02/24/2025 ICW Day 55 : A Tale of Two Tides

Often we have had the currents come and retreat in such a way that after a struggle, we are “paid back.” Today, my app said that it was going to be all-current, all-the-time, all-in-front. And it was right.

At one point, we were passing a large crane. It seemed like an hour had passed, and when I looked again, the crane had hardly moved. That is partly due to the difficulties in perceiving your relative location, but also largely due to the fact that we were going 0.8 mph through a narrow gap.

But, we can sit there and talk to each other, and I decided to take this opportunity to fly the drone from the boat. Recovery would be easier because we were just pedaling in place as if on a stationary bike. Millions of people voluntarily do that every day on Zwift, so why should I complain?

We discovered a feature on Safari Mobile: “Listen to this page.” Since we now have the solar panel, we don’t have to hoard electrons like Ebenezer Scrooge, meaning our onboard entertainment clicked up a notch. We plan to convert our friend Stan Hooper’s memoir to a web page next so we can use SIRI to listen to the final draft. The Apple voice is far superior to the hack of an MP3 I cobbled together with my Raspberry Pi. Meanwhile, we clicked right over to Ray Jardine’s written account of his round the world sailing adventure with Jenny on SUKA; the stories of other sailors inspires me, though the horror stories of hitting shallows does make me cringe - especially after what happened to us yesterday. No boat is immune.

Speaking of yesterday, my sliced feet are in quite a bit of pain. I have a couple dozen “knife cuts” on the bottoms of my feet. I can feel the deep and narrow crevices spread open and closed like a morbid accordion whenever I apply pressure. On the bright side, I am grateful that I can feel my feet, as diabetics can develop neuropathy that leads to them being unaware of foot injuries - eventually leading to amputation. See, Janet has been wearing off on me; there is a bright side to everything.

Speaking of bright sides, do you remember Peter Frank from yesterday? He managed to make it all the way the Beaufort already, and posted some photos of us to his social media. Apparently, he has quite a massive following, because our inbox suddenly got peppered with lots of love and generosity. Offers of help, encouragement, warm meals, and places to stay. Suddenly, that “Southern Hospitality” refrain actually is starting to hit home.

Speaking of Southern Hospitality: If you saw someone with a folding bike, would you go out of your way to hunt that person down just to tell them:

“I like your bike. That is so cool”

Would you? If you saw someone looking pretty sick at breakfast wearing ugly plaid fleecy pajama pants going for a helping of sausage, would you corral them so you could say, “I like your pants?”

Janet and I have been trying to figure out if people are different here, or if it is just us. The other day at Kroeger, I had my bike in the shopping cart, and I heard a woman calling from way down the aisle, “Excuse me, sir, sir!!” She was far away and behind me, so I pretended to ignore the calls. I knew where this was headed.

She ran over, winded, “Oh, I just wanted to say that I LOVE your bike. That is SO darn cool! It folds up!”

“Thanks! A lot of people say that.”

“Oh, Really?!”

Am I just some cold Californian, or is the South running on a whole different frequency? Either way, I’m starting to suspect that here, the current of kindness is always flowing.