness Skeet warm right back up to his happy place of speaking with bridge tenders to ask for bridge openings when we need them. KORKZcrew needs about 18 feet of clearance when we put her antennas down, so we're lucky in that we can sneak under a lot of bridges on the ICW without having to wait for an opening. In some cases, like with the Little River swing bridge, you have no choice but to request an opening, but this particular bridge operates on demand, while others typically open on either the top or bottom of the hour.
When Skeet isn't driving the boat, working on navigation, or chatting with bridge tenders, he enjoys rocking out on the bow, and hates being filmed. And I don't blame him. I just thought I was being sly by recording him from the pilot house, but I got busted. 😂
Today's travels were scenic and uneventful, with very little boat traffic in either direction, until we saw this gorgeous trawler going by.
We've been trying to cruise until we run out of daylight, which happens around 5:00 or so, and today was no different. Steve took in the sights (and smells) and we called it a day near Brown Island in the beautiful South Santee River in South Carolina.
Night night, KORKZcrew!
10.25 hours underway; approx. 71 nautical miles traveled
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