Dodgy Dinghy

Dodgy Dinghy

Wednesday 21st April 2021

We were having breakfast when there was a loud knocking on the side of the boat. The harbormaster wanted us to move our dinghy off the dock because it was impeding access (a bit). Having successfully patched two leaks we were happy to re-launch the Dumb Dog and pump up the tubes to full pressure. Sadly by the afternoon it was clear that the leaks were not fixed and the starboard tube felt as squishy as before. Armed with a bucket of very soapy water and a hosepipe we did another round of leak hunting and after a lot of close inspection found a third and hopefully final leak. All three of these were behind the rub rail and weren’t really punctures so we suspect the Dumb Dog’s days may be numbered. We will try and repair this latest leak tomorrow morning when the dinghy is dry again.

We finished off all the remaining boat jobs we had on our list - re-fitting the knot meter and emptying and refreshing our water tanks (120 gallons). We had planned to leave today, but decided to postpone our departure until tomorrow afternoon to allow a strong cold front to pass through.  We weren’t too taken with the idea of beating directly into 20-knot winds.  We now plan to go out of Port Royal sound in the afternoon and sail overnight to the Winyah Bay inlet, a journey of about 130 miles. We had hoped to go further, either to the Cape Fear River or all the way to Beaufort, but there is more bad weather expected on Saturday and we want to be safely anchored before that arrives. 

We did manage to get out for a couple of birding trips today. This morning before breakfast we took a walk through the local neighborhood and golf course and saw quite a few birds. Then later this afternoon we took our bikes over to the Whooping Crane Pond conservation area. This turned out to be spectacularly beautiful. We did see some nice birds – pileated woodpecker, ruby throated hummingbird (first of the season) and Swainsons thrush, but the only new bird for our list was a Wood Duck. 

Dinner tonight was Sesame Chicken – a Martha Stewart recipe. Unfortunately we didn’t have any sesame seeds or sesame oil so to call our dish “Sesame Chicken” seems like a misnomer. However, it was really tasty and having eaten a “lovely big salad” for lunch we were starving and this totally hit the spot!

No blog tomorrow as we will be sailing if all goes well. 

Mike

32 14.742 N, 80 44.856 W

The boardwalk at Whooping Crane Pond Conservation area

Alligators, cotton mouth snakes, turtles, wood-ducks, wading birds, warblers, woodpeckers ... what's not to like!