Thursday, May 19, 2016

Playing Motorboat Again

Well, our need to make tracks north and Mother Nature's need for unsettled weather along the southeast coast seem to be in conflict.  The trip would have been a few straight-forward hops on the outside, but for the high winds, unsettled seas, and threats of thunderstorms.  Since some progress is better than none, we opted to take the more protected route up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).

With the weather forecast to be OK (except for the seas in the Atlantic), we departed Hilton Head on Wednesday morning.  We wound our way through the countryside and anchored in North Edisto river.  This morning we awoke to grey skies but nothing threatening and continued winding our way toward Charleston.

A part of our ICW path north of Hilton Head.

The twists, turns, bridges, and my unwillingness to travel it at night make travel on the ICW very slow.  In just over two days we could have made it from Hilton Head to Southport on the outside.  Instead, we made it just past Charleston.  As I sit here and write this the news is playing in the background and the local weather guesser is calling for more unsettled weather for the next couple days.  Guess our trek up the ditch will likely continue.

It isn't all bad though.  At least there is some different scenery to see.

Ladys Island Swing Bridge near Beaufort, SC.

Along the ICW.

Hard to believe the weather isn't going to be nice for a while.
I'd prefer to be using less fuel and making a bit better time, but I guess I'll just have to be happy playing motorboat.



4 comments:

  1. Good to see you are making some progress north, admittedly at only 4 knots or so. Hope the weather and sea state changes outside soon. Assume you are looking to get to VA/Northern NC area by June 1 but that won't leave much time to sightsee if you continue up the ICW

    Doug in "it's finally summer in VT"

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    1. Hey Doug,

      Nope, not much sightseeing at this point. Oh well, there is always next fall. We did finally catch a little break and were able to jump out at Georgetown to sail across Long Bay to Southport...saved a day at least.

      Enjoy your summertime.

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  2. For my future reference, just wondering if you'd know, based on your insurance-induced seasonal migrations, do boats that stay in Florida through hurricane season have very expensive insurance, or do their policies exclude hurricanes or have very high deductibles, or some combination of the above....?

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    1. Hi Phil,

      How insurance companies decide on what to charge and whom is a mystery only known to their bean counters I imagine. In my case, going with the same company but without the restriction is about 3 times the price.

      I know others who don't have restrictions and pay at in the range of double and some do have higher deductibles for named storm damage. My guess is that it also depends on where an insurance company has the most covered boats. They probably like to spread the risk out and may write more competitive policies in locations where they don't already have a high risk of loss if a storm does hit...but that is just my wild guess.

      And there is also the cost of moving around. If it ween't for the fact that we really want to check out the northern east coast, it is probably a wash in cost between the lower deductible versus the cost of moving.

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