Back in Charleston, South Carolina

AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Wed 25 Nov 2009 22:01
32:46.548N, 79:57.186W
 
We are back where our USA adventure began last May. We haven't met anybody who doesn't like this famous city of Charleston and we were very glad to have made this our original port of entry - even if we had intended to enter further up the coast at Morehead City. Last time we were here we treated ourselves to a few days in the City Marina - the most expensive dock we have yet to visit. This time round we are in the 'cheap seats', anchored off the City Marina in a congested mooring field full of yachts some no doubt ready to spend Thanksgiving Day here. That's tomorrow (Thurs). Even at this distance though the Magadock wifi signal reaches us in good strength and we have our link to the outside world via the world wide web. What more could we ask for?
 
Thoughts of moving on southwards today were quickly snuffed out by a toilet problem that manifested itself yesterday afternoon. Never the most pleasant of tasks and no real reason for it to have blocked as we are very careful about what goes down the bowl, apart from Phil's attempt to pump a few wetwipes down the system a few months back, not realising they are almost indestructible. To cut a long story short the outlet pipe from the toilet to the outside world under the sea had accumulated a growth of lime scale that was almost unbelievable in just over a year. Apart from the use of acid which we don't have onboard, the only remedy is to remove the pipe from the system, take it outside and without drawing too much attention (this is the clean living USA after all) give the old snake a dam good thrashing. This breaks up the deposits lining the interior of the pipe making it as good as new once more.
 
So that job (no pun intended) is completed and in local speak we are now 'good to go' . Next planned stop is Beaufort (pronounced Bew-fort) South Carolina. Then comes the state of Georgia before we hit Fernandina Beach Northern Florida. We are tempted to head south on the outside of the ICW and once we have a good idea of the weather for the next few days we'll make that decision. If not then we'll wend our way through the rivers and cuts of southern South Carolina.