Duplin River to Isle of Hope (Savannah) to Lady's Island Marina (Beaufort SC)

Day #203; Loop Miles to Date = 2,490

Our travel days since our last posting are blending together in our brains. They seem quite similar, and by the time we pen a blog, we can't really distinguish between them. The topography is much the same, with more salt marshes and winding river-like scenery. Sometimes it is even hard to remember that we are in salt water. For now though, we do know that we are in South Carolina, marking the 6th state that we have visited thus far.

Isle of Hope marina was another nice stop...the people were friendly and the access to downtown Savannah reasonably close. We didn't end up with any pics of Savannah this trip, but enjoyed a bus tour around the city for one afternoon. These touristy types of excursions are not usually our first preference, but in this instance we had a great experience. We learned a lot about the history of Savannah, and saw appreciably more of the city than we would have on foot. It is really a very beautiful small city...very southern, and very charming. Lots and lots of beautiful old southern homes. We really enjoyed this stop.

 

OK...so it may not seem so from this picture, but the docking skills that we needed to get our tug into this spot were a bit more than typical (Isle of Hope Marina). We had to BACK down this narrow fairway to get to our spot...past all of these boats. And what you must know is that single engine boats like ours do not back in a straight line. They "walk" to starboard (to the right) as soon as you start backing them up. So...it took a bit of patience, but we made it in one try without touching any of the neighboring boats. It was a  good challenge, and we were thankful that we had only a moderate breeze and had timed our arrival for slack tide (so no current to deal with). Getting out was a bit more straightforward! That's Act lll to our right...they had to do the same thing and did so admirably!

On one section of the ICW on the way to Lady's Island, we had to cross a major shipping channel into Savannah. As we approached, this was one of two huge freighters that we encountered. We decided to let them have the right of way, and idled on one side of the channel while they passed. These things are enormous when you get a front row seat...look at how many of these containers they carry in each load...just breathtaking.

As a nice added bonus, the captain of this freighter hailed us on the radio and thanked us for staying out of his way. I'm sure he encounters plenty of idiots in small boats, and was simply glad that we were not one of them!

Lady's Island marina is a small marina, and not located directly in the downtown area of Beaufort, SC...we're about a mile away from town. But the folks running this marina are terrific, as is the resident live aboard boating community. All we had to do was call the dock master Steve, and request a lift to town. Within minutes, we had one of the other boaters here ready with a minivan to take us to town. Then, when we were done walking around this quaint southern town, we simply called them again, and Steve came and picked us back up for the return trip. This was a very pleasant stay!

The beautiful riverfront park area between downtown Beaufort and the ICW. Our marina is actually on the other side of that bridge in the background.

We're off tomorrow morning to an anchorage about 35 miles north of here, and then on to Charleston...

Brunswick Landing Marina to Duplin River Anchorage

Day #198; Great Loop Miles to Date = 2,376

Ok...we are kinda in the middle of nowhere right now, but enjoying a beautiful anchorage. We are adjacent to Sapelo Island on the coast of southern Georgia. (For more info on this unique island click here.) There is a ferry dock right where we are anchored, so we can shuttle the pups to shore as needed. It is really peaceful and quiet...a bit of current as the tides change, but nothing that isn't manageable.

We had a really nice cruise day once again...today travelling with quite a pack as it turned out. We left the dock a little before 8am, and by the time it was all said and done, we ended up with a small fleet of boats all headed north...6 in all. We had some current, tides and shallow areas to deal with, but nothing that was ever an issue. Tomorrow, we will be leaving shortly after dawn in order to time our travel further north with the tides and more shallow areas.

We'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

On Saturday, we took a look around Brunswick...this is the "old" City Hall. A grand structure in a beautiful setting.

In front of the City Hall was this small memorial to fallen soldiers from all of the wars since WWI.

What we found most interesting was that this recent addition to the memorial is the first of its kind that we personally had seen. We are accustomed to seeing memorials to all of the past wars and conflicts, but this was a first for us. Kind of grim...

The town is very proud of this heritage...the plaque explains the replica that is shown in the next 2 photos...

 

Part of our convoy today...we were joined by another tug like ours called Mascot right behind us. And behind them are our friends on California Lady and Corkscrew.

