Day 52 - 85/ 727 Statutory Miles: Charleston, SC

Our Route from Lady's Island, SC to Charleston, SC

Watts Cut

We weren't sure if we would make Charleston in one day.  Not because of the distance, but because of the timing of the tides.  There are two areas along this route that were a concern.  Ashepoo - Coosaw Cutoff (East & West) and Watt's Cut.  We were most worried about Watts Cut.  All of the charts indicated less than 5 feet at low tide, and low tide was ~ 12:30pm.  We got up at the butt crack of dawn and were on our way just before 7am, which put us at Ashepoo about 1 hour into low tide and Watts cut @ 3 hours into low tide giving us + 2.5 ft, which was just enough to get through.  We have the depth alarm set for 5ft and it went off about a dozen times just toward the end of Watts Cut. From here on it was supposed to be ok regardless of the tide.

A few hours later we passed by John's Island and some kayaking spots that we have only arrived at by land;

Beach we've Kayaked to with Jess & Andrew a few times

Where the Florida crew launched from August 2014.

Just before Charleston Harbor, you pass through Elliots cut where you get your first view of the city.

About 1/2 way through our day we started to hear radio chatter about a "derelict" sailboat adrift, unmanned in the Ashley river in front of the marina.  As you pass under the bridge, the marina is just across the river and to the left.  We expected to see some commotion with this drifting boat to add to our docking experience, but the coast guard had dealt with it a few minutes earlier.  As the marina directed us to our slip; they confirmed our desire for a starboard tie-up. Then the conversation went something like this;

• Marina:  "Captain, do you have stern thrusters?"
• Captain:  "Yes stern & bow thrusters."
• Marina:  "Oh Good!"
• Marina:  "Come behind the Megadock, the long T-dock facing the river.  About 1/2 way down, it will open up, spin around and back down the alley.  You will pass a large yellow hull sport fish and a 47' Nordhaven.  You will see us waving at you - just back in between the two boats."

We are 43 feet the space that Captain flawlessly tucked the GS into is about 53'. 

We were also greeted by 2 volunteer dockhands; Mr. Middleton & the future Mrs. Middleton to assist with the lines. Later the same evening, they showed up with the most spectacular dinner for the two weary travelers.  Homemade lasagna, salad, bread, a bottle of wine and desert.  What a treat - Thanks guys!

So happy to be here for 6 weeks!

Day 48 - 52/660 Statutory Miles: Beaufort - SC

Short trip of 28 miles from Hilton Head Island to Beaufort took about 3 1/2 hours and afforded us a leisurely start to the day. Crossing Port Royal Sound and passing by Parris Island were among the highlights of the passage.  Port Royal Sound was about 1 1/2 miles across with so few navigational aids it required utilizing compass readings to properly line up with what buoys there were as well as the the opening of the Beaufort River. There is a heavy military presence in this part of South Carolina.

Beaufort was a mile and half walk across the Wood Memorial Bridge.  This is the first swing bridge that we have encountered, and although we didn't need an opening, from the back of the GS at the marina we had a front row seat to those who did.  This bridge was also the same bridge that Forest Gump ran across when he "decided to go for a run" along with several other Beaufort landmarks that appeared in the movie.

We stayed at Lady Island Marina on the recommendation of one of our boating neighbors from Halifax and we were glad we did!  Location is perfect; 1 mile to the east is groceries and a drug store and 1 1/2 miles to the east is downtown Beaufort.  This is just the kind of place that we really like:  a little "crunchy", but clean and full of good people.  This is definitely going to make our top 5 list.

Dockside restaurant is at the top of the docks and the Fillin station is 100 yards to the right of us.  We were highly advised to try the Fillin station for their Thursday night special fried pork chops, corn, green bean & mac and cheese.  Can you feel your arteries clogging??. Cash only and you pay up front - but I guarantee you won't leave hungry.

Jess & Andrew paid us a visit on Saturday - it was so nice, to sit and just kabitz with them.  After strolling through downtown, we had a bite to eat at Dockside. Food was really good, the staff made it so fun and we were in good company

I think we were photo bombed!

