Port Royal to Thunderbolt to Kilkenny to Duplin River to Jekyll Island to Sisters Creek

Day #435; Loop Miles to Date = 5,159

Phew! The last week just flew by...since our last posting, we left South Carolina, blew through Georgia, and now are finally in Florida! We also crossed a milestone of sorts this week, as we crossed over the 5,000 mile mark in our journey thus far. So, now a brief recap, and a bunch of pics...

Thunderbolt Marina (Thunderbolt, GA) was a nice stop for us. We ended up staying an extra day here because of some fog that rolled in. We needed to depart this location fairly early in the morning to time some tidal fluctuations, and the fog prevented us on the morning we planned to depart. So, we stayed an extra day here, which gave us the chance to take an afternoon and go into Savannah to walk around. We ate some mediocre food, had fun poking around a bunch of shops, and eventually got chased back to the marina by a rainstorm and darkness.

Nothing really notable about this...we saw it on the riverfront in Savannah. And since it was a tug, we were compelled to take a picture.

This section of travel has some extreme tide conditions. On this day, there was a 10+ foot tidal change during the day. The implication to us is that we need to account for this in our trip planning...both from a depth perspective and from a current perspective. This was obviously at high tide, but most markers aren't like this...this one needs to be replaced!

From Savannah we stopped at Kilkenny, GA at a small marina just about 2 miles off of the ICW. This was a really small marina, probably family owned, old and a bit dilapidated, but functional for us for one night. We got rained on walking the pups, but otherwise a peaceful night.

Kilkenny had floating docks...more or less. They floated, but they were some of the ricketiest docks we've been on. To the point that when it was raining and dark, we chose to walk the dogs one at a time - it was easy to envision a potential disaster!

This was the entire flotilla of boats spending the night here.

One cool thing was that late in the day, 30 or so egrets flew in to the trees right near the boat. This picture doesn't do it justice, but all of them roosted here all night. And the next morning we also discovered that there were a handful of night herons who flew in overnight and were spending the morning in the same roost. Kinda neat.

After Kilkenny, we headed for an anchorage that we had used on the way north...Duplin River. And as it turned out, both of the boats who were on the dock at Kilkenny joined us in the same anchorage. Each of us had 2 dogs aboard, and this is one of the few spots in this section of the ICW where there is anything useful for walking the dogs. This is a ferry stop on Sapelo Island, and there is a floating dock here that we can use for dinghy-walking the pups. The only real issue we had was in the morning...we needed to leave early again, and we awoke to find a fairly heavy wind was fighting a fairly strong current. This wasn't unexpected, but the conditions for launching the dinghy and getting on and off the boat were much less than ideal. We managed...but it wasn't fun.

From the anchorage, we traveled to Jekyll Island, GA. This was a great one-night stop. Friendly folks, floating concrete docks, courtesy golf carts to run into the small town there and see the beach. We enjoyed it.

The beach was nice...but cool and very windy. It looks like Sandy got a new hairdo, but it's really just the wind blowing her hair sideways!

Our departure this morning from Jekyll Island was early...this was the sun just starting to rise...we are already underway.

The reason that we left so early was that our destination was Sisters Creek in Jacksonville. This is a free dock, so there is really no way to know if there is going to be room until you show up. We also were able to time the currents and tides to our advantage and made terrific time. We had 56 miles to cover, and we were all secure in our spot at the dock before 1pm. As it turned out, it is now about 4 pm and no additional boats have arrived. There are 3 sailboats here who were here when we arrived, and there is room for a couple of more boats as well. It was a nice travel day...we had some heavy seas in St. Andrews sound for about 20 minutes, but otherwise a delightful day.

Some of the collateral damage from Matthew still being cleaned up. This was near Fernandina Beach, FL. Obviously this barge was loaded with unfortunate casualties from the storm...a real shame.

Just one example of some of the other types of damage that we saw on the way down.

All for now...tomorrow we will finally be at our destination for Christmas...Ortega River Marina in Jacksonville. It is only about 25 more miles to go, and we've been there before, so we expect a peaceful transit through the Jacksonville port and downtown area. We are looking forward to being stationary for a bit!

McCllelanville to Charleston to Steamboat Creek to Port Royal, SC

Day #429; Loop Miles to Date = 4,952

Ok...we've been a bit delinquent on the blog postings, so time to catch up. We left McClellanville a week ago and motored into Charleston...and in the process catching back up with our friends on Corkscrew, which of course meant that we enjoyed ourselves while there. It was a bit of a gray and dreary travel day, but more or less uneventful. Last time in Charleston, we stayed at the Maritime Center, but it took a beating from Matthew and was closed for repairs until further notice. So, we stayed at Charleston City Marina...a huge marina with one of the largest docks on our route (the Megadock). There were some awesome boats docked here, and we were frankly glad to not be on the Megadock, but located on a T-head on one of the other docks. More quiet and peaceful there.

This trip to Charleston brought some good news and some bad news...the bad news was that we were unable to coordinate schedules with Rob's cousin Phyllis this time. We were glad that we saw them on our last visit, and hope to again when we come back north. The good news was that we were able to spend a day with Sandy's sister Lisa. We missed her on the last trip, so it was great to catch up. Lisa drove to the boat to see us and visit for a spell, and then Lisa and Sandy took off to spend the afternoon together...and they had a blast. We're really glad it worked out this time!

Lisa and Sandy on a gray day in Charleston.

