MacGregorSailors.com

Hi All!

Hope that wasn’t too many shared photos yesterday but as you can surmise I was a bit stoked to have finally gotten up to Charleston via the ICW and to have finally seen my Dad’s home town from the water on such a beautiful day!

Very glad!

Today we left Charleston Harborage Marina after refueling from yesterday’s excursion. For all the wanderings we only used about 9 gallons of gas!
While refueling we got to watch several dolphins under the bridge!

Departure was at an crisp 10:45 AM and we headed toward Bohicket Marina on a reverse (backward) course. Love our Garmin Chart-plotter. (Only thing is I haven’t yet figured out how to ‘add to’ and existing route plan. Seems one has to do it all at once…)

On the way out of Charleston we spotted the morning group meeting of Pelicans planning their work assignments for the day…

[/

On the way South we stopped for lunch at The Charleston Crab House! Got there with an empty dock too! Landed without incident… (one of these days we might become comfortable at this).

[url=https://postimg.cc/JtpYmZpp]





During lunch (the Seafood Trio of local Red fish
Shrimp and Scallops with Charleston Red Rice as well as the Shrimp n’ Grits) was great!

We even got to watch the draw bridge cycle for a set of higher masted boats. Kinda fun watching things work like that. Note: while Macs should clear the bridge bottom without any trouble at low tide I’m not sure about high or peak tides. Opening was hourly at the half hour mark.








url]

The weather was nigh to perfect today!
The waterway was open and for the most part we had it all to ourselves! Water was calm and often like a mirror! We got to see lots of Dolphins, many were family pods with the young calf’s and their Moms!




























There are always the occasional sights of the out of the norm things it seems when traveling by water… one of them found today was as we passed a work barge & crane being pushed along.
The crane operator was up in his cab enjoying the comfy seat and the magnificent view on his way to work!







The waterways of the ICW here on this route are stunningly beautiful and often incredibly expansive…. The stretch out to as far as the eye can see and beyond.





































For those in the Megabucks category there are absolutely stunningly beautiful homes and estates along these waterways such as this property:

















The Admiral did most of the driving today and Mac did a fantastic job of ‘pirate look out”:











Arrival at the Bohicket gas dock was at 4:30 PM and we were tied to our nights berth cleats by 5:15 PM I even got a chance to successfully rescue an elderly couple whose dinghy engine died while they were out and the current almost flipped them as the strong currents wedged them backwards between a big Yatchs and pier almost capsizing their inflatable under the yatch’s chine and under the floating dock Tee structure. Been a long time since I’ve moved that fast!
Disaster was averted

Beautiful sunset tonight



We are all tired puppy’s and will sleep good tonight

Hope all goes well for you all!

Tomorrow we head back to Beaufort amid forecasted thunderstorms… hope for an early start to best most of the weather.

Best Regards
Over Easy

Hey OE, I enjoy these posts a lot!

Have you ever considered creating an actual blog a la Chinook or Sumner? The photos would be awesome in full size. I full-size my photos on this forum by saving them on onedrive and using the "embed" function, then pasting the embed-link between the "mountain button". When photos come through small on this forum, I find myself naturally tending to scroll past them and miss some stunning details.

An Over Easy Journey blog would be perfect. Not difficult either with WordPress. And I think still free.

However, we enjoy reading the journey here and making photos larger isn't impossible. Just grab the postimage URL and use the "img" tag from the edit window. eg:

Hi OE, These are great! Just sitting here sipping coffee and enjoying your adventures. I appreciate the time you take to show us all. Thanks

Hi All!

What a great day for the last leg of our return trip on the ICW!!!

Where to begin….. how about last night in the Bohicket Marina after we landed coming in from Charleston!
After we tied up and hooked up electrical it was time to take MacGregor (our puppy) for a nice shoreside stroll.
As we got to the end of E Dock and turned left we walked along the board walk enjoying the beautiful river vistas before us.
Approaching C Dock I just happen to notice that an elderly couple ( they had a good 10-to-20 years on me anyways) in an inflatable dinghy having engine trouble in the very fast current and were being carried toward the bow of 54 footer cruiser tied on the T of C Dock.
As there wasn’t anyone else available I told the Admiral “Sh%t!” And leapt into action…( it’s the fastest I’ve moved in a while!) … and ran down the gangway to C Dock and out to the end of the T just as the inflatable was getting pinched under the starboard upstream chine of the 54 footer as well as getting rammed under the dock lip. The two occupants were struggling to get upright on the floor of the dinghy and neither were wearing life jackets. I grabbed the handle of the dinghy and pulled it upstream and out of danger. Grabbing a loose line I tied the dingy off to the end of the T. Before anything else happened I had them put on and secure their life jackets. No point in having things go from bad to worse at this point. GFB they had been capsized and wedged against or under the 54 footer or the pier. The sharp edged side splice plate just a foot or two further in could have easily torn open the air cell on the dock side of the dinghy. Whew ! Disaster averted. It must have been a sight to see yours truely scampering down the dock at my version of full power . Ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