Moni Jean was in front of us...

And leading the pack was Act lll. This is a good example of the changing terrain that we have seen the past few days. Lots of lowland salt marshes, and the waterway meanders around. We find it very serene and pastoral.

A panoramic shot of our anchorage.

Our sunset tonight...'til next time...

Ortega River Marina to Sisters Creek to Brunswick Landing Marina

Day #195; Loop Miles to Date = 2,341

What a great couple of days of cruising!

Lot's of pictures to share, so we'll try to be brief. We left Ortega River Marina on Wednesday, and retraced our steps to the Jacksonville city free dock at Sisters Creek. (We are traveling with our friends on both Act lll and Corkscrew.) We are glad that we got an early enough start to secure a spot on this free dock, because by the end of the day, it was packed...8 boats shoe horned into a dock meant for about 6 boats. But we had a great, fun, peaceful evening.

And, on Thursday, we took off early (wheels up before 7am) because we had decided to forgo Fernandino Beach and stretch our legs up to Brunswick, GA. This made for a 60+ mile travel day, which is on the outside of our comfort zone with making the dogs wait for a stop for relief. But, we are so glad that we did, because the weather was grand, the marina we skipped on looked just so-so from our pass by, and Brunswick is a great facility. And, we were all able to catch up to our friends on California Lady. We also had some great photo ops along the way...all in all, it was a really good day. None of the trouble spots (shallow areas) that we had planned for turned out to be any problem at all, as we had ample water, and never a real threat of touching bottom (or worse).

Just for the curious, the tides and currents in this stretch are notable, and need to garner our attention. The tides can vary 6-8 feet daily, and the currents can reach 3+ knots in spots. As an example, within a 4 hour window on Thursday, at the same engine rpm's, our speed ranged from 5.7mph to 10.8 mph...a fairly significant spread. So, for trip planning, this can have an obvious impact, and needs to be accounted for each day. The tides themselves are more an issue when docking at fixed docks. Since the water level can vary so much, attention to what your dock lines are doing all of the time is necessary...and planning for how you get on and off the boat can be a factor as well. When lucky (like right now) we dock at floating docks, so your boat floats along with the dock as the tide rises and falls, so dock lines are set once, and then mostly ignored.

One other item of note - we crossed into Georgia yesterday after 161 days in the state of Florida. It'll probably be 7 months until we return next, and by that time, we will have visited at least another 5 states.

And now for some pics...

Downtown Jacksonville

The Maxwell House Plant in JAX...Rob made a sales call here way back in about 1990...included just for grins.

This looked like it belonged in an old Sci-Fi movie. We decided that it was used to load grain, or other granular materials onto barges.

Eagle #1 for the day...

And shortly thereafter, Eagle #2.

Much of the day looked like this...with ACT lll ahead...

And Corkscrew behind...we were in the middle today.

Our friendly neighborhood Coast Guard Auxiliary out for a cruise.

And then the US Coast Guard.

Wait a minute...is that a large caliber gun on the bow of this one? That's not typical...what's going on?

ACT lll is about to find out! They are headed into a "fleet" of large Coast Guard boats.

What we decided is that we had stumbled onto a bunch of Coast Guard boats out on exercises...some training most likely. Before we got close to them, we could see them making numerous high speed maneuvers...they settled down as we got close though.

It was really a neat experience...fun to see them out in a large group. Usually we only see them one at a time, and not the larger boats all that often.

This guy just seemed to be gently telling us to just move along...and mind your manners.

Then as we passed them, they circled around behind Corkscrew, and started all over again.

Just as we were passing Cumberland Island, we also passed the US Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay. This patrol boat was making certain that we pleasure boats stayed where we were supposed to. We didn't see the sub that was docked here, but our friends on ACT lll reported spotting it hiding back in there somewhere.

A couple of the large Navy vessels at the sub base.

 

All for now...we're parked here in Brunswick for a few days, and then we'll head further north...stay tuned...

Ortega River Marina...Getting Ready to Move On

Day #193; Loop Miles to Date = 2,256

The wind has finally stopped blowing! We've had about 5 days straight of windy days out of the Northeast, and while it wouldn't have been impossible to be traveling, we are happy that our plan was to be tethered to the dock anyway. We are still at the Ortega River Marina near Jacksonville, and this has been a great stop.

