Cruising the ICW from Philadelphia to New Orleans

Day 8

Today we have a new man at the keyboard i.e. Captain Will Garner. As you know the Eagle was on dry land for some minor prop tuning. Once we woke and got ourselves underway, we ate breakfast again at the Charleston café while suffering a little ribbing from some of the customers seeing Shirl’s bright red Philly’s shirt.

We got our clothes together and headed for the boat with anticipation seeing visions of the props on and the boat being lowered into the water. Alas at arrival there sat the Eagle awaiting the props and the hands of the master prop installer. We got our gear on board and got underway making minor repairs while forgetting to install the new stuff we acquired a few days prior i.e. bar-b-que cover, tank de-stinker, water tank pills and alike. We did make haste in installing the new Raymarine GPS data card, which showed a little more data than what had been there i.e. us driving across dry land.

John and I start a mutiny and over powered the owner and captain so he left quivering, and I feeling bad, took Shirl to the airport, returned the car and caught a cab back to the marina. John being the resourceful man he is, stayed at the boat and tidied up and gathered fresh pecans from the trees in front of where the boat was parked. Once the props arrived they were installed and we were ushered into the office to give the repair yard the right arm, left leg and first-born Shirl had left for us to give for the work (really it was not bad in price and the yard was extremely competent) (two thumbs up for Charleston City Boat Yard). We felt lucky as the man paying his bill before us maxed out a 50 thousand dollar credit card and paid the remaining 34 thousand dollars on another card (wow I guess it could always be worse). The boat was then hoisted back into the water for the post repair voyage.

By this time the current was running somthin’ fierce so we made ready many fenders, drove it into the dock with restraint of one line then John threw it into reverse and floored it looking like he did it everyday but little the spectators know we were both sweating. Wow, no vibration, (I guess we were right). We headed down the river watching the sun set slowly as we sped to Beaufort, South Carolina. We arrived in time to get fuel and a choice spot on the dock. John and I ate dinner at a typical bar with typical bar food i.e. not great but edible.

Be sure to look at the pictures on the blog below, as we have added more from previous days.