Heading Home May 9 - 12 ORYC to Charleston SC

ORYC Silver pt Inlet Freeport to Charleston  May 9 - 12

Thursday May 9, 2013: Bob arrived last night and started prepping boat for departure.  We picked up our crew, Bill, at FPO at 2:45pm.  We readied boat and fed the crew some brochette prior to departure.  Hank came over to help with lines, and Bob expertly backed out of our slip, we waved goodbye and headed out of Silver Point Inlet towards Charleston SC. 
We started our 3 hr shifts at 8pm.  Night started off beautiful, with a nice sunset, thunderstorms threatening, but avoided. 

Friday May 10:  The night conditions were bumpy on into morning. The winds picked up in afternoon with a storm heading our way from Texas.  There was an interesting discussion on how much diesel fuel was on board, since the gauge was stuck on full.  We calculated how far we could get since our last fill up was in Vero Beach. Not enough. Therefore we re-routed ourselves to St Johns river to pick up fuel.  Bad thunderstorms threatened us through- out the night with nasty looking purple cells and driving rain that Bob tried to avoid during his shift.  What a light show.

Sat May 11:  We Arrive in Jacksonville FL about 10:45am with some light winds and calm seas. It took about 45 min to take on 98 gal so fuel calculations were wrong, we had 100 gal in the tank. The fuel transfer pump was not working so we could not transfer fuel from the bilge tank, add another thing to the "needs to be fixed" list.  
So let make some new plans to new destinations, Cape Fear, Beaufort, or Charleston,  After much discussion and course changes Mother Nature helped us make our destination Charleston SC. Mother Nature also thought we should have some company so sent an overabundant supply of flies. The boys were are at the ready with their fly swatters.

Sun May 12:  Morning arrival in Charleston and booked a flight for Bill so he could leave early.  Chet and Dwight (the hired crew and captain) will arrive on Monday.  

Bob and I headed downtown on the trolley and overate at Hymans.