Turns out this was the couples first outing in their new inflatable dinghy and new outboard. I worked with them to get it started again and warmed up. It would appear they hadn’t fully charged the fuel line (didn’t squeeze the bulb till it’s firm) before starting the outboard which led it to being fuel starved in short order after they shoved off…. It’s also why they couldn’t restart it. They apparently never allowed the engine to warm up either. A potentially rough learning curve but things got sorted out. I even got them to laugh about it to help brighten the mood they were in. Can’t blame them though as things could have been much worse but for serendipity. And I really thought my ‘rescue’ days were behind me! All worked out!

After that we had a nice chat with some other boaters including a lady whose ambition is to overhaul a 35 foot 30 year old sailboat (in rough shape) by herself starting at near ground zero wanting to learn the skills needed as she goes! Now that takes ambition!

Later that evening we had a delicious supper at one of the local pubs. The local brewery makes a nice IPA and the cider was pretty good too.

We woke at 7 AM and untied at around 9:45 AM…. Such are the plans of mice and men… best to just roll with it and enjoy the ride.
We made our way out of Bohicket Creek into the North Edisto River and headed up stream for our return to Port Royal our home berth. A check on the weather app last night showed a clear morning with thunderstorms starting between 1 and 2 PM and we had 50 miles to cover!
As there wasn’t much of an option to slowly cruise back home we did the math and figured we needed to maintain about 12-to-15 mph if we were to make it back before the thunderstorms caught us out in the open. The Suzuki did great the whole way back even as the wind picked up and the resultant wave built against us. The trip back was fun and a bit exciting. Next time we’d really like to do it at a much more leisurely pace though! Here are a couple pictures enroute today:

























Once we reached the Coosaw River it was the Admirals turn at the helm! She did great and had a blast pounding our way up wind and up river. Me, I got to enjoy the scenery and cuddle MacGregor who throughly enjoyed the ride, wind and spray!

Got a chance to see a Navy Recovery/Equipment Vessel and a specialized Oceangoing Research/Submersible/Helipad Vessel traveling in tandem. Wonder what adventures those two are gonna be up to….… ahhh just wondering what sorts of things such nice toys could play with?

Turning off the Coosaw into the upper Beaufort River things calmed down some in its narrower and somewhat more protected waters.
The clear skies steadily grew darker as we reached the Beaufort Woods Memorial Bridge. We took a shortcut through the marsh islands opposite Beaufort (that we normally avoid due to sandbanks and shoaling but fortune was on our side as it was near the high tide mark giving us a bit more clearance.

Coming out the other side we were in sight of home port but as we turned to look the black clouds were descending upon the only momentarily before sunny Beaufort! With little fan fare we swapped the helm over and the Admiral went forward to prepare for our landing. Fenders out, fwd hatch open boat poles and lines at the ready we closed with the marina. Reaching the No-Wake buoys we cut to idle turn down stream past the main pier made our U-turn into the main slipway to see our slip open and waiting for us. This also gave us a great view of the front just waiting to pounce on us too! Throttle to neutral, a bit of reverse, bit of a side drift due to the current, drop the swing keel to 50%, back off a bit, gently maneuver to get a better alignment and ease it forward. A helpful slipmate came forward to catch our bow line just as we touched! All tied off and we’d made it home from our first real ICW 6 day cruise! We finally did it! WE CRUISED THE ICW, TADA!!!

We quickly broke open the Long Island Iced Teas and congratulated ourselves!









Then the storm hit… and it hit hard!



Here was the weather app radar when we arrived

Then just after our toast this was happening




It was a torrent of rain and wind and thunder a close lightning .
It lasted about a half hour before letting up but the sky was still threatening



Even got a rainbow too!

