Monday 10-20-08
The outside temperature was 46 degrees F. this morning, at daybreak. Polly thought that called for a hot oatmeal breakfast so we ate and made our second pot of coffee before getting underway at 08:00. The WX was grand – CAVU ++ and the tidal current was with us most of the morning to give us our preferred 8 kts. even with a reduced power setting.
The shores were loaded with birds in this area – bald eagles, a golden eagle (we think), pelicans, egrets, heron and of course, gulls and cormorants. We even had a couple of dolphin sightings. We are still in very wild and undeveloped low country. The marsh goes on forever with small water cuts here and there and for miles, no obvious signs of human development. There were a few local fisherman in small runabouts but otherwise traffic on the ICW was very light – we passed only one other boat, a sailboat, headed south. We thought that by now some other trawler snowbirds would have caught up to us, but we still feel at times, that we are alone in the water world.
Polly remembered that this was our neighbor, Bill Rankin’s, birthday so we gave him a call since the cell phone signal was strong. Bill caught us up to date on things in the neighborhood and Polly and Bill’s wife Lois had a good chat. The Rankins kindly keep an eye on our house and property and do us favors like tossing away some of the unsolicited newspapers that show up. They are good friends.
We are getting close to Charleston, SC but have decided not to make an overnight stop there. It is a great city but needs a few days to see the sights and enjoy some of the great restaurants that are there. We visited Charleston as part of the search for our first trawler. We didn’t find our boat there, but the trip was worth the drive just to check out this great southern city. We may make it a layover on the trip back north. When we set out this morning we thought we would stop at a marina at Palm Island, about 10 mile north of Charleston. The weather was so great that we decided to change the plan and anchored in a creek just north of Palm Island called Whiteside Creek. We arrived and anchored in the creek (on the NW side of the ICW) at 12:20 and decided to have lunch (PBJ for PMB and leftover meatloaf for RCB) and then take our dinghy to nearby Capers Island.

Capers is a barrier island and completely designated as a wildlife sanctuary. The trip to the islands floating dock was about a mile and didn’t seem to take very long to get there because the current was with us. The trip back to the boat later would take about twice the time due to the stronger current opposing us and our hand built dinghy with its 2.5 HP Yamaha outboard. The same rig, that carried us through the lock at the Tay Canal, and on to Perth, Ontario in the summer of 2007. When we use that boat I can’t help but reminisce about the nights and weekends spent in our garage, turning the mahogany boards and plywood into a little boat.

We spent a couple of hours on Capers Island hiking and looking for the alligators that are supposed to share the impounded interior waters with many species of birds and fish (and mosquitoes). No gators were to found but we did hike all the way to the ocean side, and took a bunch of pictures.

Back aboard FLIGHT, we took some time to clean off all of the insect repellent we had spread over our selves at Capers. I set up the grill and when dinner time came, it was burgers from the freezer and rice & red beans from the box (Zatarain’s). The evening melted into a cool, still starlit night that provided peaceful sleeping.