I am learning that there is just no free ride in sailing. After a glorious start to our overnight sail into Charlston, we woke to steep short chop, bashing waves breaking on the bow. Our bilge alarm went off in the morning, and after much exploring, lifting floorboards, we decided the source of all the water in the bilge was the breaking waves. Enough water ran over the bow into the anchor chain locker, to set off the alarm. So the good news was  we didn’t have a freshwater or salt water leak, we had a problem with the bilge pump.  We also have to close off the anchor chain opening when we are out on the ocean.

Albert was able to find some loose wires to tighten and fix our bilge pumps and then we were ready for a few days of sleep. I was exhausted.  I promised I would not complain again about the constant motoring on the intracoastal waterway, as that was a lot more appealing after a night of bashing in the ocean! In sailing as in life, when it’s good, it’s great. When it’s not so good, it’s not so good.

We pushed through the miserable stretch of steep waves, crabbing through to arrive in Charleston.

The air was sooty smokey from wild fires. I’m not keen on Cities anyway so we decided to just keep going. We headed to the Crab Shack, where we knew we could probably tie up for the night if we ate lunch and dinner there.

The Crab Shack is under Wappoo Bridge, which has got to be the loudest bridge in the world. But the people there just accepted the noise as normal. This nighttime post, make it as loud as you can stand to imagine how loud it was! Unreal loud, Albert days it was the metal decking on the bridge. Even if just one car passed it made an ungodly noise. Here is the bridge sound with a river party boat going under  and it  the last thing I heard before I fell into a deep sleep in Albert’s arms with exhausted dogs serving as additional blankets.