Yep we were, and here is the culprit

Sunday was kind of laid back, not much going on and it was so cold outside!  I'm wondering when Spring is going to get to us.  I think we keep out running it. 

Tomorrow we are off to Charleston.  Could be a 2 day trip if we don't time a couple of difficult areas properly, so we are going to give it our best shot and hope we don't touch bottom and we can get there in one day instead of two.

Mobile link to pix

Day 41 - 48/ 632 Statutory Miles: Hilton head

 

Isle of Hope to Hilton Head was all virgin water for the GS. It was a gorgeous day and we finally got to ride topside, which hasn't happened for a while.  We decided to head to HH a day early since the weather reports were calling for the winds to pick up on Wednesday.  Well, there were no winds which meant there were plenty of no-seeums.  "Off" does nothing to deter those little buggers, but Fuentes takes care of them, no problem.  Mr. B had to take one for the team and smoke a cigar @ 8:30 in the morning. 

Trip was largely uneventful with the exception of passing through Fields Cut at low tide.  This brought some "no talking" moments when we saw 4.2 ft on the depth finder - thank goodness the bottom here is nice soft mud. Notes have been made on the chart to take this at mid to high tide on the return trip.  

Hilton Head Yacht Basin is pretty nice!  The dock hand met us in a small boston whaler and escorted us to our slip.  After getting us checked in he asked "red or white" and handed me a complimentary bottle of wine.  Very nice touch! 

The marina is in the middle of Harbour Town with easy access to the restaurants, shops & bars.  Lots of good people watching; Friday we had a wedding about 50' from the boat and Saturday was "pre-prom".  Check out the pictures of the guys showing up on their center console boat in their tuxedos.

Woke up Wednesday morning and it was not only sunny but warm enough to enjoy our morning cup-o- joe on the fly for the first time in a really long time. Good  call coming a day early, even though it was sunny - there were some pretty high gusty winds.  I never realized how windy the south was until the last few years since having the GS.

Sea pines has miles of bike paths, so we took advantage of the sunny (or not rainy) days  to pull the bikes out;

• Day 1 - 13 miles, 2 bars, 2 beaches and a grocery store covered. 

• Day 2 - Sea Pines Forest Preserve - a great walk in the woods on real dirt & mud, not a paved path.  Its a great walk over rice dikes, 2 freshwater lakes and several alligators.

• Day 3 - Rich & Linda joined us for the weekend and we biked to the Salty Dog, the neighborhoods and to the Stoney-Baynard Ruins, which are the remnants of an antebellum plantation home built 1793-1810 by Captain John "Saucy Jack" Stoney. The original house was 1885 square feet, built of timber and tabby; a mixture of oyster shells, lime, and sand. There is a pix of the tabby which is pretty amazing, simple, yet so strong and to last so many years. 

The golf course @ Harbour Town is preparing for the Heritage tournament the week after Easter, so there was lot of activity getting the stadium seating and the VIP tents - it was fun to see it in process.

We concluded the day with the best steak dinner @ Santa Fe!  Great food, atmosphere was terrific & you couldn't beat the company. Thank you guys! 

Day 4 - the farthest ride yet ~ 16 miles - lunch at one end of the island (Salty Dog) and desert at the opposite end (Caligny Plaza) 

Seems like when Mother Nature gives us a couple of nice days she balances them out with a few rainy ones... Thursday brought a gentle all day which equaled laundry done, boat cleaned and a walk in the rain (which is one of my favorite things) to the newly built club house at Harbour Town - it's quite impressive. 

Sunday's rain afforded us a tour by Blue of some surrounding areas; by car none the less and dinner aboard the GS. 

