August 17-31, 2016 Charleston

We pretty much stayed on the boat both days staying out of the heat (100+ heat indexes).  I rode to Harris Teeter a few times (expensive) and we went to the bar for happy hour.  Otherwise we occupied ourselves with cleaning the interior of the boat and doing odd little projects.  And some blog updates.

It did rain this evening, some big thunderstorms but we only tasted a few sprinkles.  At least the heat is moderated somewhat.

Storm approaching from the west

Greg and Laura aren’t able to visit us in Hilton Head next month.  After doing some math it turns out to be cheaper to just stay here.  We almost certainly have to be plugged in at a marina somewhere to run the AC or Bubbie will perish, and I wont sleep.   Mary would probably take her sweater off.

Hurricanes, always on my mind this time of year, are in the news.  Mid August through the end of September are the peak hurricane months.  There are two rolling our way now, but the first is expected to stay well out in the Atlantic.  The second is too far away for any accurate predictions, but the forecasters are more concerned with this one because it has the potential to track right over the US, east coast or Gulf.

Met another Gold Looper today.  They sold their house, did the loop and now live in a small condo here in Charleston where they keep their boat.

The dog's nemesis,  The landscaper with the blower returning what she dug up 

Bubbie is increasingly upsetting the nice landscaping here.  She does her thing and then frantically digs up the ground to cover it up.   The preferred mulch here is pine needles.  The dog must have grown up down here in pine mulch country cause she loves kicking them all over.  Now there is a trail of pine needles strewn over the crisply delineated walkways when we pass by.  Hope the landscapers don’t see this!

Not much outside activity today.  Hot.

Thunderstorms in the afternoon.  At the pool the free treat of the day was Root Beer Floats.  It was hot, Mary had two.

18th Hole complete with fire pit and bar under a tent.

I was able to take an abbreviated walk to the nearby golf course.  Very nice.  I was going to inquire about green fees and such but there were two groups of golfers waiting so I decide to try another day.

The aft AC raw water cooling pump died tonight, or so it appears.  Normally the 110VAC electric pump drives a magnetic impeller which circulates cooling seawater to cool the condenser.  Evidence of its operation can be seen in a steady flow of water from a through hull.

This evening there was a startling lack of evidence!  The aft AC does not produce cool air if the raw water pump isn't working.  Thus we will be sweating in an 85 degree cabin unless I get the other AC units on line and setup a Rube Goldberg arrangement of fans which keeps the aft stateroom hovering just below 80.

So out came the fans.  The other AC units were cooling so we wont to too uncomfortable tonight.  And I yanked out the spare AC pump to get it ready.

We made it to the Fish House for breakfast before their closing time of 10:30 this morning.  We had decided to indulge and try a gourmet breakfast advertised by the Fish House restaurant..   Perhaps the advertising may have been a little overstated.  George Web and the Waffle Houses are just as good, and half the cost.

Non Bubbie type critters live around here

We took a little walking path through the marsh but were cautious after confronting a red and white sign warning of their snake and alligator population.  

Back on the boat I tackled the dying AC problem.  I had the new pump out but to test the water flow first.  We have a single thru-hull which passes sea water to the three pumps for the air conditioners.   In this case though, the aft AC unit was over heating and shutting down either because the pump was failing or because the water flow was restricted.

The aft AC is last on the feed pipe for sea water.  I did a few tests and found that running alone it was fine.  Once another AC unit came on line the aft AC water flow trickled and stopped. 

Ah Ha!  Water flow!  I haven't cleaned out the AC sea strainer for months.  It rarely ever clogs.  But we are in Charleston now so there maybe more stuff in the water than I can see.

However I couldn’t budge the sea cock lever to shut off the water flow so I could clean out the strainer.  It took a few blows from a hammer to get it moving so I could finally shut if off.

The strainer was completely plugged with ooze and mud.  And little squirmy creatures.  The Cooper River is a muddy river!

Open sea strainer and cleaned strainer basket.  And a hammer.

I cleaned out removable sea strainer basket and then attacked the sea strainer containment vessel.  It was also full of ooze and muck.  I sucked it out with a our Little Green Machine upholstery cleaner (pseudo shop vac).  But when I lifted up the holding tank of the thing, the bottom popped off spraying sea water all over everything including some engine parts.

Another 40 minutes of cleaning that up and I had everything back together.  Turned on an AC unit and bled the water line but it took a few minutes.  It initially had an airlock.  Had to do this for all three.  Now though we have cool air once again.

