A summary of our April adventures, including a beach house weekend, Outdoor Fest, the worst rainy day we’ve ever had, and a party with the bus club.

When Kyle was celebrity bartending last week, we met up with some friends and they invited us to their beach house for Easter. One of them had to work on Good Friday, so we had a lazy morning then packed up the car and headed out around noon. We had to drive through Myrtle Beach, which was…somewhat patience-testing, but there were cold beers ready for us the second we arrived. It was nothing but rest and relaxation for the rest of the weekend.

We stayed on Oak Island, but on Saturday we ventured out to Southport and wandered around a craft fair. We also stopped at the one and only brewery in the area. Then Saturday night we played cornhole and drank ALL the beers. I’ve been half-heartedly trying out my yoga headstand, but on the boat I’m too concerned about falling to lift very high, so after a couple beers I threw my fleece jacket on the ground and used it as a headrest, and achieved a headstand!

On Sunday, of course, my neck was pretty sore because I ended up doing like six headstands (thank you, alcohol and excitement). We spent a chill day reading and eating the best french toast I’ve had in years, though the bar was set pretty low because it’s the only french toast I’ve had in years – it was seriously delicious though.

Yoga in the Park started up this week, and since it’s only a couple miles from the marina it seems easy enough to try to attend a few times before it gets hot out. It is so peaceful to do yoga outside like this, until the mosquitoes realize what is happening and then it’s a bloodbath.

Friday night we went to Art Walk with some neighbors on the transient dock. On the way there, one of them declared that “ALL ART IS BULLSHIT!” Greeeat….I’m sure we’re in for a fun evening. Between that and a couple other sweeping, opinionated generalizations on the way there, I came to the conclusion that we didn’t ever have to hang out again.

We’ve had some rough weather lately. We don’t have any protection from the south, so when we have a strong south wind against an outgoing tide, the swell really picks up. We’ve had two really bad days of this, and it’s really hard to get anything done when it happens. It’s a little stressful, I worry about the bigger waves but we’ve been here long enough that I know we have enough fenders out, our lines are strong and well-balanced so that we’re not putting big stresses on any one cleat, and things are always fine. It’s just not fun.

Late April was one of our favorite volunteering weekends of the year – CCPRC’s Outdoor Fest. We volunteered for a morning shift and signed up for an afternoon class each day – we tried the SUP in Conditions course but the wind was so strong that I could barely make headway against it, so I sat out for about half of that class. After that defeat, I didn’t even bother trying the Surf SUP course, but Kyle took it and absolutely loved it. I did a SUP yoga class instead and had a great time. They do a volunteer appreciation dinner to cap off the weekend, and for the first time ever they had beer at the dinner! Needless to say this was the best dinner yet, usually it’s a pretty awkward group of strangers who only attend to win some prizes. We didn’t win anything, although the grand prize this year was a SUP and a paddle worth about $1500 combined. Last year it was a fishing kayak.

The walk from the parking lot to the boat is a half mile. We had easily the worst commute ever this month when we had to make the walk in pelting, sideways rain – of course that was grocery day. Even with sunglasses on, raindrops stung my eyes at 25mph. This is the first time I’ve ever had to drain my groceries before I could put them away. The wind was blowing the boat away from the dock, straining the lines. Most of the other boats on our side of the dock had added more docklines, so Kyle followed suit. The swell was building and we were bouncing pretty hard. It’s nearly impossible to take photos of rough weather so you’ll just have to trust me that it’s not as flat as it looks.

That kind of swell makes it really hard to sleep. At midnight I moved from the bed to the settee, hoping it would be less bumpy in the cabin. At 3am I woke up again to a dead calm. I debated going back to bed because I would wake Kyle, but in the end I decided it was worth it.

After that, we had a really calm week. In fact, the weather was so nice that we invited our bus club friends over Friday night for happy hour. Kyle worked from home on Friday, aka he did some serious boat cleaning, so I arrived home to a gorgeously organized boat. Perfect for hosting a party and giving tours. About halfway through the party, some new boat friends from E-dock joined us as well. I got a selfie stick recently and I am very bad at selfies, sorry Kyle.

A couple weeks earlier, a catamaran had tied up on the opposite side of the dock from us, put out 3 half-deflated fenders, and then left their boat. The strong winds pushed them into the dock and…well, it wasn’t pretty. I don’t understand the mindset of people who under-fend, I’d prefer to use as many fenders as we have, saving one or two for emergencies. The boat owners arrived back later in the week and were livid about the damage, but it’s not like it was the marina’s fault. The point of this story is that Kyle and I are overly protective, our dinghy almost always has at least three safety lines and I’m constantly checking the shore power cord to make sure it doesn’t get caught up in the dock pillars and bumpy nights are always going to make me a little anxious. We don’t own much, but we take care of it and it’s in good shape.

I hate to end on such a sour note, so I’ll just say that we’ve been spending so much time outside lately – we’re in that zone of blissfully perfect spring weather in Charleston and I do a little happy dance in the cockpit every night because I love our boat and I’m so excited to start cruising this fall.