Report From Onboard Jenny

[Da...@schramm-family.net]

Friday, April 08, 2011 9:30:49 AM Location: Charleston SC Latitude is 32 degrees 46.903 minutes north. Longitude is 79 degrees 57.463 minutes west. No recent weather observation is available. Wednesday afternoon we loaded Jenny up with a full belly of fuel. She sucked down 470 gallons at $3.83 per. Thank goodness we only need to do this once or twice a year. She is still averaging about 2.5 miles per gallon, so a full load will take us up to NY and back to FL again. When Jenny's belly is full, she lists to port by about 5 degrees, making life aboard a little unbalanced. We offset this a little by putting full water barrels into the dinghy which sits on her starboard side. We released Jenny from the bottom at dawn, Thursday and headed out to sea along with four other sailboats, all heading north. The seas were just a little lumpy, so I dropped Jenny's birds in for a smooth ride. We are fully wimps now, with two foot lumps being too much. UGH. Our plan was to hop up the coast, stopping in Brunswick and Savannah GA before jumping up to Charlestown. We overheard the sailboats talking about their overnight plans for the passage directly to Charleston on the VHF. The day was so fine, with the promise that the night would be even better that we decided to skip GA on this trip, and join the sailboats. Fortunately, I had the trip to Charlestown all plotted into the computer, so with a click on the harbor entrance waypoint, we changed direction slightly and were on our way. We settled into a long afternoon, watching the dolphins play and turtles dive as we approached them. Jenny was sure happy to have blue water under her again after all the ICW traveling. It was blue water, but light blue. The depth never got above 60 feet, something west coast sailors could never imagine. A finch showed up on deck in the afternoon, obviously blown out to sea. It was tired and confused. I put out water and rice, but it never found it. It came in the cabin a few times, but did not like our company and finally flew out to sea on a suicidal adventure. The water did calm down at dusk, and I have to fess up. We turned on the Sony and watched American Idol, just like we were on a cruise ship. Life is a struggle. We only averaged six knots through the night, and I found out at dawn that we were dragging a ten foot long piece of plastic, the kind used to form sand fences on the beach. That explained it. I also discovered our finch was still with us. Hopefully he stayed onboard somewhere long enough for us to get him to land. The cell phone came alive when we got close to shore and a call from my brother Bob informed me of my mom's death Thursday afternoon. She had Alzheimer's and it was a long slow affair, something not to be wished on anyone. She is in a better place now. We have taken a slip at the Harborage marina here for the month and will rent a car to drive back to FL on Monday. It will be good to see the kids and my brother and sister-in-law again. Then we will take some time to see this lovely city. It sure was impressive steaming past Ft. Sumter this morning and seeing all the anti-bellum mansions. David Powered by BoatExec http://www.BoatExec.com