Bleeding the air out of the sea water line isn't too difficult.  The pumps aren't self priming but are positioned below the water line.  Bleeding the lines is essentially loosening the face plate screws of the pumps and let it pump air and water out until its all water.  The only hard part is the contorted position one must assume to reach the pumps.

Since I was down there I cleaned out the water maker, sea strainer as well.   Clean as a whistle.

After all this I talked with our neighbor who mentioned he cleans out his strainers twice a week because it so bad in here.  So I guess I’ll go check them next week.

Then I tackled the grill.  It’s, ah, very well seasoned.  Some would even say it imparts a cavalcade of smokey flavors to anything cooked on it.  Others conclude its filthy and needs to be cleaned. 

Full disclosure -- I haven’t cleaned it since we left Marathon.

It took a few hours but its spiffy now and all the gas outlet holes are unplugged.   Also gone (I think)  are the subtle, smoky flavors.  And the smoke.  It never occurred to me that people scurrying off the docks were really running from the billowing clouds of grill smoke pouring out of our boat.  I mean who knew?

A nice steady rain shower passed through just after Carnival Escape left for a Bahamas cruise.  It's berthed right across from us and, as I was told, it runs it's generators all the time never taking advantage of the shore power.

Bubbie hasn’t eaten her dinner for two days and Mary, frantic now, mushed it all up so she wouldn’t have to chew (she has some bad teeth).  Then she ate.  

Its Saturday here and weekend boaters are out in force.  Going to be a loud night but we don’t care because we’ll be basking in the cool air of our aft stateroom where we don't hear much of anything.

Another hot day but we remain cool.  

We finally put snaps on the nice curtain thing Mary made to cover the gaping hole where out defunct ice maker once lived.  Buying a new one is $1000.  So we haven’t replaced it yet since making ice in the chest freezer with old fashion ice cube trays works just fine.  Although I think we are a puzzlement to other boaters who have ice makers, but to save a  $1000 I can walk to the freezer and take out a tray of ice.

Yesterday I put up Mary's coat hanger doodad and then drilled a 2 inch whole in the our stateroom bulkhead and mounted our rear depth sounder.   Today I was going to re-do the wiring for it and some of the other outlets there but its quite the rats nest so I’m taking a few extra days to trace out all the wires and order some 12VDC outlets and switches.    Besides its mid 90’s again today.  

We are contemplating on dumping the directors chair that has sat up on the fly bridges for all these years.  It’s a little worn but Dave and I were able to thread some webbing from lifting straps through it to make it functional.  Certain people think its an eye sore.  So now its sitting on the sundeck either to be chucked in the dumpster or taken back up to the fly bridge.

It could go either way.

Stayed aboard most of the day although it was only in the low 90’s today.  Worked on a blog entry from Bahamas (yes, way behind).

 Rented a car for tomorrow so we'll have transportation for three days.

I was picked up at Resort entrance by the Enterprise driver who was delayed because of the elevated number of customers they had today.    He was an older guy driving a 15 passenger van.  He told me, as had other people, that Mt. Pleasant is experiencing explosive growth with several new subdivisions and additional office buildings and retail establishments.  His complaint is with the lack of expanded infrastructure to handle to boom.

Our Challenger 

They initially gave me a small car like I requested but it had a tire pressure light on and the nice lady immediately said no, we’ll get you another car.  Several minutes later I was driving away in another hot rod Dodge.   A Challenger this time.

We went to the UPS store first so I could return the Vornado fan that didn’t work (they sent a new one to us yesterday) and Mary was returning a Bubbie life vest that didn’t fit.  Seems Bubbie is becoming a little fatter sausage then we realized.

Then to Walmart where we bought necessary miscellaneous stuff.   I didn’t buy a whole lot of Birdseye frozen veggies that we can put in to microwave where they steam cook.  I’ve watched them go from 16oz 5 years ago to 10.8 ounces now.  Price differential is zero.

Since I’m turning into a curmudgeon I wrote them a note expressing my displeasure and inquiring why this was necessary.  We may have to start up a square foot garden here aboard.

On the way back we decided to be bold and explore Charleston culinary offerings.  We ate lunch at Wendys.  

Bubbie didn’t eat again.  In fact she sometimes acts like she’s had  a stroke just sitting their staring off into space.  Treats though still mildly excite her.  So does a walk, but when the Heat Indexes are up in the 100’s,  Mary has to carry her back. 