Wow! We had a fantastic trip with perfect weather for our first real ICW cruise!
Bright sunny clear weather and warm! We had been concerned that traveling so late in the year we might have been pushing our luck. There was also the concern that all the boater who had cruised north for the Spring ad Summer would be headed South for the Winter and there wouldn’t be slips available in the nicer marinas (other than wedged between fishing boats and shrimp trawlers at the backwater piers🫣… shrimp are nice grilled, fried, boiled and sautéed but hanging around the boats that catch them at water level isn’t necessarily so much ). As it worked out we were able to stay at really nice reasonable slips at two really nice marinas. We’d heartily recommend Bohicket Marina and Harborage-Ashley Marina. Nice places with nice people!

So we spent our last night of our trip in our home slip. The Admiral made a great Bratwurst and Rice supper. Slept like logs and woke refreshed to bright sunshine with clear blue skies. Lots of time to have a healthy breakfast and leisurely enjoy our coffees. Taking our time packing up. No rush. …wondering when we can get out again, where to go and for how long???

Hope you enjoyed our recent journey.

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

Ok… so the haul out last weekend was thwarted by our exceptionally high ‘king’ tide on Sunday!
Got to the ramp right at peak high tide as is our Standard Operations Procedure on a bright clear warm day.

It was about a foot and a half above normal high tide!
The ramp and parking areas were flooded…couldn’t even see the ramps!
The long articulated section of the floating pier that connects to shore was at about 45 degrees pointing skyward!
No way were we gonna sink the van in saltwater!
The ramp crossing tidal flows were ‘wicked’ (New England expession) so waiting for the tide to recede was also a no-go for us.

Just not worth it… pragmatism and discretion….are the better part of valor…

Packed it in and went back home to call the Marina where we’ve been renting our slip.
They were very accommodating and graciously granted us an extension past the end of the month so we can haul out this coming weekend.
(Whew! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! )

So we get another couple of days to enjoy the waterways!
Make lemonade time!

Best Regards,
Over Easy

Hi All!

We had a beautiful sunny cool afternoon on our local waters Thursday!
Temps here have dropped down into the 60s!!!
Last Sunday it was in the mid 80s…a brisk downward 20 degree shift…Brrrr….
Hoping this is just one of those weather anomalies……. We’re contemplating extending our slip rental to the end of November as our upcoming holiday travel plans are somewhat back in flux as to where we’ll be for Thanksgiving…. New England or Down South?
We’d been hoping for an all together family Thanksgiving but it appears circumstances are possibly going to interfere with that approach.
If that the case then it’s an opportunity to make more lemonade and extend our water time!

Thursday we had the estuaries and rivers to ourselves!
Saw lots of new interesting cruisers at anchor and on the transient piers of the local marinas.
Some big and some small.
Seems that the southward cruiser migration is picking up.

Had a chance to talk with a couple at our marina for a bit.
They’re on a 36 foot motor cruiser that they have progressively done much of the Loop on.
They have enjoyed thier boat but have pointed out some of the limitations they have incurred.
Like the logistics of having to find places enroute to get hauled out for the off season or rent a slip considerable distances from their (land based) home and the not so inconsiderable expenses involved with that process.
Getting a 36 foot motor cruiser out of the water is just part of a whole process when having a boat like that over winter ‘on the hard’ in cold freezing climates. Engine pickling, bilge drainage, water & holding tanks drainage and winterization, heaters, shrink covers,…etc…
The list wasn’t much shorter for when they chose to leave it in a slip either.

When we mentioned that we had comfortably stayed on Lake Champlain for seventy nights from September into mid November aboard our Mac26X up to when the lake started to ice they were somewhat envious. That we could cruise the shores and shallow bays and coves to enjoy the change of seasons up close and personal rather than from a distance was amazing to them. Their experiences were much more limited needing to keep to deeper waters and larger areas within which to maneuver. The thought of wandering around and into the numerous rivers and meandering estuaries without grave concern was amazing to them. (Mind you the thought of having space on board to sleep 8 adults in 2 private cabins with private loos (with showers) and a convertible lounge and dinette was equally amazing to me!)

Their visible reaction that we could comfortably travel, launch and haul ourselves out nearly at will with just of Dodge Caravan was priceless. Having the capability to cruise along at 14 to 16 mph (GPS) and have well in excess of 100 mile range on 24 gallons of fuel was something they could only dream of as a similar trip for them consumed nearly a gallon (or more) of diesel at less than 7 mph (GPS). That we had made several 1500 mile trips cross country with our Mac26X in tow with our Caravan was icing on the cake!

