Living in the fish bowl

In sharp contrast to the remote wilds that we've been cruising through the last few weeks, Felix and her crew are now part of the scenery that hundreds of tourists flock to stare at every day. The floating docks of the marina ride up and down along the sea wall of the Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park, where daily busloads of geriatric tourists are deposited for a day of Bay Street shopping and dining. The American Spirit, a river cruise ship, seems to stop in and tie up to the seawall every few days as well. Stepping out into the cockpit, we're often greeted with the snapping of shutters as the tourists take pictures of all the pretty boats resting in the Marina. Now, I feel like Wally the Gator.

It's been a good time to be tied up securely, since the area has seen gale force winds for the last 4 days which have been right on the edge of tropical storm force. We've taken the time to do all of the mundane but necessary tasks that have become due; changing the engine oil and oil filter, engine fuel filter and water separator filter, clean the seawater strainer, clean the air filters, change the boats freshwater filter, several loads of laundry, clean the bilge, and still on the to-do list scrub the brown water stains off of the hull sides. We've even managed to still eat a few gourmet meals, of which I have a backlog of photos. One note of importance on all of these meals that we've been showing, this has been mostly long life foods. We have a good freezer/fridge set up, but since leaving Palm Beach we've only spent $14 in groceries until this week, when we spent another $40. The first photo up is our tasty tongue-twister of a treat, Grilled Tatonka and two-tone taters. If you don't remember what a Tatonka is, than you need to rewatch 'Dances with Wolves'. The two tone taters are Star's creation of Russett and Sweet potatoes.

The next meal up was an excellent Duck a l'orange, the fowl we found hiding in a corner of the freezer trying to remain unnoticed. He flew in with a side of Country Dijon potatoes and Spinach in Bechamel sauce. As you can see in the photo it took every bit of Chief's minimal will power to not pounce on the duck and rip it apart!!

This weekend the shoreside party gets even bigger since the Park is hosting the Beaufort Gullah Festival. The Gullah are African-Americans of the South Carolina low country who have held onto their traditional African culture.

This should be interesting because we have to walk through the middle of the festival to get to the showers, bathroom, laundry, marina office, etc. The charge to enter is $20 a day but I think we're already inside. I'm hoping that we don't feel like the lone Indian at the Custer family reunion. Tents and booths started arriving yesterday afternoon and people were working through the evening setting up displays and food concessions. I had never heard of the Gullah before finding out that we are living in the middle of their festival, so it should be an enlightening cultural experience which I hope to share in the next blog entry..