Screams

We have covered more than 500 miles since my last post, but the past 10 days have been spent anchored near two of our grandchildren outside of Charleston, SC. Our time with them has been so exciting and adventurous that numerous screams have been produced…and they were not the screams of Halloween.

The leg of the journey from Chesapeake City, VA to Charleston, SC was fantastic!

I love the stretch of ICW just south of Myrtle Beach!  It is an area that showcases the most extravagant osprey nest construction I’ve ever seen.

If I should return as an osprey, I would like to attend nest building school along this stretch on the ICW, but I don’t think I would like eating my dinner from this brown water every day.

We were lucky to be anchored in Wrightsville Beach during the full moon.  Love the zoom lens on our new camera.

However, it was still amazing with the naked eye.

And as soon as our girls stepped onto the boat…into the water they jumped!

There is a very strong tidal current at our anchoring location.  Notice the orange line (that floats) and the life ring floating way behind the boat.  The girls were taught (and practiced) that should the current push them beyond the paddle board and/or kayak they should not attempt to swim directly into the current to get back.  Instead they should swim perpendicular to the current toward the orange line, and use that line to pull themselves back to the boat.  I did keep the key in the Whaler…just in case, but they are both strong little swimmers so outside help was never needed.

When the tide is low, a sandbar is exposed in the river.  It is a great place to explore, and thanks to the numerous rivulets cutting across the sandbar it is an awesome place to hold shell ‘boat’ races.

One afternoon, when the current was almost slack, we decided to paddle our kayaks over to the edge of the grass.  Maggie was sitting in front of me in one kayak, and Lucy was in the other kayak on her own.  As we approached the grass we startled a school of shrimp, and 50+ shrimp jumped out of the water.  One happened to land in my kayak, on Maggie’s leg….the scream took me by surprise, and the flailing that ensued almost flipped us out of the kayak.  I tried to pin Maggie down while reaching in front of her in an attempt to return our little friend to the water, before we were swimming.  However, every time I attempted to grab the shrimp it managed to bounce free and land on another part of Maggie…starting the screaming and flailing cycle anew.  Eventually, I was able to get the shrimp back into the water without further incident.

We ultimately decided to cut our kayak trip short and return to the boat to grab the cast net in an attempt to catch some of these shrimp.  I will confess that my cast net throwing skills leave a lot of room for improvement, but trying to ‘help’ a 5 y.o. and 8 y.o. throw the net into a perfect circle presented a whole new level of difficulty!  These are the steps:

1) make sure child is standing with feet apart, and is balanced

2) try to get all of the parts of the net into the tiny hand of the child

3) figure out how to take up most of the weight of the net to help the child throw

4) practicing timing is essential…ready, set, go…we both must heave the net out (and let go) at the same instant

5) DON’T let the child fall overboard! (While throwing with my right hand, I kept my left firmly clasped to her life jacket.)

6) keep Tylenol handy for the sore shoulder, which will follow this activity.

Both girls did a great job, and we actually caught a few shrimp.

We caught 23 to be exact, and as you can see most of them were pretty small.  They turned out to be the perfect size for shrimp quesadillas…yum!!

When the girls were in school, Keith and I took our new electric bikes ashore to ride around the island, and purchase ‘real’ shrimp in preparation for lunch guests the next day.  It would have been much easier to take the Whaler directly to the shrimp dock, but we needed an excuse to try out our new bikes.  The blue insulated bag in my pannier is holding 6 pounds of (LARGE) fresh shrimp.

Shrimp tacos have become one of our new traditions when visiting with Tammy and Chuck.  Congratulations to both of you on your retirements, and your move to Charleston!  We’ll see you both on our trip north in the Spring.

So happy our lunch included unusual sights on the water.🤷🏼‍♀️

As a former educator, I probably shouldn’t admit to this (or put it in writing) but we encouraged the girls to play hooky from school so we could take them tubing.  As you can see, it was a hit!  You might also be able to imagine that some screaming was involved here too.

One of the sadder parts of this lifestyle is being so far away from our grandchildren, but since they never lived in the same state anyway (and our travel was restricted by work) we might actually see them more now.  We definitely appreciate the opportunity to participate in a school activity.  On Friday, Oct. 29 their school held a ‘trunk or treat’ for all students.  Keith and I used my daughter’s car and were prepared for 150 trick or treaters…FUN!!

After the festivities we returned to the boat (with the girls) and got underway for Beaufort, SC.  I love this town!!

Hearth Pizza is amazing…

We were lucky to arrive in time to enjoy a Halloween festival…where games and face painting were free.

And Pop worked off that pizza at the fantastic playground located right along the river walk.  The next day the girls were picked up in time to make it home for tick or treating, and Keith and I returned to the boat looking forward to our recliners, books, and naps!

The most amazing event from this week was a dolphin encounter.  Unfortunately, I do not have a picture to accompany this story…if I did it would certainly be the top viral sensation in the nation.  We spent Sunday, October 24 on a secluded beach near our anchorage.  We packed a lunch and made a day of it.  This particular location has more hermit crabs than I have ever seen, and while walking the beach we were able to count over 100 hermit crabs (in unusually large shells).  We decided to turn around and head back to our chairs when we noticed two dolphin dorsal fins gliding out of the water 10-15 feet off the beach.

The girls and I stood at the water’s edge for a moment to see if they resurfaced, when suddenly a dolphin was charging right at us.  The dolphin slid up on the sand (in less than one foot of water) 5 feet away, rolled onto its side, and flicked its tail to send a wave of water directly at us.  They water actually splashed my legs, and I was reminded of the ‘splash zone’ at the aquarium.

Of course, both girls let out blood curdling screams, with Maggie running toward the tree line, and Lucy jumping behind my legs.  The dolphin wiggled back into deeper water and swam about 30 feet away from us and did the exact same thing again.  He/she was clearly chasing food (fish or shrimp) onto the shallow beach to make it easy to capture them, but from our perspective it looked like the dolphin intentionally splashed us.  I’m sure we startled the dolphin as much as she startled us!

I’ll close this post with a quote from Lucy just minutes after that encounter, “ this was the best weekend of my life!”