Now don’t get me wrong, thier boat was beautiful and much more spacious than our Mac26X. It was also several years younger too.
But when it came to the availability, operational/maintenance cost and complexity of use the Mac26X was having a lot more fun time both on the water and land!

Later we found out that they are just starting the process of getting their boat up for sale…. They aren’t contemplating a replacement or upgrade at this point in time… for them it’s a good time to take a break and consider what other adventures they want to pursue which is a perfectly fine thing to do given the travels they have accomplished.

We must acknowledge that our adventures since we acquired our Mac26X have provided us with a lot of entertainment and experiences in the brief time we have had Over Easy at a fraction of the cost of larger vessels. While the larger vessels have some really nice amenities and space they also have some expensive and logistical drawbacks that our MacGregors don’t incur… even when including our new Suzuki engine. We don’t doubt we made the best choice for us and our ambitions.

So hopefully we’ll know by this Saturday if we extend our slip rental or haul out and head north for Thanksgiving.

Best Regards to All!
Over Easy

Hi All!

Here’s to the Hope everyone is healthy and happy this first weekend of November 2023!
It’s been a great boating season for us with Over Easy.
It’s amazing to think we launched on March 7th and it’s now November 4th … Eight Months!
…And we’re still in the water and still using our marina slip!!!

Reflecting on this past season is a bit of a kaleidoscope

Our holiday travel plans are in flux and instead of heading North to New England for Thanksgiving well now spend that time down here in South Carolina. With that now being the case we decided to extend our slip rental through the end of November!
A whole BONUS MONTH!

Now we know that we are very fortunate with being able to be where we are and have such a beautiful series of waterways available.
We are very appreciative of this forum and the members that have helped us get off the dime to get out on the water.
Thank you!

Today the sun was shining brightly and temperatures in the mid 70s.
Shirtsleeves and slacks this afternoon as we continued to re-explore our local waters and estuaries that surround us.




I packed a simple afternoon picnic of cold oven baked chicken drum sticks, crackers, chicken spread, along with a variety of sliced cheeses.
Nothing fancy but the Admiral enjoyed it (as did our puppy MacGregor).


It’s been a great bonus day….

Best Regards to you All,
Over Easy

Hi All!

So here’s a novel use for Over Easy that we’re taking advantage of….

It’s the once every couple of years time to have the Orkin guy spray the house and yard…(it’s the South and it comes with lots of interesting creepy crawlers and some not so interesting one too!)

We’re gonna have to be out of the house for several hours while the stuff they spray does it’s things…so we’re water camping in our marina slip for the afternoon and a bit. Probably make dinner there! It’s our “Bug-Out”!

Best Regards
Over Easy

Hi All!

Well after the better part of the day on Tuesday we finally got the hitch and wiring attached/installed on our new-to-us 2018(2019 in real time) Ford Transit T150 Explorer Van. Whew! That’s a mouthful! But as you can see we’re pretty happy with the new van and it should make towing a lot nicer with more safety margins.

We’ve tried a road trip with it over to Columbia SC and back to have a stop-n-go meeting with our younger daughter.
The daughter is ok but needs to get her hand operated on to fix a broken finger…it’s complicated but she’s got a couple things all in flux right now with a seasonal move to the mountains of Montana for the winter (why the winter In Montana? It’s COLD and SNOWY and ICY and WINDY and….. did I mention COLD Brrrrrrrrrr but that’s another story 🫣).
The van drove really nice and gas mileage was 14.4 mpg which was to be expected. With the van alone it was pretty stable at 65 mph. At the posted speed limit of 70 mph one could feel more of the wind gusts which again is somewhat expected for a mid height van. Things were generally comfortable during the six hours of driving. It might be nicer if the driver seat was able to be moved aft about 4 to 6 inches but then that would make reaching the steering wheel awkward… small things in the scheme of things.

Did a dry run of removing one of the two center seats. That puppy ain’t light! Not having a place to put it elsewhere I simply reinstalled it from where it came from. Been looking at after market seat rail tracks and mounts for the aft convertible bench/bed seat so that we could possibly move it readily to the mid section for greater aft cargo space. If anyone has had any experience with those types of tracks we’d be interested and appreciative of any advice or pointers.

The hitch we installed (via UHaul) is a Class 3 receiver. Bolted to the existing factory frame without any issues.
The van did not come with a factory trailer wiring package so we had a fully functional 7 Pin harness installed. The turn signals, reverse and brakes functions were a plug-n-play that connected as a plug jumper to the van’s rear taillight harness…no splices. The electric brake controller functions required a hot power lead as did the 12 VDC center tap. While our boat trailer uses hydraulic surge brakes we might at some future time need it for other future TBD applications. The 12 VDC center tap will be useful to keep the batteries on Over Easy during long cross country trips where Over Easy acts as our ‘camper’..