Mary and Bubbie were still napping this morning so I just headed on on errands to Lowes and West Marine.

Epoxied up some dings in the dinghy and tested the Foscam web cam we’ve had for a while.  I was hoping I could use it in the engine room but alas the resolution is too low and it only works in the 2.4 ghz band.  And, I discovered it wont pick up a wireless signal in the engine room with the engine room door closed. 

So I bagged it up along with some other spare electronic parts and took it up to the marina office for anyone to pick through.

Walking the dog tonight, I’d forgotten the car was parked by the restaurant so I had to go back to get the keys and decided to make a grocery run tonight to help defray the number of stops we have to make tomorrow.

One of my amazon packages with some electrical switches couldn’t be delivered so I have to go to the post office tomorrow to fetch it.

In a twist, Mary has been getting up before me.  However I’m convinced because the dog, knowing she gets walked by Mary, wakes up and sits next to her.  Bubbie has breath that, mishandled, could end life as we know it.  But it wakes up Mary while I, oblivious to all this, slumber peacefully.  Its rather nice!

We went to post office in hopes of locating this package of 12 volt outlets I had ordered from Amazon.  It wasn’t there.  But Elizabeth from the marina office called me because my other package had arrived.  The post office guy said the lost package may have been out for delivery again this morning so I should check and then if its not at the marina come back in.

When I enter the tracking number on the USPS site it says it was delivered to the front desk and handed to a clerk.  We’ll see.

After the that we went to a Publix grocery store a few blocks away and stocked up on some perishable things.  We aren’t leaving until the 9^th but have learned that splitting up all this shopping for two weeks of anchoring out, is best accomplished in smaller chunks thus making it far easier to lug all the stuff up the ladder on board the boat.

The docks here are floating which is a good thing since the tides can by 7 feet.  The bad thing is that we need the ladder to get on and off the boat.  The ladder can be trying with heavy bags.

Mary testing the warm waters at Sullivan Beach

Once the groceries were all stored away we ate lunch and then went to Sullivan Beach for a few hours of strolling on the beach.  Very nice, and very uncrowded.  Wish that were true for the roads.

Political humor even down here.  Credit: Jen and Dave

Back on the boat I retrieved my found package and noted once again how much ship traffic passes through Charleston.  Its great fun to watch all the heavily laden freighters run up the river to the commercial port facilities.  I think we just may take the dinghy down and take a run up there.

Its fun watching all the ships ply the channel so close to the marina (credit: Jen)

We decided to keep the car an extra day.   Nothing like spending a morning at Walmart.

The tropical storm moving over the Bahamas tomorrow is forecast to become a tropical storm or hurricane.  Its projected path is over the Keys and south Florida up towards the pan handle.  Looks like we may have escaped the worst of this one!

I had to wake up Mary and Bubbie at 10 this morning because the dog needed to walk and we had to get the rental car returned in early afternoon.

We managed to make it to Walmart and stocked up with what we needed.  Once it was all on board and stowed away I returned the car and then hung around the boat while Mary and Bubbie napped.

Cool, uncrowded pool on a hot day

Went to the marina office to pickup my other found, lost package that was delivered today and then left Mary and Bubbie napping while I went to the pool.  The water was noticeably cleaner and refreshingly cool today in contrast to when the Hagens were here.  

Dolphins were playing in the water near the boat this evening while we were cocktailing.

We didn’t do much else except eat dinner and talk the dog for a walk.  In this heat my knees feel almost normal so I started running again and ran over to the baseball stadium where College of Charleston was playing Navy.  Well I think it was Navy but  never could quite make out the opponent name.  The heat isn't nearly so beneficial to my eyes I guess.

Dennis's red hulled Valiant 47.  

Met Dennis our other neighbor who just showed up.  He’s in this beautiful red hulled sailboat.  Friendly guy from Ohio.  The boat is a Valiant 47 that Dennis refurbished which included a gorgeous red paint job.

We stayed aboard again most of the day.  I tackled re-wring the aft depth sounder and adding some 12 volt outlets around the boat.

Hanger doodad and Depth sounder

Turns out the depth of the original 12 volt electrical boxes isn’t nearly deep enough to accommodate a 12 volt cigarette lighter type receptacle.  And there isn’t any way to get a hole drilled into the bulkhead.  Scratch one project off the list.

Next I pulled wires through to a switch box near our bed so I can switch on the depth sounder easily. During that little escapade I stumbled on a pair of seemingly dead wires dangling by an access plate.  Only they turned out to be live 12vdc which is why the wires were too hot to touch. 

