Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Charleston Maritime Center - Laundry and provisioning

My favorite sculpture on the ICW - a flock of birds taking flight
This is our last day here so we had to get ready to move which included laundry and provisioning. The marina here has two brand new washers and two dryers, both are commercial grade and very large. Best of all, they are free to transients at the marina!

Beware of the octopus in the children's playground
We walked the two blocks to Harris Teeter, Ann's favorite supermarket on the ICW, to stock up with supplies until we reach Beaufort, NC. I was going to change the oil on the genset until I realized I didn't have the required oil filter! It was a rather obvious thing to do, to check to be sure you have a filter before planning to change the oil - but I forgot to do that. Oh well, it will wait until another day...

Ready to go!
Wednesday we are headed through a bunch of very shallow areas on a falling tide, not the best strategy but it ought to be good enough to get through Isle of Palms. We will have about two feet of tide and it should be enough, I think. To add to the confusion, SonarChart on Navionics decided to stop working. They are aware of the problem and are working on it but until they fix it, I do not have SonarCharts of the Isle of Palms and McClellanville, the two worst stretches of the ICW. However, I do have Aqua Map USACE survey charts and I'll use them in the meantime. A further complication is the opening schedule of the Ben Sawyer bridge. They do not open between 7:00 am and 9:00 am during the week so we are aiming for the 9:00 opening which puts us on a falling tide. We would have much preferred an earlier pass thorugh the bridge but it was not to be. It should be fun through the Isle of Palms on a falling tide!

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