Days 49-51: March 7-9, 2023

Fresh off the anchor slipping experience we headed off to Beaufort, SC, to anchor again. You know the saying: Get right back on the horse. This anchor session went fine. However, the topic of the day was that Boris needs a bigger anchor. The added weight of Coda pushes us to the capacity of the current anchors holding power. A topic for later discussions.

On to Beaufort! It’s a cool town with a public dock that allows three hours of moorage. Steve decided Coda would be the ferry boat and we all loaded up and headed into town.

Beaufort is known for some movies. The bridge that leaves town is the one from Forrest Gump a scene where he’s running across the country. Pretty neat.

We got a bit of lunch, walked the town a bit, and somehow ended up at a chocolate shop. Imagine that. Tonia thought the Tetris mural was the bee’s knees. And, thus, we have a picture of Steve by it. We liked the chocolate shop’s motto too… check out the bottom of the Chocolate Tree.

After indulging, we strolled around a bit more.

On Day 2 in Beaufort, it had been previously planned (for weeks) to visit the kazoo factory. What!?! You read that right. An actual kazoo factory! Kazoobie Kazoos had a great tour and we all got to make and keep a kazoo, yes the kids too, at the end.

After the kazoo fun, we headed that afternoon for the next destination, an overnight anchorage on the way to Charleston. We anchored the three boats just with a beautiful sunset to settle us in.

Morgan/Monkey Island & Dataw Island

Day 51 marked some real monkey business. Mayli was set on seeing monkeys at Morgan Island (aka Monkey Island, for a reason) near our anchorage and Tonia was game since those monkeys are related to her lab’s work. Coda took off to head towards Charleston and check for possible anchorages along the way. We followed Saga a little further east around the island to the tree-lined side to see if there were any monkeys in sight from the boats. We’re not allowed to step foot on the island as these are former research monkeys (see development of Morgan Island’s Rhesus macaque colony and more recent info about Monkey Island) though they can be viewed from the water, if you’re lucky.

Well, it seems luck was both on our side and also not so much. We DID see monkeys!

Yet, we also suffered from this distraction causing us to have a huge lapse in awareness of our dinghy location—meaning we ran over our own line. What a rookie mistake!

We did catch it rather quickly when we heard the engine stutter, though the line was already around a propeller at that point. We set anchor to ensure we wouldn’t drift towards the island or shallow water and called to Saga for assistance. You could say we were rather lucky that Boris is an accomplished diver and had all of his equipment along. While he hadn’t been able to use it yet on the trip given our cancelled Bahamas plans, we gave him plenty of reason now… After anchoring Saga, he donned his dive equipment and swam over to our boat to cut the wound-up line off of our propeller. He got most of it off though the current was rather strong so we called it and went to nearby Dataw Island Marina where there was a mechanic to help check things out and Boris could finish the job with the boat tied to the dock at slack tide.

With the line completely off, the mechanic verified there was no leaking. We’d need to get the backup propeller seals replaced at some point as there were not useful any longer. We were very grateful the staff and mechanic at Dataw Island were super friendly and very accommodating getting us on the dock and quickly checking things out. We were still able to make our way out that same day anchoring partway to Charleston.

Below: random pick of old Coke ice box at the marina office and Saga at dock to help us out!

Day 49 Trip Details:
Palmetto Bay Marina, Hilton Head Island, US to Beaufort, US
Time: 3 h 45 m (06:16 to 10:02)
Distance: 23.19 nm

Day 50 Trip Details:
Beaufort, US to Waterfront Park Dock, Beaufort, US
Time: 0 h 21 m (11:27 to 11:48)
Distance: 0.73 nm

Day 50-2 Trip Details:
Waterfront Park Dock, Beaufort, US to Beaufort County, US
Time: 2 h 40 m (15:42 to 18:23)
Distance: 14.04 nm

Day 51 Trip Details:
Beaufort County, US to Beaufort County, US
Time: 3 h 04 m (08:57 to 12:01)
Distance: 6.19 nm

Day 51-2 Trip Details:
Beaufort County, US to Colleton County, US
Time: 2 h 1 m (15:53 to 17:55)
Distance: 14.09 nm