Days Events:
Wx - perfect - sunny, 72, little wind, smooth water. See photos.
Travel - left Georgetown at 09:15, having to use a pivot/spring line on the stern so we could pivot the bow out and avoid hitting a large catamarran docked in front of us, on the face dock; arriving at Myrtle Beach, Osprey Plantation Marina, at 13:30/1:30, after 4.2 hr, averaging 8 mph.
Before going to our slip, we filled our diesel tanks - 261g total @ $1.60/gal; and pumped out the holding tank. Always feels better to have full fuel tanks and an empty waste tank! Had to run the pumpout hose through the pilothouse to get to the starboard side access fitting and for some reason the Admiral was insistent that I put the nozzle in a plastic bag after doing its thing - undoubtedly worried some 'thing' might drip onto the rug, or I could just plain trip and have 'things' spray all over the place - a delightful scenario. So, being the compliant captain that I am, I agreed with this prudent plan completely and no 'thing' was misplaced inside in transit. We use an adapter which threads into the waste tank fitting on the stbd side deck and the pump nozzle clamps onto this; works much better than trying to hold a rubber cup/sealer over the discharge hole to suck out the contents and less risk of having a 'brown out'.
Regarding fuel/mileage, the 261 gal was used over the last 458 miles, giving us 1.7 mpg, or 0.6 gpm; and over 57 hrs of travel, which gives us 4.6 gph at an average speed of 8 mph. These are quite good for a boat our size and if we were to stay around 8 mph we would have a range over 600 miles and still with a 10% reserve.
The Waccamaw River is slowly coming off its flooding, but there is still lots of evidence of high water as can be seen from the photos. The water is brown!! (see photo of brown wake!) We thought it due to the flooding, but it apparently is a normal state due to the many cypress trees which are all along the river. Very peaceful trip today for the most part, with shrubs and low trees all along the rivers. Always see small marinas along the way for local folks to keep their boats.
Marina - Osprey is a compact, well kept marina with a nice size of 119 slips of which 13 are for transients - and they are full. Lots of docking help; they gave us a 'goody bag' on arrival with snacks, cup coozie, information. Fuel price excellent - other places range from $2-3/gal. The marina is relatively isolated, 5 miles from any grocery stores, etc, but they offer a great lounge and a small confectionery supply of beer/wine/snacks.
Two loopers found us when they saw our Looper Flag/Burgee; I had met them at the Fall Rendezvous last Oct. They started in May from Tampa, but plan to be essentially full time live aboards for the summer and then for the winter to stay on their Class A RV because they have rented their house for the year; they are winterizing their boat on the Chesapeake this fall and have planned to take four years to do the Loop. They have a 48 ft Navigator which they have really upgraded; very similar style to our Meridian.
Photos - added a couple of pics from Georgetown harbor this morning because of no wind, glass water, and great reflections; and Marg's night shot of the dock. Several showing evidence of the flooding along the Waccamaw [apparently some loopers heard shots fired 'at them' when they cruised by some homes partially under water a couple of weeks ago]. And some of Osprey Marina.
Fender lost - the evil Fender Queen Keeper seems to have it in for us - one of the large 18" ball fenders fell off its line as Marg was deploying it just prior to entering the marina's channel - couldn't stop to retrieve it; that's 3 this year!! I need to be more vigilant in checking the knots, etc.
Internet - our new WiFi device was waiting for us at Osprey; it offers truly unlimited data downloads; we connected it and it is working well. Hopefully, we will no longer have any throttling due to our high data use or connection problems [except when cell reception is poor, but now we have both Verizon and AT&t coverage)
Navigation - a new chip for our E80 chartplotter was also waiting at Osprey; unfortunately, they sent the wrong one: I need a CF [Compact Flash] and they sent a micro-SD. Have ordered now a CF adapter to be delivered to Beaufort Docks on Monday.
MECHANICAL:
Throttle - no problems; reservoir pressure remaining at 90 psi.
Oils, etc - all check fine. Voltages are great - 14.4/14.0/14.4 for the port/house/stbd battery banks.
That's all folks. Keep on distancing, because we certainly will be, given that both Carolina States have significant jumps in CV19 infections; and the governor is asking people to self-quarantine if they have been on the beach or in a large crowd recently.