Saturday in St. Augustine

Everyone has been hearing about Sailor's Exchange, this great mecca for an amazing amount of used and some new marine STUFF, so all eight of us were set to descend upon the place this morning. Dan dropped me over at The Anchorage Motel dock so I could go get our car and Jay and his car to transport all of us to Sailor's. With all nine of us in the store at once, there was barely room to move around, but move around we did and everyone found treasures that couldn't be passed up. Dan found two of my dad's books which he told me to buy so I could autograph them for whomever! Well with both books on the counter, Maureen proclaimed she wanted this book because it was written by her friend's father. Little did we know that the owner of Sailor's Exchange was a great fan of Bill Robinson! He ended up giving us all incredible deals on our purchases and had all sorts of questions about the GREAT Bill Robinson. I had to laugh, because every other time we have been in there, we use Jay's name to try to get deals----little did we know! The morning wasn't complete without a trip to West Marine, and we all dropped another bundle! Jay then lead us to Hurricane Patty's for a very atmospheric and delicious lunch out on their deck.
The girls decided to ditch the guys and do a little shopping in the afternoon. We hit Christe Blue's consignment shop and enjoyed looking, only Betty had any success, but it was fun anyway. Then off to the Publix to get a few things, especially the makings for sundaes. We had decided to eat aboard our own boats for dinner, meet in downtown St. A after dinner to watch the lighting of the Christmas tree and all the decorations on the square, and then head across the Bridge of Lions to Jay and Pegg's for dessert. I actually think I overdosed on chocolate. I didn't think that was a possibility! Pegg finally arrived home just as we were finishing up our sundaes. She had been gone since Thursday taking part in a cross Florida relay run with twelve other women. They had done very well, so she was glad she had taken part in it. Tomorrow is THE RACE. Two years ago Jay had signed Brunelle up to sail in the Commodore's Cup sponsored by the St. Augustine YC, so when the race was postponed from last Sunday to this Sunday it seemed inevitable that we would race again. This time the CCYC has two boats entered in the race, Dan has convinced Glen and Maureen that Sevilla should also race. SO it's going to be the boys against the girls! We'll report on it tomorrow.
~~~_/)~~~M&D

As I walked up the dock at The Anchorage Motel I noticed this blue heron. He let me get pretty close before taking off.

Saturday evening was the tree lighting ceremony on the square in downtown St. Augustine.
My little camera doesn't do too well with low light without a tripod, but you get the idea of the crowds and lights.

Overnight from Savannah to St. Augustine

We did our calculating and decided that it would take 22 hours to go from Thunderbolt (Savannah), out the Wilmington River Inlet and on down the outside to the St. Augustine safe water buoy, so we scheduled our departure from the Bahia Bleu Marina for noon on Thursday. The weather was predicted to cooperate and we knew the moon was close to full. The ride down the river was easy and we noticed that the Catalina-Morgan 440 named Andiamo! was still tied up at the Savannah YC. We had seen her on our last trip two years ago and done quite a double take. Once out of the inlet, it was a straight shot for the buoy off St. Augustine, 137 statute miles (we were using statute miles because the ICW is calculated in statute miles.)
There was more traffic during the night than we had seen on our last offshore leg, but only one vessel caused us any concern. We spotted a large cargo ship heading across our path as we approached the entrance to Jacksonville. Thanks to AIS we knew the name, size, destination, speed, course etc of the ship and Dan called them. It looked like we would be less than half a mile from them if we each continued on our current course. Dan decided to cut back our speed and head 10 degrees to the east to make the gap between us larger. Worked like a charm. The ship was only doing 9.4 knots, probably because all vessels 65 feet or larger are required to travel at 10 knots or less as they pass through the North Atlantic Right Whale habitat. Their migration puts them off the coast of Georgia and Florida during November and December.
We arrived at St. Augustine's safe water buoy right at 10:30, and were surprised just how sloppy the entrance became when the outgoing tide met an onshore breeze. It wasn't blowing any more than 10-12 knots, but it was enough to have us rolling all over the place on the way in. Once we passed the jetty, the slop stopped, but the current kept our progress to a crawl, so we didn't make the 11:00 opening at the Bridge of Lions. We split with Andiamo as we entered because they have a slip at the Conch House Marina in Salt Run and the rest of us are taking moorings south of the Bridge of Lions. We made the 11:30 bridge opening and picked up our moorings. After lunch aboard we dinghied across the harbor to The Anchorage Motel and Marina with the hope of making some arrangement to tie up our dinghy as it is a short walk to Jay and Pegg's from there. The tie up fees are pretty steep, so we will have to work something else out, but they let us use it for today. Jay met us there and drove us and our dirty laundry to his house. We washed it and ourselves and were joined by all our group for dinner. Early to bed. Tomorrow we adventure about town.
~~~_/)~~~M&D