HHI has been a great stop on the trip.  Next stop Beaufort, SC - and I get to see my #1 girl on Saturday :-)

Mobil link to Pix

Day 34-40 / 606 Statutory Miles: Isle of Hope (Savannah)

Left St.Simon at the crack of dawn - day looked clear, right until we ran into a solid bank of fog.  this lasted for over an hour with near 0 visibility.  When it would clear for a half hour, just to make you think you were done with it, it was back again.  In and out of the fog until almost noon. Thank god for radar and a great captain.  At one point, Den thought he saw something on the radar (the blips swapped places), a few minutes later out of the fog, comes a silent sailboat.  It was unnerving to say the least.

Once the fog cleared, the rest of the ride was uneventful, including passing through Little Mud River, which we needed to hit on a rising tide to have enough water.

Planning paid off! 

Total ride took just over 7 hours, by the time we pulled into Isle of Hope Marina.  This is the same marina that we stayed at when commissioning the Gypsy Soul in Feb 2012.  Still a great place, with very helpful & professional staff and very picturesque.  This leg of the trip crossed Altamah Sound, Doboy River/Sound Sapello Sound & St. Catherine Sound which was kind of cool with the "rollers" and currents.  So different from the day before which was all very small creeks, rivers and narrow channels.

After giving GS a bath, both inside & out and took advantage of the courtesy car from the marina to get our fluids refilled, we spent the better part of Friday walking through Isle of Hope, which is just one of the cutest places we've been - very old & nautical style homes.

On Saturday, we treated ourselves to a couples massage before meeting up with Beth & Rome to celebrate St. Patricks day in Savannah.  Talk about living under a rock - we had no idea that St. Patricks day celebration in Savannah was so renown.  The place was rockin.  We were introduced to Ken & Sue from Annapolis, who had lived in Savannah for several years who showed us around Tybee Island on Sunday where we shared an amazing meal at the Crab Shack.

City Market (outside of Wildwings)

The Crab Shack - Tybee Island

Monday was spent chillin and getting the GS ready to head to Hilton Head Island - dinner was a T-bone on the grill, just enjoying the perfect spring evening.  Light breeze, sky full of stars and dead calm water.  Except for the no-seeums it was spot on.  During our stay at IOH, we witnessed how much of a working body of water the intercoastal waterway is, daily, barges, tugs, river cruise boats passed by along with the everyday cruisers/boaters & fishermen.  Monday night, we were up close and personal to the biggest thing I've seen move on the water - no kidding.  We watched the spot lights head our way for at least 45 minutes before 2 barges with 5 tugs passed by.  The first barge was close to 300 yards (yep 2.5 - 3 football fields in length, not a typo) It looked like there was city on this thing.  This was only to be followed by one that was even longer - we are estimating ~ 400 yards.  It took the corner so much wider that as the front corner started to make the turn, it was about 100ft from the back of our boat.  The tugs pulling & pushing these things were so much fun to watch, there was a small little tender/tug, who's job was to go here and push and go there & push, to keep the vessel from running aground and to keep it making the corner.  There is a video of the first barge at the bottom of this post, it's kind of long as it took a good 5-7 minutes to make the corner where we were.

Mobil link to Pictures  Isle of Hope

Day 27 - 33/522 Statutory Miles: St. Augustine/Fernandina & St. Simons

We have checked off 3 more stops since our last update:

Day 27-29: St. Augustine is always a favorite stop and you can always count on the weather to be completely random.  This visit did not disappoint on any of the fronts.  We had weather in the mid 80's and sunny where we were sportin our shorts and flippy floppys and we had rain, gale force winds with a high of 45 the very next day.  Mr. B discovered the "magic" of bourbon @ the tiny martini bar.

Bourbon is Awesome!

After which we finally were able to dine at Catch 27. It is named Catch 27 for the fresh seafood they serve from the 27th state; the great state of Florida.  Dos Equis made an appearance at several local S.A. establishments.  You could even find him tending bar a few times.

At the Spanish ship El Galeon

Tending Bar @ JP Henley

Tending Bar @ JP Henley's Steak House

Finishing the night off @ Stogies

Then came the "weather"  clouds, rain & gale force winds joined us on Friday along with the Morgan's and we weren't certain that we would be leaving for Fernandina on Saturday, but what a difference a day makes...

