37. Rainy Days

After our two nights anchored at Cumberland Island, it was time to keep heading north towards New England. We did one short hop up to Jekyll Island, where we spent one night and were, once again, hit with another thunderstorm, luckily a smaller one this time. The next day was an early morning start up to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. It was another smooth day of motoring and we arrived in the late afternoon, launched the tender and prepared to stay for two nights.

The next morning, I woke up early to completely placid waters and still air. With these perfect conditions, I decided to take the new drone up to the flybridge to try it out and get some aerial pictures of Puffing Quest at anchor. The new drone is a replacement for the one lost in Mexico. Eitan and I had tried to fly the new drone a few times while underway but there seemed to be some interference with the drone’s GPS from the boat’s navigation equipment, and we couldn’t chance losing another one. Unfortunately, Hilton Head has an airport and I couldn’t fly too high, but did manage to get some nice pictures of the boat as it reflected off the water in the morning sun.

Our full day in Hilton Head was spent exploring the surrounding estuary by dinghy as Eitan gave the wife lessons on maneuvering the dinghy. There wasn’t much going on in the surrounding area, just miles and miles of tributaries and estuaries. That evening, Eitan and I had a nice evening onboard as the owners ate at a restaurant onshore. Overall, it was a pretty relaxing stay at Hilton Head, until Eitan checked the weather. We were notified of a new low-pressure system, Tropical Storm Claudette, forming and scheduled to hit us on arrival in Charleston, South Carolina. With this new storm expected to bring strong winds, we needed to be tied to the marina dock before it hit.

Early the next morning we pulled anchor and headed out in a race to beat the bad weather. The trip to Charleston was another full day of motoring, but the skies were already looking stormy as we approached the entrance to the channel. Since the east coast is so shallow and notorious for sandbars and shoals, most major port cities have several miles of buoy-lined channels to guide ships into the entrance without running aground. Just as we were about to enter between the first set of marker buoys, the USCG made a radio announcement for strong thunderstorms developing inland and heading our way.

Still traumatized from the 60-knot winds that challenged us at Cumberland Island, I began questioning Eitan’s decision to continue on into the channel. With winds that strong, it seemed much safer to stay out on the open water without anything to hit instead of being in a channel with other traffic, or the port area with an abundance of obstacles. Eitan assured me that there’s a reason why he is getting paid to captain the boat, not me, and to go grab another cup of tea and relax. I sat there with eyes glued to the radar and wind display as we began our approach into Charleston.

As (almost) always, Eitan was right with his weather prediction and the thunderstorms passed in front of us without so much as a drop of rain and no more than 16 knots of wind. With a sigh of relief, I began prepping the boat to dock by setting up the lines and blowing up the fenders. Being assigned the end spot on the “Mega Dock” made for easy docking. We connected the shore power and water and then settle into our temporary address next to all the superyachts, waiting for Tropical Storm Claudette to arrive in the coming days.

Our first full day in Charleston was Father’s Day, and even though we all had the day off to explore, we couldn’t see much of the city with the series storms rolling in. While the storm wasn’t as strong as predicted, we did get a good amount of rain and sustaining 30 knot winds. It appears that, despite the small craft advisory and horrible weather forecast, some boaters were committed to spending Father’s Day on the water with family. Eitan and I sat up in the pilot house watching people attempt to pull in and out of the marina entrance, get pushed off course, then circle around and trying it again. Unfortunately, our first few days in Charleston were spent stuck onboard, either sheltering from the weather or meeting technicians coming onboard to work on the boat.

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