Today we are underway in a bright, fall landscape. Miles and miles of abandoned rice paddies on either side of us, now turned to fields of sweet grass interrupted by stands of cypress. I hope to find some sweetgrass baskets for sale somewhere along the way. Lots of bird life here: huge flocks of purple martins that darken the sky as they swoop by. They are all around, swooping in the distance then suddenly behind us and around us and charging off ahead. I don’t think there can be many insects left for them to eat on these cold days. Every mile or so we see a bird of prey silhouetted in a dead cypress. Mostly hawks and buzzards…eagles are getting rarer down here. We’ve been told we might see alligators, and we’re watching for them…
Yesterday we spent another night in our secluded little Jericho Creek, all alone. We’ve kept warm by baking bread and other comfort foods. One morning I made an apple Dutch baby, mmmmm… One evening recently I made pasta. For 30 some odd years I’ve always mixed up the dough with a food processor, but really, it’s just egg and flour. I was pretty certain I would do fine using a pastry cutter, and woohoo! It works like a charm. I will probably forego the food processor from here on, even at home. I rolled out the dough with my little hand crank pasta machine. It is on board with me since it doesn’t take up much room, and I left the cutter attachment at home. Even at home I rarely use that since I prefer to hand cut wide pappardelle type pasta. I figured if I got this little workhorse home from Italy in my tiny suitcase many decades ago, I could surely find a small space for it on Pandora! I’m very glad I brought it along!
I awoke this morning with a soft light shining in my eyes and thought I must have slept quite late, but it was the moon (one day past full) casting a silvery beam on me. It was 52 degrees in our cabin! Brrrrrrr! Outside the temperature was in the 40s. Time to make haste southward!
We were off just after 7.30 as the sun rose, and for a brief and fragile moment I saw the real proof of Homer’s phrase “rosy fingered dawn.” The tips of the sweet grass and branches of cypress were tinged rose in the first light of day….I don’t think it lasted more than a couple of minutes. It was breathtaking!
Happy Hallowe’en! I’m afraid we won’t get much of a spooky celebration today unless we think of devious tricks to play on each other. And there is no candy on board, so if anything, it will just be tricks, no treats. We will not reach civilization until tomorrow. Today is a long 60 miles or so through a narrow cut in these low lands, through marsh and by swirling inlets.
Now, in late afternoon, we have just anchored in a small creek just north of Charleston. The wind blew hard all day, from the high teens up to 25 mph. The sun glinted brightly on the wind ruffled waters, but by late afternoon I was exhausted from the glare. Never so happy to be out of it for now. As we moved out of the creeks and back into saltier waters we began to see more pelicans again. Boy! They look so clumsy as they plunge into the water head first and create a huge splash. Doesn’t seem like they could possibly catch anything that way! Bob saw one dolphin! No alligators…
I can just see a bit of Charleston on the horizon, promising many luxuries which I welcome! I do love a secluded bit of space in a lovely landscape, but now I’m ready for some civilization!
We have more than 1000 miles under our keel now. At no point in my previous life would I have wagered anything on me doing a trip like this. And now suddenly I’ve wracked up over 1000 miles of sailing. I scarcely believe it….
Day 50, October 30: Jericho Creek
Day 51, October 31: JerichoCreek to Long Creek
