Inclement Weather

January 21-?, 2025

Port Royal, SC (marina)

One of our favorite things about the Low Country is the mild winters.  Some years we barely get below freezing – and if we do, it’s generally at night with daytime temps in the 50s. 

Every so often (the last big snow was in January of 2018 and the one before that was in 1990 or so) we get a BIG SNOW EVENT.  There’s all kinds of predictions for all kinds of weather and it makes everyone amateur meteorologists.

One of our favorite sources of information just told us to be prepared for a mess.

The snow/sleet/freezing rain start times kept moving, too, so we were sent home early on Tuesday.  School districts have the unenviable task of balancing student and staff safety with maximizing educational opportunities. 

Heavy sleet began at around 7:30pm and continued all night.  The wind was moaning and the sleet was clicking Lailia continuously but we were snug and cozy. 

Every time I woke up, I took a photo of the sleet accumulation from our window.  (I am usually not up so often, but this was EXCITING!)

Five years of living onboard and this is our first snow encounter!

We have multiple heat sources onboard (electric and propane).  Because we like to sleep in a cooler room, we turn them down at night.  Once we were up and working, we turn up the electric and propane to a cozy temperature.

This is the first time we saw our cockpit enclosure encased in ice.

Our deck was coated with inches of icy sleet, which was pretty solidly frozen.  I was disappointed with this texture because I had hoped for light, flaky snow so we could build a snow sailor.

Adventure Man John did some marina sightseeing today while I was in about a million Zoom meetings during our eLearning day.  It’s definitely bonkers to see all this precipitation.

John did some informal snow clearance on the docks – he kicked a lot off so it could dry.  The marina doesn’t have snow shovels or blowers and hopefully all the dockhands stayed off the roads today.

John also cleared the deck above the propane locker so if we need to change out the propane it will be easy to access.  The locker is on the lee side of Lailia, so the 3 inches it accumulated was less than on the windward side.

The ice accumulation on top of the cockpit enclosure was pretty heavy, so John removed that as well.

Emergency Management has asked that folks stay off the roads through tomorrow – anything that melted in the short time temps were above freezing will refreeze.  School is closed tomorrow – we will have a makeup day in March. The weather won’t t warm up until the weekend so we may also be out of school on Friday, although that makeup day may cut onto our spring break.

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We are both very thankful for all the folks who made sure we would be safe and warm during this weather event.  It reminds us of how fortunate we are to have so many caring people in our lives.