In a fog

Charleston Harbor. Monty and I arrived here a few days ago: tired, autopilot on the fritz, winds turning against us: time to relax, regroup, repair, and review options while awaiting favorable winds. Our final sunrise at sea was a knockout, something really special.

Yes, all three of those are the same sunrise!

I dropped anchor near Fort Sumpter, launched the dinghy, and rowed an ecstatic dog to shore to a vacant beach. Then we returned to the boat and slept and slept...

Every day we have awakened to heavy fog and have had to warn off boats a few times Sunday and Monday. People seem to just make their way slowly through the fog, but I can at least hear their engines as they approach.... and there are not many now that New Years weekend is done. 

I like the contrasts here: I look in one direction and see Charleston a couple miles away, look the other and see miles of salt marsh with low cedar trees on the higher bits.

I walk the beach and find deer tracks,

baby horseshoe crabs,

foraging shore birds, egrets, and a multitude of shells. As we row in or out (a quarter mile each way!), dolphins visit us in mild curiosity: last night I heard one coughing nearby...something I've never heard before and probably not a good sign for that individual. 

I love the windrows of shells on the beach: they tell such stories. I found shells of striated mussels, razor clams, jackknife clams, quahogs, jingle shells, and numerous cockles;

but by far the majority of shells here are oysters and some tiny clams I don't recognize: perhaps coquina?...

but those are supposed to be far more colorful. Hmm..

Speaking of oysters, a boat motored up and the folks offered me some oysters. I've been working on opening them since, typically sneaking a knife in when they open up to feed in the bucket of water. The really cool thing, however, is that I've found pea crabs in about half of them so far. In Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop, Gibbons talks about these crabs, but I've never seen them, as far as I recall. Living their whole lives in the protection of an oyster shell, possibly eating bits off the oyster, these crabs need no hard shell, so are always soft. I fried them up like soft-shell crabs and they start out tasting like oysters, but after a few seconds the crab flavor comes through. Tasty! (Let's see if I can get a pic later today....nope, the final ones were crab free.)

Thunderstorms arrive around sunset today and winds will preclude a second trip to shore for Monty: sorry pup! I may, however, take him to shore tomorrow AM before departing on the outgoing tide. Since the autopilot is kaput, I plan to steer by balancing the sails, steering by hand, and by heaving-to as needed. This SHOULD work.... Also, my red navigation light is kaput (I use another light to light up the boat from that side for now), alternator has died, fuel injection pump is leaking, and the fog has left the interior of the boat very damp. Ah, the joy of boat life! 

Actually, I have parts being shipped to a friend in FL and am really looking forward to repairing things. I find a great satisfaction to getting things back in working order.

Monty and I should be in St Augustine by nightfall Saturday. Wish us luck!