Sandy was able to make the journey to Atlanta last week, knocking some items off of her to-do list, and also had a great time catching up with girlfriends who all got together for a dinner party. Rob stayed "home" with the pups and tackled a few miscellaneous boat projects.

 

Sandy and her crew of work friends...friend Trina is hiding...

There's Trina...hiding out.

Comfy chair, beautiful blanket...best seat in the house!

Then, last weekend, we got together with Sandy's brother Ray on Saturday, and followed that up with a Sunday get together with Ray's family and had a wonderful time! Not only were we able to catch up with Ray and Donna, but also 2 of their sons (Richard and John) and their families as well...oh and Grace too (an additional grand-niece who joined in for the fun). Nothing like some good quality family time to make you feel all warm and fuzzy!

Back at the dock...our friends from ACT III are back from their son's wedding, and our buddies on Corkscrew caught up with us here last night. If all goes according to plan (often it doesn't) we'll all head out on Wednesday and start our northward trek. This portion of the trip will present some different challenges moving forward. We are now entering a section where we will need to contend with 7 and 8 foot tides, and the currents that are associated with them. We'll have some spots where the both tides and currents will impact our travel schedules. We'll try our best to always be going with the current, but that won't always work. And, there are some known shallow spots that we will need to avoid in low-tide conditions. Plus, there are a few tricky crossings where wind, current and tide will all factor into our daily plan. All good challenges, and much fun to be had!

St Augustine to Jacksonville Free City Dock to Ortega River Marina

Day #187; Loop Miles to Date = 2,256

We'll try to make this post short on words and long on pictures. On Sunday we left St Augustine and headed for a free dock on Sisters Creek that is managed by the city of Jacksonville. We had a beautiful 40 mile cruise this day...very enjoyable. There was room for about 6 boats here, and it was first come, first served. When we arrived, there were already 5 boats there, with no spot big enough for us. The short version of the story is that we pulled up to a launch ramp dock nearby (practically no water beneath our keel, with depth alarms screaming non-stop), and Sandy ran over to the free dock and got the folks there to move a couple of boats around to make room for us. In the end it worked out fantastic, and we met some really nice folks there.

On Monday, we traveled towards Jacksonville...off of the ICW and now on the St Johns River. After passing Jacksonville, we pulled into Ortega River Marina and caught up with our friends on ACT III. We are both pausing here to take road trips to different destinations...they are heading to DC for their son's wedding, and Sandy is heading to Atlanta to see some friends and tend to a couple of routine doctors appointments. Rob is camping out on the boat for a few days with "the girls". Sandy will get back on Friday, and this weekend we will have the chance to spend some time with her brother who lives here in the area. Then on Tuesday or Wednesday, we'll retrace our steps back to the ICW and head for points north. 

Just a neat looking shrimp trawler that we passed coming out of St Augustine.

Boating fact for the day: this thing that the shrimp trawler is tethered to is called a Dolphin. Typically you see these in groups, located where commercial boats might need to temporarily tie-up for an overnight or in staging to go through a lock. We will seldom use them, but in a pinch, it can serve as a spot to tie to if we need the option.

We passed this crew of 20 folks paddling what essentially was a large canoe. We speculated that this might be some sort of a team building exercise for a corporate outing.

This was our view from the free city dock that we used...it was gorgeous.

A really neat looking suspension bridge, the Dames Point Bridge carrying I-295 traffic just east of Jacksonville.

This tries to provide a sense of perspective...see the 18 wheeler?

And all those cables on either side are supporting half of the bridge. In the middle, there is just this "tiny" gap. Try not to think about this if you ever cross a similar bridge...

A large Navy ship being worked on as we approached Jacksonville.

One of many tugs in the area...we just liked the looks of this one.

Spotted this beautiful looking yacht. After some investigation, it turns out to be Seawolf, a 200 foot yacht that you can charter for about $200,000 per week if you want to cruise the Caribbean or even the South Pacific. Ok...we'll put this on the list of stuff that we will never do.



Once again, our able crew is hard at work.

Sunrise over St Augustine....it was a beautiful morning!