And now for a brief detour to share some details about what "a day in the life of Sandrobber" sometimes entails. It isn't always easy and simple. This installment is about puppy walking! Sometimes it is as simple as pie...just grab a puppy, hop off the boat to the dock, and walk about 20 steps to some grass and green space. But sometimes it is quite painful. This last week found us with 3 of our less than desirable situations. #1 was in Charleston...it was a LONG walk to get to some grass. The only walk that has been longer was in Washington DC. The walk in Charleston was also on dock planking that had gaps in it large enough to snag a dogs paw every 50' or so. Each trip to "grass" (there really wasn't any) was about 1/2 hour round trip...4 times a day. Phew!

#2 - Our next stop after Charleston was in an anchorage called Steamboat Creek. This is a lovely anchorage, and one that we used last spring. It has a floating dock available for landing the dinghy to get the dogs ashore. This time around however, we arrived to find the dock was no longer attached to land...Matthew had destroyed the part between the floating dock and the fixed dock on shore. And this area has 6'-7' tides, so landing at the fixed portion of the dock was not always feasible. Needless to say, we had a challenge here...especially after dark, with the wind blowing and the temps dropping into the 30's. This wasn't fun either.

And #3 - We are at Port Royal, just south of Beaufort, SC. The marina is nice, the people are friendly, but once again we are faced with a very LONG walk. With tidal ranges of 7, many of the docks are located far from shore with long walkways to get between the two. In this case, it is all aluminum decking, with no gaps, thankfully. But, each trip to walk the pups is about 1/2 mile round trip...which adds up when we're trying to walk them 4 times per day.

But...enough of that...these are small hardships to endure in the grand scheme of things. In the meantime, we are off to points further south as we reflect on these more peaceful moments from the last week...

Sunset at Steamboat Creek anchorage.

Sunrise from our boat in Port Royal.

Georgetown, SC to McClellanville, SC

Day #422; Loop Miles to Date = 4,835

Georgetown was a nice stop for us...we had been here last Spring, and are glad that we decided to stop here again for a night. It is a small town, and everyone is really friendly. We did our best to contribute to local commerce in the few short hours that we had to walk around...although everything that we bought was edible! We found a great chocolate shop, and bought some treats; a coffee shop and had a latte; and an Italian market where we found some pre-prepared chicken parmesan for dinner, and some wonderful chicken salad for another meal.

We decided to make a stop in a little fishing village called McClellanville on the way to Charleston. The tidal current was against us for most of the day, so we are glad that we opted for a 30 mile day instead of a 60+ mile day. It was gray and cloudy all day, but we had a nice cruise. The highlight of the trip was that we saw 6 eagles along the way. We were traveling through a nature preserve for much of the day, and it was obvious that these majestic birds loved the area. We've seen eagles here and there...but never 6 in a day...it was a real treat.

This is a one-of-a-kind at least in our travels. We remember seeing it here last Spring, but don't recall if we included a pic in the blog. It is a swing ferry. They swing the ferry out across the waterway, the cars drive onto one side, and off the other side. It is sort of like a swing bridge, but instead of being raised above the waterway, it floats. Neat, huh?

And since it is a ferry (therefor a vessel) it also has a name like a boat.

McClellanville is a true fishing village...commercial fishing is about all there is here. So, when we asked the dock manager if the local seafood store was open today, he responded that it was not. But, he said we might ask "those guys there" as he pointed to a fishing boat parked about 50 feet from us. 5 minutes later, we had about 3 pounds of shrimp that "those guys" had caught a couple of hours earlier...how's that for fresh seafood?! And the best part of the story is that "those guys" wouldn't take any money from us for the shrimp...what a great ending to a nice day of cruising.

Part of the local fleet.

One of the boats coming home after a day of fishing.

And these are "the guys" who gave us the shrimp.

So, next up is Charleston...we expect to be dodging some raindrops, but plan to be there tomorrow (Monday).

Lola's favorite spot while we are cruising...not the most convenient, but obviously the safest spot on the boat!

Southport to Osprey Marina (Myrtle Beach, SC) to Georgetown, SC

Day #421; Loop Miles to Date = 4,807

OK...a little catching up to do. First off, we forgot to mention that we started seeing dolphins again upon leaving New Bern last week. At one point we had 4 or 5 of them riding our bow wake. We saw bunches of them for a couple of days, and then when we started on our way to Osprey from Southport, they started to disappear again...because Osprey Marina is on the Wacamaw River, and we got a dose of fresh water for a couple of days.

We've had a number of nice days of travel. Again, this stretch of the ICW forces us to pay attention with the bridges, current, tides, shoaling and sometimes traffic. A couple of random pics from our travels...

We've had some other wildlife spottings along the way too...today, we saw a beautiful eagle sunning in a tree...unfortunately we couldn't get close enough to it to get a decent picture. And, also today, we had 2 deer decide to swim across the river right in front of the boat. It was a lot of fun to watch, and fortunately, they made it across safe and sound.

And then when we arrived in Georgetown this afternoon, we found that there was to be a Boat Christmas Parade tonight. The pictures don't do it justice, but there were 12 or so boats all decked out with lights, parading right past our boat slip...lots of fun!

The Sheriff boat was the lead boat. There was also a boat from the Fire Department, and also the Coast Guard.

At Osprey Marina we had a moment of merriment that will be meaningful to only about 6 folks who might read this blog entry...before entering the marina, we did a ceremonial 360 degree turn in honor of some of our boating friends. Those of you who have no idea what we are talking about can simply ignore this bit of tom foolery!

And now...a parting shot that again will only have meaning to a subset of readers...the rest of you will have no idea why we bothered to include this picture from our visit to Southport.

All for now...more later from down the road...