Saturday, March 21, 2009
21 Mar - Day #17. The anchor weighing brought an unexpected surprise. Seems we hooked a chain, which was attached to a cinder-block and the whole mess was around our anchor. Had to deploy the dink and do some hand work to unravel it all. Some how working with a chain attached to a cinder-block all the while leaning over 18' deep water doesn't strike me as a 'safe' operation. Fortunately the gods were appeased when their 'gift' was returned and no additional sacrificed was required. Bahamas weather is available daily on the Waterway Net, 7.268 mHz at 1245 UTC. The Net also takes float plans for boats crossing the Gulf Stream. We checked-in to the net today. For the second time in the last few days we noticed that the depth log reads very shallow when a big boat passes us closely. It might be all the air bubbles in the water, or simply all the water movement. Perhaps when this condition occurs reducing the transducers power will help. To do email while at anchor over the ham radio we're going to establish a WinLink account and use the Airmail client. The SCS PTC-II is a great modem, but expensive. Perhaps we can use our existing hardware on Pactor I. Some say 'toe-mayto' and some say 'toe-maato' but how do you pronounce Beaufort? The answer, like many things, depends on where you are. Here in South Carolina it's pronounced 'bu-furt' which is not to be confused with Beaufort, North Carolina, which is pronounced 'Beau-fort'. We anchored just off Beaufort, SC in 24' of water. Dingy'd in, walked the town--very quaint, and had a great Bare Knuckle Stout at a water front pub. Happy hour price was $1.50. 56nm today: 609nm total. DBH
