Our daughter, Tracee drove up to Beaufort from Palm Coast to surprise Todd for Father’s Day and spend the weekend on the boat. Tate was already there, as he joined us in bringing the boat down the coast from Holden Beach, NC. We took the dinghy over to Fishcamp on 11th Street in Port Royal, where Todd got his oyster fix, before hitting the shops and swimming at the local sandbar. Goofy good time!
Rainbow over St John’s Yacht Harbor, Charleston (left)
Someone’s idea of getting away from it all (upper right)
Arrival day (06/17) offered the first of many fantastic sunsets at Lady’s Island Marina (lower right)
We docked for a couple of nights at Leland Oil Company, a small marina within walking distance of the small town of McClellanville, home of the Deerhead Oak. Spectacular tree! One evening the three of us (Todd, Tate, and myself), were mesmerized by a thunderstorm in the distance that flashed a fantastic light show for more than an hour. Magical!
Bonus: the fly beasties, aka Bast*$% Bugs, stayed out on the ICW rather than following us up the creek to McClellanville.
The route was scenic, and the dolphins delightful, but we spent two days intermittently battling horrid, blood-thirsty, biting flies that descended from nowhere and attacked without mercy. No one dared move about on deck without swatter in hand, whaling away maniacally at the simultaneous attacks from multiple fronts. Watch your leg! No, your neck! Eek, your arm! So as not to have to sleep with the beasts, we rapidly secured the screens to protect the interior of the boat. Once secured, Tate went through the boat dispatching countless numbers of them, although we heard gleeful updates from below, 18! 22! Eerily, like something from a horror movie, they gathered outside on said screens and sat there peering in. Although we never officially identified the species that desperately needed to die, we used many creative names (not all of which should be repeated on a family-friendly blog …), finally settling on Bast*$% Bugs!
As we cruise, of all the wildlife we see, one of the best things has to be the dolphins that like to play in the wake if we are travelling fast enough. We are a trawler, not a motor yacht, but with a strong current pushing us, they visit. It is difficult to get a good video, though, since you can’t predict when they will pop up even though you can see them swimming alongside just below the surface. Well, that and the fact that Susie gets so excited by their antics, she forgets about the camera, and navigating, and lunch… She promised to try to do better (at the video process, anyway – she’s still totally going to be distracted in the presence of the dolphins). Here’s a glimpse:
By the time the camera is ready, the dolphins become camera shy. Fickle actors.
Our Travels 