Lapidus Sails Again

Our overnight sail to Charleston on the outside was immensely satisfying. We've had a full summer, but sailing has been missed. After leaving our slip (we feel like we own it after over four months), we had to return. Our speed was slow even considering the current, so we knew we had a barnacle problem. We were fortunate to quickly locate a diver to clean the barnacles off our prop; we were out again and on our way at 2:15 p.m. The trip was a fast 25 hours; this includes three hours out of the East River and St. Simon's Sound and almost three hours in the Charleston Channel to Charleston Harbor. Our new Alpha Auto Pilot (now known as AA) seems to like us. We have a bit of a learning curve to really allow it to perform to its potential, but it's already so much better than Mr. Otto, who must have been a little worn out; he sure couldn't hold a course for long.

Lapidus was also delighted to be on open water again. With a West/Southwest breeze we danced along briskly on a beam reach. When the wind shifted to the northeast, we were close hauled, but still sailing along nicely. Savannah and Charleston are large shipping and commercial ports, so we weren't surprised to have lots of ships for company, most of them at night. We range out on our radar to check for traffic often. Our AIS provides the position, course, and speed of a ship as well as its name and identification numbers. We know it greatly increases our safety at sea. Plus, when we hail a ship by its name, we almost always receive a response. Using the EBL (Electronic Bearing Line) on our radar, we can determine if we are on a collision course (or uncomfortably close) with these behemoth guys. The two ships we hailed both immediately said that they would alter course. The words of one captain were, "Don't Worry. We will take care of you." The accent came close to convincing us we were in a Russian spy movie, but the ship changed course, and all was well.

The channel into Charleston is long, but very wide and deep. In fact, a pleasure ship also heading into Charleston passed us just as a tug pulling a barge headed out to sea passed - three of us side by side and room to spare. Charleston Harbor is lovely, large and alive with activity. In addition to sail and power boats of all sizes, several tourist boats were cruising, including one large schooner. Many church steeples are viewable above the historic buildings. These steeples are the tallest structures; no skyscrapers in downtown Charleston. We plan to spend more time in Charleston after the Annapolis Boat Show. I think a quick review of the history will make seeing it more remarkable.

This is a stock photo, so it will not enlarge, but it does show a nice view of downtown Charleston from the harbor

We took a slip for the night in the Maritime Center. We were, of course, tired , but we also needed to check the tides for our trip to Ross Marine south of Charleston. The tides are significant and the current is strong. Our route would include a Bascule Bridge opening and we did not want to be going with the current if we had to wait on the Bridge to open (which is almost always).

We checked the tides for both the Bascule Bridge and Ross Marine on the ICW and the Stono River. Though they are less than four miles apart, the tide at the boatyard is an hour and a half later! That should work out OK, but we would need to be out of our slip at high tide to catch slack tide for the bridge - that meant leaving by 8:30 a.m. We took a shower, had dinner on board, and were in bed just after dark.