Monday, April 9, 2012

Beaufort - At a dock

Beaufort has a beautiful waterfront for walking
It seems that every step north incurs an impact of 1 or 2 degrees to the temperature. Although the temperatures are in the 70's this week and may even reach 80, on Wednesday and Thursday there's a cold front due that will drive the temperature to just below 70 for the day in Savannah. However, in Charleston where we're headed for those days, the high is only to be 64! I think we're headed north too soon! For now we're committed to making it through the shallow areas with a high tide and we're in sync to do just that are our present rate of progress so we'll continue. (editing this I just realized I called temps in the 60's a "cold front", oh well, blood sure thins quickly down here)

Hoolie "entertaining" Susan and Ron
The boat is running better than ever. The prop is smooth and the engine temperature seemed to have stabilized around 84C (183F) after all the work at Hinckley. I found the source of the varying temperature gauge. The power wire to the sensor was connected to one of the terminals on the alternator and when I went to tightened it, I found that it was finger loose. I cleaned and tightened it last night and today there was no variation at all in the temperature readout, great!

The long dock at Beaufort
Pulling into Beaufort, we asked for an outside dock given our previous experience with near disaster with an inside dock when we tried backing out and the current caught us and turned the boat through a 180. Once tied up we saw another boat we recognized, TK3 with Susan and Ron aboard. Don and Liz Bunch had told us they were coming north at about the same time. We invited them over for a visit and learned more about the Bahamas.

Tuesday is the really thin water day, the worse of the passage north which is why we timed this part of the trip with high tides. We'll anchor in Steamboat Creek before moving on the Charleston the next day.

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