As we departed from Bahia Bleu Marina, we passed by Thunderbolt Marina and spied Neon Rainbow our nemesis from our rudder incident two years ago.... we're glad we are going outside from here. We also passed a working fishing boat as we went out the Wilmington River inlet. It was an easy exit with plenty of buoys. We settled in easily for the second overnight voyage of the trip.

Very little sea-life activity on this trip. We spent about half an hour sailing through a fleet, flock, flotilla (?)...don't know what you call the thousands of funny looking jellyfish that surrounded the boat. ....I just spent half an hour looking at over 1,000 pictures of jellyfish on the web and NOT ONE looked like this one!

Sunrise was a long time coming with the bank of clouds that hung on the eastern horizon.

Our peaceful moonlit trip offshore culminated with a wild ride through an outgoing tide at St. Augustine Inlet. We haven't rolled this much since the Neuse River! We made it through the Bridge of Lions and took a mooring in the newly established mooring field sponsored by the city of St. Augustine. They put us at the southern end of the field right next to a sandbar, but we did have enough water. We were welcomed by yet another harbor dolphin.

A tour of Savannah

I'd hate to jinx it by talking about how lucky we have been with the weather, but just have to comment on our perfect day in Savannah. Temperatures in the 60s and 70s all day and bright sun made our day in town quite enjoyable. Our joint decision to take the Trolley Tour of town turned out to be a good one. We started around 10:30 and got off four times along the way to do our own touring and for lunch and wound up back at our starting point a little after three. We then walked to city market but were disappointed to find it to contain lots of little eateries, but little else. After having gorged ourselves at Mrs. Wilkey's Boarding House at lunch, food was the last thing we needed!
The cab ride back to the marina proved to be almost as informative as the Trolley Tour. Our driver was full of enthusiasm for his city (he had attended the same elementary school that his mother and grandmother attended) and was also very knowledgeable about the history and architecture of areas not visited by the Trolley. We all assembled aboard Andiamo for cocktail hour but no one was interested in eating anything yet! We all retired to our own boats around 6:00 and we finally ate a few crackers around 8 pm. No need for dinner tonight. Tomorrow we plan to head offshore again for an overnight that will take us all the way to St. Augustine. SPOT will be tracking us, but I doubt we'll have phone signal until we hit St. A.

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

We all spent the day soaking up the atmosphere in Savannah. A 10 o'clock taxi ride took us downtown to the river front at the Town Hall where we all agreed that a Trolley Tour would allow us to see the sights while letting us to get on and off at will. We started by seeing the golden dome of Town Hall that is supposedly featured in any picture of downtown Savannah. Dan and another unsuspecting passenger were asked to sing "Moon River" as we passed by the statue of Johnny Mercer, we all helped a bit, but it was pretty awful! Next we passed the park bench where Forrest Gump ate his box of chocolates. There are 24 squares in Savannah and we went by most of them, they each have a significant feature, often a statue, and all quite beautifully landscaped.

One of the destinations of the day was Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House, famous for the best in southern cooking. We had to spend an hour standing in line outside before being seated family style with 24 different dishes on the table. The staff kept the bowls full as we all chowed down. AMAZING! We had heard about this place from Dick and Jean Citron and they were right that it shouldn't be missed.

After our sumptuous lunch we felt the need to walk and enjoyed this park with wonderful old trees and this spectacular fountain before hopping back on the trolley and finishing the tour.