I’ve isolated and fixed several minor squeaks and chatters that came with the van. Basically just tightening up some interior panel mount screws that apparently worked loose over its previous travels. I slipped on a couple feet of rubber/plastic door edge trim to where the interior trim panels didn’t quite tighten up enough. Easy nice looking fix. I added rubber grommets to the side and rear door latch buttons to quiet them down. About 80% of the way to complete the elimination of the rattles and squeaks.

So far so good!

Best Regards
Over Easy

(why the winter In Montana? It’s COLD and SNOWY and ICY and WINDY and….. did I mention COLD Brrrrrrrrrr but that’s another story 🫣).

You know Russ lives in Montana. You don’t want to insult the owner of this site’s choice of domicile, just saying.

But it’s colder in Montana than it is in New Hampshire…… brrrr …..
After more than a dozen and a half years of shoveling, salting, sanding, sliding, freezing, icing, windy, cold….cold….cold years of living in New Hampshire where she always said she was cold why would she now want to go to a place that prides itself on being even colder?
It’s beyond me

Personally I like ice fishing a tall Long Island Ice Tea vs. the kind where one drills a hole in three feet of frozen lake and camps over the hole so it doesn’t Re-freeze over your line in the next 30 minutes.

I’m just glad we can visit New Hampshire in the winter now … we’ll sort of as for most of the past 6 years we consider ourselves “failed” snow birds as we’ve spent more winters up north than down south and more summers down south than up north for one reason or another.
I’m no longer enamored by my snow blower, tire chains, spreaders or annual salt and sand deliveries or even my emergency power generator that I built a shed for…..guess I’m just finally gotten acclimated to days like this week where it’s 80 degrees in the afternoon with bright sunshine and calm breezes and the idea of needing to get into snow pants, boots, parka and gloves just to go to the grocery store for coffee and creamer isn’t as appealing as it once was… nor the hours spent shoveling driveways and walks only to have the town snowplow pile up a three or four foot berm sealing off the just cleared drive entrance…..five minutes after you thought you were done.

I’m glad and grateful to Russ for this forum…but it still gonna be cold in Montana for the next 5 months.

Best Regards,
Over Easy

I think I need to send a bill for you using my couch and venting.

It’s all good captain.

OverEasy wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 11:05 pm But it’s colder in Montana than it is in New Hampshire…… brrrr …..

…but it still gonna be cold in Montana for the next 5 months.

What town is your daughter in?

Summers are fantastic here. 80s low humidity, but yea, winters are rough. Mountain lakes are horrible for sailboats. Winds constantly changing, T-storms pop up over the mountains and are wicked. The positive is it's quiet and we often never see another boat when we go sailing. Quite a bit different from Barnegat Bay in NJ where buzzing the sailboats is a sport for the powerboats and jet skis.

Despite the cold, people are moving here in droves driving up prices. Median home price is $950k.
Many come for the outdoors. Many expect the same services like roads being plowed and salted. Nope.
That "Yellowstone" TV show has glamorized our state. Funny how that show NEVER shows a winter scene. Oh, and the writing is preposterous. They make it seem like there is no law here and our governor is a cowboy who makes up his own rules. I actually know our Governor. Made his fortune in the software business. He lives close to us. Nothing like the Kevin Costner character nor is our government.

I don't ski and perhaps that would make the winters more tolerable having a ski hill 20 minutes away. I've got a friend with an ATV that goes 4-wheeling up in the mountains always looking for a passenger. Looks too cold for me.

It's not always that cold. I moved here from New Jersey. My first winter we had a few days of -30F and I always thought at those temps your spit would freeze before it hit the ground. So that day I went out with NO coat and was surprised that I wasn't immediately shivering. We are 1 mile closer to the sun with less air to filter sunlight and if the sun is out, it doesn't feel that cold.

I don't understand it, but with thinner air and less humidity, it isn't as cold as New Jersey. I have a thin jacket I wear most of the winter. Only break out the coat when temps are sub zero.

But it is the long winters without seeing the ground that get to me. I've been here 20 years and seeing snow covering the ground for 4 months is depressing.
We plan on our final retirement home someplace without snow. Arizona, Texas, Florida.