Wiring old boats ... always a joy

After correcting that problem I started to wire the illuminated 12 volt SPST switch only to discover the terminals were not labeled.  So that took some time to figure out.  For documentations sake, the two terminals closest together are the power in and load terminals.  The terminal standing apart is the ground.

We took Bubbie for her walks and continue to marvel how she can completely decimate a nice pine needle mulch bed in under a minute.  So then Mary has to quickly scrap all the debris back before the guy with the blower discovers who is redistributing his mulch.

Dennis next door arrived several weeks ago from Bermuda.  He lives here and works here too (un-retired).   He was working on his boat most of the day while we weren’t.  But then he has to return to Ohio to work while we can slowly tackle boat projects he has to speed through.

The clothes dryer is now almost useless because it takes several hours to dry a tiny load of clothes.  Looks like we’ll need to take the thing out again so I can try can get inside and clear out any debris that’s causing a blockage of the blower.  I don’t think I could get a new blower if I could even get it apart. The thing is 20+ years old.

Last year I was researching stacked laundry centers and they are rare.  For the stacked washer/dryer machine like this with 110 volt dryers within the space limitations we have exactly one replacement choice.

We also were informed that the front desk refused delivery of a package we had sent here. So the post office took it back and I have to bike the 5 miles to the Post Office to fetch it from them.  Ever experience Charleston traffic on a bike?  Ugh …

Rode to Post Office today.  They took 30 minutes to find the mail from St. Brendans Isle which is our mail forwarding service.

Finally.  The package!

Mary used the little dinghy to try and wash the hull but floated away with no oars.  And surprise!,  the current pushed away from our boat all the way down to the next dock.  So I gathered the oars and walked way over to the next dock where I met her.  She took the oars and rowed back cross to our boat.  There were several amused boaters watching all this.   We were the entertainment this afternoon.

I think I discovered a water leak in out internal water system somewhere.   There is an unusual amount of water in the bilge.  The only other explanations would be a leak in the hull or fittings or the salon AC unit condensate is draining in the bilge.

Worked on  the blog most of the day piecing together disparate pictures and log entries.

My package arrived but the one I really need is at reported to be sitting at the post office so another bike ride tomorrow.  It seems the mailbox for the marina here at the resort is rather small and when the Post Office cant squeeze any more in, the simply take it back with them.

Along with the new building and remodeling, Elizabeth told me they are doubling the size of a new mail box they plan to install in a month.   

Investigated the water leak.  The tank monitor show us at ½ or below which is inconsistent with usage since we filled the tanks which have not been used.   After poking around I can only surmise its coming from the front center line tank if it is indeed a fresh water leak in our system.  It shouldn't be too terribly difficult to remove but I wouldn’t attempt it unless we are at a boat yard.  

But I cant trace the condensate drain line from  the salon AC unit so I'm guessing it is draining in the bilge and could be accounting for the increased water levels.   I think we'll turn off the salon AC for a few days and watch the bilge water levels.

Sunset waling on the way to the bridge

Tonight's walk took me to a new route through an industrial/condo park and onto the Arthur Ravenel Bridge which is the very large and very spectacular bridge here in Charleston.   A surprising number of people were out strolling the bridge.

Meanwhile the AC units continue to function although the aft stateroom AC water pump didn’t start for several minutes again.  I’m only trying to run one unit because the water here is so laden with silt the filters clog up quickly and the pumps have to be bled to get them primed.

Tropical Disturbance #9 is slated to become a Tropical Storm and then probably a hurricane which is now forecast to cross the Gulf and then cut through the pan handle before exiting out to the Atlantic.   Where it exits is critical to us because it path right now is right over Charleston.  If it exits land well south and comes up this way it will have strengthened into a hurricane again and we’ll be SOL.

Tropical  Disturbance #9 is now Tropical Storm Hermine.  Its predicted track carries it west of us here in Charleston but as Hank from Southport pointed out, its asymmetrical shape is making the east side of the storm track more prone to storm level winds.  Great ….

View from the bridge looking towards The Yorktown and the marina beyond

In better news, I was up on the bridge tonight.  Great place to walk and wonderful sights.

The bilge seems drier now since I shut down the salon AC.  The Tank Watch system we have to monitor water tank levels is a bit unstable so it just may be a coincidence that I noticed the tank level drop when I noticed the unusual  bilge water levels.

Tomorrow is September 1!