March 15, 2023

Leaving Charleston, our objective was to head to Georgetown, SC. When planning the Great Loop, I was interested in stopping in McClellanville, but was outvoted due to the lack of places to anchor. Sad face emoji, crying emoji. Oh well, life goes on. Right? WRONG!

The morning of our departure, Captain Matt of Lil Sudden expresses concern that they are low on fuel (happens to all of us, but more often to them as they have 300 gallon tanks vs. 600 gallons of Coda and Saga). Matt says that he found cheap fuel for $4.90/gallon, to which Captain Steve of Coda happily said “I’m in. It’s almost a $1 cheaper than the last time I filled up here.”

So, we’re happily cruising along but it is taking us more than usual due to strong currents and Coda needing to slow down in some areas due to draft, and people start voicing their concern that Georgetown may be too far and that we may not make it. What are we going to do??

To the rescue comes First Mate/ School Teacher/Entertainment Coordinator/General Badass Mayli to inform the fleet that McClennanville is on the way and it has a marina (not sure about anchorages). Captain Boris quickly calls the marina to ask for Dockage but the marina was full.

Anchoring

Almost everyday we learn something new, the lessons are generally good ones. Today was a new anchoring method and how not to do it. Or better, how to do it wrong and then get it right by sheer luck.

Coda dropped one anchor and we dropped another which happened to put both boats about 90 feet apart and side by side. Captain Boris and Steve have a brilliant and Sudden idea to make a Lil boat sandwich with Lil Sudden coming in between and then pulling the two boats to it like a zipper. Great idea right? Let’s just say that our execution was a bit off. Somehow in this process Lil Sudden is diagonal in between us (like the letter N) with the current pushing their bow into Coda. Captain Steve is sitting on his boat using his feet to keep Lil Sudden off his boat while Captain Boris is trying to pull Lil Sudden over by a bow line. If someone could have taken a picture of the whole thing (but I have a partial video).

Using lots of muscles, lines, fenders, and more importantly brains, we were able to get Lil Sudden properly placed by releasing the stern line and using two bow lines on each side to situate the boats just right. now all bows are pointing in the right direction.

For those who saw the problem immediately… hindsight is always 20/20.

As a reward for a job well done, we threw some lines out to try and catch fish. We caught lots of redfish (which is NOT red) and Annette caught a couple of baby stingrays.