Day 30 - 31 Fernandina:  Well the weather gods cooperated and calmed the winds down quite a bit from last night and we made the ride to Fernandina.  It took most of the day, but what a pretty ride it was, and we so enjoyed having Kevin & Laurie join us for this leg of the trip.

 Laurie grew up in Fernandina and gave us the insider tour of the town.  We visited the oldest saloon in Florida - the pink palace, which, by the way was the last saloon to close in American during prohibition.

The ladies brought Dos Equis to his knees @ the Palace Saloon

What a great little town this is!  I am sorry that we never took the time out to visit it before now.  It has the cutest downtown filled with shops and restaurants and even an antique store or two (making Mr. B very happy).  Dinner @ the Salty Pelican (not the Salty Duck) was amazing - we all had a pile of the freshest fish you could imagine.  The island is ~ 2 miles wide, so it was an easy bike ride to the beach.  Wrapped up the day with some peel & eat right off the boat and a beautiful sunset

Day 32 - 33:  As we looked at the next couple legs of our trip - there were a few places where we needed to pass closer to high tide than to low tide. Jekyll Creek & Little Mud River both looked like they could give us problems with our 4 1/2 ft draft, which could be solved with a slight change of plans - go to St. Simons rather than Jekyll Island.  So today our quick ride of ~ 4 hours to St. Simons Island, crossed us into the great state of Georgia.  Easy ride with the boat and we timed Jekyll creek mid a rising tide making this touchy passage a non event, which is just how you like it. Passing Cumberland National Seashore, the landscape started to change and get some contour.  As we passed the marshes on the backside, it looked like there were some large animals on the shoreline.  I couldn't make out what they were, but when looking through the binoculars - I was stunned to find out they were horses!  Pretty cool!

Morningstar Marina, just off the ICW in the Frederica River, will be our home for the next few days and is pretty very nice.  They showed us lots of southern hospitality, which I think is just the best. Staying here could really get me spoiled.

Yep - it's a newspaper & fresh muffins delivered to our door each morning

Great island for biking, walking & shopping.  There are bike paths on all of the streets. Downtown is located right on St. Simons Sound & the historic district is on the Atlantic Ocean.


Next stop is Savannah - Isle of Hope Marina.  "Where it all began"

Mobile link to St Augustine & Fernandina Pix
Mobile link to St. Simons Pix

Week Home / Palm Coast

Day 18 - 26 (21 on the boat) and 396 Statutory Miles

The week home went was great and it went by so quickly, and I got to see my #1 girl for her final dress fitting.  It was so good to see everyone and spend time - it was short time but high quality time,  dinner, beers and a birthday party, I don't think we can ever get enough of sitting around, drinking beer & telling lies".  I still just want to pack everyone up and put them in our suitcases for the rest of the trip!

While the week home was awesome - it feels really good to be back on the boat. It seems like we had just found our rhythm. Left mid morning from Halifax to Palm Coast.  The fog lifted around 9:30.  By the time we got our act in order - it was about 10:30 when we pulled out of the slip and headed north, cleared the Memorial bridge and drove straight into the fog and just barely above 0 visibility.  That was exciting.  I learned really quickly how to turn on the radar!  Thank god it didn't last too long and we were in and out of it for the first portion of our trip to Palm Coast.

Now, we have stayed at Hammock Dunes Marina several times and really enjoy the facilities. This time was no different, however, we have our bikes and were able to explore more than the marina and resort and discovered another gorgeous Florida State Park - Washington Oaks Gardens which contains a formal garden and several walking/biking trails.  One of them winds along the ICW - it was pretty cool to see it from the "other side".   Finished the day with some massive T-Bones on the grill just relaxing, shooting the breeze and sipping on a nice "red" with Tim.

During our stay, we met several fellow boaters who have been chasing the warm weather south, it was awesome hearing about their adventures along the way and we look forward to seeing them on their trek North.  This stop over was just perfect. Now on to St. Augustine.





Mobile link to Pix:
Washington Oaks
Week Home