Skull Creek to Bahia Bleu Marina in Thunderbolt

We headed out VERY early because weather predictions had rain and thunderstorms arriving in Savannah for the afternoon. We only had 26 miles to go, so we were pretty sure we'd be safely at the Marina when storms hit. As it was we could see "weather" all around us, but we escaped all of it except for a fair amount of wind. We had gusts over 25 as we crossed the Savannah River. We sweated our way through the Fields Cut after reading and hearing all about terrible shoaling. We weren't far from the cut when we gave a "slow pass" to Hinckley Talaria 55 and while talking to him asked him for a report of the depths he encountered as he made his way through Fields Cut. He called back several times and did warn us about a thin spot as you exit the cut. When we got there, there was a sailboat aground with his jib rolled out trying to heel him over enough to sail off. We tried passing him to port but found that was the WRONG side, luckily we backed down quickly and while we were backing he sailed off. He drew 6'4", so we followed him through!

The rest of the trip went quickly as we had picked up some current at that point and we arrived at the marina by 11:30 am. After settling in, we adventured a little in the area with a trip to River Supply, a marine store. We actually couldn't find anything we needed! Back at the marina we showered and gathered on the marina's screened porch for cocktails and then back to the boat for an early turn in. Tomorrow we head into Savannah proper.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Red sky in the morning.....We were up and underway by 6:30 this morning in a rush to beat the thunderstorms fore-casted to arrive in Savannah this afternoon. Dan was delighted to see that my d... flowers were shedding- - -one of the drawbacks of sailing with a flower lover! As we left the Calibogue Sound and turned right into the Cooper River, I spied the Daufuskie lighthouse nestled in the trees. I always have had trouble remembering how to pronounce it, but not anymore. A little note in the Waterway guide explained how it got the name. Early settlers, describing where they lived, would say it was "Da Fus Key" (the first key)!

We passed several docks along the Cooper River, but only this one was the congregating spot, the others were free of birds. This pelican could barely be bothered to get out of our way as we slid past him.

We were very glad that we had already crossed the Savannah River before this guy went by. The channel is deep, but pretty narrow.