Charleston

Opening and closings of West Marine stores in Jacksonville completed Cats Cradle departed the Palm Cove Marina 13 April, heading north. We needed to be in Charleston, SC in time for another West store opening project beginning the 20th. Travel was in the ICW all the way due to high winds and reported 6-8 feet seas on the ocean, we just don't enjoy getting beat up. Bernie is not having a good year with groundings in Georgia, this time we were able to work ourselves off with the help of a rising tide and by using the dinghy as a tug boat. There were very few boats making the passage north, could be the weather just is not warm enough for everyone yet. We arrived in the Charleston area so we went on up to Isle-of-Palms to visit with Arlene and Sue for a couple of days. On sunday (19th) we moved down to the Charleston City Marina and will be here for 3 weeks of Bernie going to work again. This marina is huge and the bicycles are getting a good workout just getting off the docks. Jerry and Linda on "For Sail" are also in this marina, but way down at the other end, they also work the projects for West but were in a different marina in Jacksonville. They shuttle their car to wherever so Bernie is able to ride to work with them every day. Yesterday "Rubaiyat" (Island Packet420) with Jan and Lynne came in for a brief rest stop. We hadn't seen them since just before our October incident so they came over to see our shiny new mast and rigging. We caught up with all the winter activities over dinner at the on site restaurant last evening, very good dinner with pleasant conversation. The cats are enjoying their walks on the dock, Gilligan more so than Scupper, the only problem they have is there are 3 dogs (2-big and 1- small) on the dock, Gilligan runs home but Scupper of course wants to attack the big ones. Such attitude ! We hope to explore Old Charleston while we're here, it is definitely tourist friendly.
We still need to get some more repairs done on the way north and are debateing where that will be. We still have a little time to decide on that, in the meantime the lawyers are now dealing with everything else and we are sitting on the sidelines watching.