Water Tracks: Exodus from Charleston

Well, we are one of the last of the wintering boats here in Charleston. Our friends are leaving one by one as we try to finish projects and get ourselves out of here. Now that Bill is on leave from work we don't have incoming funds to stay at a marina for very long. We hope to finish up and be out of here by the end of next week. We are headed south (while everyone else is headed north), destination will be the Bahamas or the Florida Keys. We are still waiting for Cooper's passport which is taking longer than usual to process.

Homeschool Kids

The other kid-boat here in Charleston with us, Inconceivable, left Saturday. Sabastian and Paisley were just about the boys' ages and were great playmates for the months we were both here. But, now they are on their way north to begin the Great Loop, a trip that will take them (basically) up the Hudson, through the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. While we have been here, we were lucky enough to join a homeschool group that had different activities going on in the area, including a chess club and book club. Usually we don't stay in one place long enough to get involved like that, but since we were here for 4 months (yikes!), it has been very helpful to have a little routine to get into and other kids to play with. The marina is also walking distance from the library so that is a big plus.

Our other neighbors that have been beside us since we "moved in" here in December were Bert & Marlene from Hamburg, Germany; they are on a beautiful steel boat called Heimkehr. They left this morning with another boat from Hamburg, although they have different destinations. Bert and Marlene are headed for Bermuda, the Azores and then to the North Sea and home to Hamburg; Hinnerk, on Paulinchen, is headed north to Norfolk, but then on to continue the Great Loop.