Day 16 - Tuesday, 4 December

The great question of the day is why are we having the coldest weather of the trip, now that we've arrived in South Carolina? Did the earth turn upside-down on its axis? Are we going north instead of south? Are we just imagining it to be colder? Who knows?

The good news is that we will be arriving at Dataw Island Marina tomorrow by early afternoon. We have a reservation and the marina has a laundry, showers, fuel, relatively affordable costs, concrete floating docks, good security, etc., etc.

We are excited about getting there, visiting with long-time friends Frank and Debbie, getting back to Ohio, visiting with family and friends for the Christmas Holidays. During that time, I'll try to keep the weblog up to date as part of our adventures.

We are currently at an anchorage on Church Creek, at mile marker, 487 in 17' of water and little or no wind. I have 75' of anchor chain out just in case.

The only difficulty we had today and on this trip is getting across Charleston harbor. Here's what happened. We emerged from the ICW into Charleston harbor, leaving 130 on our starboard side on our way across mile marker 465...no problem. We began searching for R"2" on the channel...wait that's R"26"...no it's R"2" on the MAPTECH Chartkit, Norfolk to Florida and the Intracoastal Waterway, Region 6 Ninth Edition, and R"26" on the Intracoastal Waterway Chartbook, Norfolk, VA to Miami, FL. Wait, the Chartbook contains charts that are updated to 2001 and the Maptech Chartkit contains charts that appear to be more accurate. After a few tense moments, we were able to sort out the marks and geography around us and continue down the channel on the South side of Charleston harbor to the Wapoo Creek entrance. I guess the moral to the story...if there is a moral to the story...is sometimes having an alternate source of navigation information can be confusing...especially if the two contradict each other. It's probably better to be aware of the contradiction before you start using the information and that's what I failed to do. The date of the charts in the Chartbook should have been a red flag. Instead I looked at the front cover of the Chartbook each day and looked right past the warning.

And we almost missed Fort Sumter...now that would have been really embarassing!

After crossing Charleston harbor, we made it to the anchorage by 3:15 PM, dropped the anchor and took a nap...life at 6 miles per hour can be both stressful and very relaxing!