Warm aboard Iemanja...

As the holidays approach, we three are staying warm and comfortable here in SC. Even tho it's not as cold as up in Vermont, the chilly north wind blows pretty regularly and combine it with early morning temps in the 30's and its cold.....our down jackets come in handy to keep off the morning chill.

..........note the special ornament on the lower left side....:-)))))

Last week as we had a very cold morning, our Espar heater gave us an error message...."No Flame Detected". Now when you are living on a boat and your heater gives you this message early in the morning on the coldest morning, this is very bad....very very bad...
Fortunately, we have 2 electric backup heaters in our storage shed (the car). So we quickly warmed up. On the phone with Jack at Edison Truck in NJ and within a few minutes had the likely problem diagnosed......parts on the way which arrived yesterday. Today's project.....fix the heater.
In the meantime we are staying creatively busy....

Catching up in Little River SC.....

We arrived back here to the boat post Hurricane Mathew in early November finding everything shipshape on Iemanja. Thanks to the caring eyes of James the dockmaster and our good buddy Gary from Myrtle Beach, she faired well. I guess that the winds piped up to 70 mph or so around the marina and the storm surge sent the high tide right up to almost the top of the pilings.  Our choice of Coqina Harbor as our safe haven for hurricane season was a good one for the boat was fine throughout.

We've been busy with projects. As we usually strip the boat of canvas, sails, solar panels, wind generator and other loose stuff on deck before we head north for the summer, all that has to go back on. After which we started on the list of desires for the months ahead. I found a rigger in Charlston that helped us with installing a gate on the port side for easy entry onto the boat. We now have one on each side so we can now dock on either side without having to step over the lifelines to get aboard.

Also found a plastic fabricator to build the top half of our hatch boards out of clear lexan which matches the bottom half. Now on the rainy cool days.......which we have had a fair number of.....we can keep the warmth of the cabin inside and still let in the light.
Christmas is shaping up to be really fun for us. We've been invited to join our friends Kim and Danielle and their family for Christmas Day. Sounds like a brunch followed by a drive over to her Aunts for another southern traditional Christmas gathering. I love to meet up with new people and so I don't think that this will disappoint.

We will hang here until after the first of the year at which point we'll turn the bow towards the warmer latitudes further south. Till then Minnie will keep us on the going on stuff to do....she is always watching us.....

Warm spots

Miss Minnie knows where the heat comes from. It's like a gravitational pull on her, drawing her to the source.
Quarter Berth heat vent, right up in front --

And then the diesel truck heater went on the fritz during a cold spell so we dragged out the electric heaters we had stored in the car trunk (you have a storage shed, we have a car):

And the next day after the cold spell is beautifully warm in the cockpit and, guess what, she follows the sun --

That's our girl!!

Christmas lights in South Carolina

James Island County Park every year puts on an amazing light show. The park is huge and the light displays are arranged in categories like dinosaurs, animals, sea world, candy, planet world, and more.
Many displays were made to look like they were moving, marching, running, or flying...

Our favorite was the two by two march toward the arc:

 And dinosaur alley:

 And these flowers started from bare ground and grew as she watered them! Beautiful!

Looks like my high school mascot - Cooper Hawk

And where can you go without finding the Champ lake monster?

Palm tree aisle --

 This Airstream is for Rodd:

This nursery rhyme section had Spiders dropping down out of trees --

And mice running over and down the clock --

Lights in big big trees --

And Christmas wreaths:

The whole place was wonderful!!!

Affects of hurricane Matthew

Ernie and I headed over to a favorite beach walk on Sunset Beach/Bird Island Nature Reserve. We thought we'd see some dune erosion from Matthew but found it was much worse than anticipated.

 The whole front row of dunes are practically gone, the grassed over back row of dunes are fully intact, foreground are eroded dunes with grass hillocks flat on the beach instead of the dunes. eek.

Dune completely cut-away and eroded.

In the last 2 years, we've never looked through the dunes to the back woods and low-country.
Now this year, you can. Grassy hillocks in the foreground where a row of dunes used to stand.

End of day Sunset Beach/Bird Island walk looking toward Little River Inlet.  We might be in North Carolina here, or it might be South Carolina. The border is here somewhere not well marked.

Return to a favorite!!

Ah, Brookgreen Gardens, we love you!! Early in December we headed back to Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Unbelievably beautiful. The sculptures are amazing, holiday decorations are great, and the Night of a Kazillion Lights (the kazillion is mine) is truly wonderful.

Here's some of our favorites --

Ernie in the blue garden:

I want this dress!!!!

Ecstasy, in bronze, looks like they are in motion:

3 elephants: 2 are helping their wounded comrade in bronze.

Icarus in Bronze:

Lovely old Live Oak!

Biggest sculpture in granite. Took 9 years to complete this Pegasus. I like the rider's legs flying out to the right, floating lights in the pond.  All the ponds have floating candles during this light show.

Raining lights--

Bronze sculpture of man reading a newspaper, Ernie stealing a read:

The red garden --

Tree lighting ceremony, the tree now reflecting in one of the many ponds.

Love these big big old trees --

Selfie in the garden of raining lights.

So many sculptures:

That's all for now!!