Yesterday’s boring events:
This time we set out with knowledge of how to navigate through the ICW. First of all our all precious charts that cost a lot of money… worthless except to tell you where you are… there are no anchoring notations… no water guesses as to the depth (The charts just say see note C for depths: Shoals can arise at unpredictable times, we recommend you do not enter, only go through if you have local knowledge of the passages. What are you supposed to do with that. Some places are 16 feet deep why not put that down?)
The chart plotter has a path in white marked out for us to follow… all well and good but still no anchor places, no depths off the beaten track, and here’s the kicker… the white path is supposed to be the best path to follow because we update our chartplotter with the newest information… so what do you really follow a gps signal or do you follow the green and red markers? Sometimes the red marker is not even close to the path marked on the chartplotter sometimes the green marker is in the middle of the path, sometimes it seems are gps is 30 feet to the east of what we sight on the shore… all confusing! In two days we have seen 2 boats in the mud off of the channel and one boat we heard her come on channel 16 (the distress channel) and say she was inside the green marker and still she ran aground. The person responding on the VFH said something like yup we have shoals that just happen…
All of this talk does not make for a calm ride down the ICW… given all of that… I did have a sweet ride due to the fact we had our course planned to the best of our ability, we tried to guess the currents, we tried to time the bridges and it was s beautiful day to boot.
We ended up at the place we set out to end at. Holden Beach Marina. We are on the gas dock just inside the channel. The forecast for Wednesday was Thunderstorms and 20-30 Knot winds and even tornados watches were in effect, needless to say I sided on the side of safety to stay one more day and wait out the storms… I don’t mind rain but thunder and tornado watches… well I say no more…
Once we arrived at the dock Ben and I went exploring in the dark as usual. We love our explore time at each port and this was no different. We went walking till we came across a grocery store and could not help but get a few comfort food items namely ice cream. As we sat under the eves out of the pouring rain we ate our ice cream and talked with a cashier on her break time.
The rain kept pouring so with our groceries in our hands we walked back (about 1 mile) on the way back we ended up walking by a sign “Jesus is a Live” service 7pm Tuesdays. Well it just happened to be 6:50pm on Tuesday. Sooo we stopped…
Picture this… I have not showered for 6 days… better yet I have not brushed my hair for two days… why brush it when I just keep it in braids… we are wearing our heavy rain gear jacket… we are soaked in the legs… I have on my rubber boots… I have my ski headband on my head so as to not show too much greasey hair but I know that in the back of my head is a snarly mess. I was fine if we sat in the back row so no one could see us. I have more appreciation for those that come to places not dressed in the normal attire.
As we sat in the back we realized that we were in for a fiery service complete with speaking in tongues before the service even started the pastor was in the back room preparing for his sermon by speaking in tongues.
The room was a mix of all kinds and we didn’t quite fit in… or at least that was my feeling yet I was there to praise God so it can’t be wrong since the sign said Jesus is a live.
We sang songs at a high spirited level way over the top for conservative Lutherans but not over the top for my spiritual insides. I like clapping and dancing and praising the Lord.
At the end the pastor picked us out to come forward so he could pray for us… oh boy… I was very self conscience of how I looked but I had to let that go cuz I am who I am and I look how I look. While he was praying… I was listening to his words and he said some quite insightful things about Ben and I that were right on… I had to think the prayer was from God to us and not just from this guy. I tryied to put aside all of my worriness of how I looked and my assumptions of what people thought and I concentrated hard on his words… his words were true to my heart…
Last summer I was reading a book on how do you know if God is talking to you or not? He stated that God will talk to you through many people to confirm what God ahs already told you and that is an indication that God is speaking to you… You know when people say, “God told me this…” I wonder did God really tell you this or did you tell you that? The guy also said don’t tell others what God told you until 3 other people have told you what God has told you then you can be pretty sure it is from God. God speaks your language and He will keep speaking to you until you hear it.
So I really listened to the pastor prayer. Then he invited all of us to a prayer meeting on Wednesday at noon.
We ended our night battening down the hatches waiting for a big storm. And zzzzzzzz to bed.
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