Hi Everyone, hope you are all well?

We arrived in Charleston, SC on Wednesday early morning (17th May) after our fast sail up from West Palm Beach. On our way into the harbour the headsail furler hydraulic pipe burst whilst we were in the process of stowing it. It was not too much problem getting it furled; we had practiced the process of using the winch handle on the hydraulic curlers for just such an event. Fortunately there was plenty of sea water on the deck which meant the sprayed hydraulic oil did not make too much of a mess. Anyway after 2 nights in Charleston we are on the move north again. 

The temperature and weather we are now getting means we (Mike and Howard) are wearing long trousers and jumpers for the first time for quite a few months!

In a straight line this passage is only 200 miles. However right now we are motoring east north east as there is not much wind and we need to get as far east as we can so that we can take advantage of the stronger north easterly wind forecast on Sunday evening so that we can tack and sailing into Morehead City.

Ultimately we are trying to get around Cape Hatteras but the timing of the wind and its direction means that we may not make it there before the weather. Our current plan is to sit out the forecast strong north easterly wind forecast in Cape Lookout / Morehead City; we could be there for quite a few days!

We didn’t see very much in Charleston mainly because we cut short our planned stay. The bits we did see are very nice and we used mainly public transport and Uber to get to the places we needed to. We ended up in a nice marina called Charleston Harbor Marina which is situated at Patriots Point, Mount Pleasant. We managed to get a temporary fix to our furler hydraulics, restock our food (and beer) stores and do all of our laundry. We almost made it to the USS Yorktown museum which is located right next door to the marina. We did have a couple of meals ashore in what were called the marina resort bars.