We certainly heard a lot about SCAD Savannah College of Art and Design. They are famous for having re-habbed many old buildings in town always maintaining the character of the exterior but making the interior usable and efficient. Dan's cousin Steve Bliss is Dean of the School of Fine Arts at SCAD, but was in Austin, so we missed seeing him.

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.

B&B Seafood, Mosquito Creek to Skull Creek, Hilton Head

Love all these creek names. We actually noticed more "no-see-ums" on Mosquito Creek, and haven't seen a single skull since we've been here! Another beautiful day with an easy trip through the windy (long "i"--- not to be confused with windy) creeks and canals of SC. We did run across a few "thin" spots, but we never had less than 9 feet of water, and that's plenty for us. The guide books are full of shoaling warnings, but we hit most of them at high tide, and with a 6-7 foot tide range, we were covered, so to speak. The wind was non-existent for most of the day, so we were happy to be able to roll out our jib for the final 5 mile stretch as we crossed Port Royal Sound on our way into the Hilton Head Island area when the wind speed read 5-8 knots. The rest of the "story" is covered in picture captions, so g'night.

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

Morning at B&B found the Billie B already gone from the dock, it also found a white egret "fishing" in the bait trough. He succeeded in snaring a minnow, flew to the nearest piling and proceeded to drop it! He continued to look forlorn as Dan headed back to the store for just one more pound of fresh shrimp. A pair of vultures were busy watching his progress, but we got away safely!

Here we are again. We pictured this same day marker last time, with the same amount of mud surrounding it!

We had an hour and a half wait at the Lady's Island Bridge in Beaufort as construction on a nearby bridge has changed its opening policy. We idled and enjoyed a Bloody and our fresh shrimp! Not a problem.

We still arrived at Skull Creek on the north end of Hilton Head Island by 4:00pm and anchored in a little elbow off the ICW .

Charleston to B&B Seafood

Departure from Charleston was at 7:30, partly to make the Rt. 17 Wappoo Bridge before nine when it stops opening on demand (on Sunday anyways) and to make sure we would get to B&B Seafood before the store closes a 5:00! We easily made both of our goals. The trip this time was much cheerier as the sun was out and of course we had company all the way. Two years ago it was dreary and cold most of the day. We had called B&B on Saturday to assure ourselves they would be open on Sunday and asked about the possibility of rafting. The dock there only holds two boats, so we wanted to put the two 40 footers on the dock and tie the other two alongside. B&B had never run across a request like that, but were willing to work with us.
We arrived around 3:30 which gave us plenty of time to figure out how many pounds of shrimp to buy. We got a communal four pounds for tonight's joint dinner and each boat bought some to freeze, that is except Brunelle. We don't have freezing capacity, and the small freezer we do have is reserved for "rocks" - - - an important part of our provisions! We split up the duties, Betty and John worked on Shrimp Cocktail and Kathy and I put together a shrimp, rice, veggies,
feta, dill and tomato dinner. All in all, we are eating hearty. There is no power on the dock, so we nestled down early snug in our sleeping bag nest.

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

As we departed from Charleston Harbor Marina, we spotted our lunch spot from yesterday (top left) and you can see why it's called Fleet Landing. We rounded the peninsula that is Charleston downtown and caught a few pictures of the stately homes along the river. We also were happy that American Glory passed us and squeezed through the Rte. 17 bridge before we got there!

This is the process of trying to capture a picture of a river dolphin. #1. Darn! #2 Arrgh #3 Not again! #4 He's there, but ...not that exciting. #5 Finally!

This guy did this little bobbing dance four times, I'm sure he was counting the number of Catalinas that were passing his little corner of the ICW!

We keep trying to tell Maureen (who has memorized BRUNELLE - Bahamas Bound, our blog turned book) that the book is NOT an itinerary, just a log of our last trip, BUT we do seem to keep following it pretty closely! ....including stopping at B&B Seafood. We did throw them for a loop when we asked if we could raft at their dock, but the girl that runs the store called the boss and got permission, so raft we did. We tied up right behind Billie B. and bought prodigious amounts of shrimp and a few lobster tails for good measure.