Dec 26th - Wednesday our 12th Day Out

Another strong low was approaching, so we planned to stay another day at St Simon's Island.  

Jan walked to town and I spent the day catching up on maintenance.  The evening winds pushed us once again, hard against the dock. We fueled, did laundry and prepared to get on.

CHristmas Day, Tuesday our 11th Day Out

After a quiet evening anchored next to a small island, we woke to dense fog.  This would normally be a minor problem, except that in South Carolina and Georgia, each river has many bends and lots of "cut thrus".  THis is where the Corp of Engineers has joined two rivers for navigation purposes and the river is a series of 180 degree turns to keep your movement south.  This is hard to do with dense fog except that the radar plays a key role.  WIth our Canadian friends following, we navigated until near noon before the visibility improved.  

The other issue with Christmas is that there are no fuel stations open.  This also proved to be the case on Christmas Eve.  Around 2 PM, I borrowed 5 gallons from our traveling companions and when we arrived at St Simon's Island at 8 PM at night, I was very lot on fuel.

Monday - Christmas Eve

Sunrise in Beaufort, SC on Christmas Eve.  The goal today is an anchorage in the Georgia Marsh called Red Bird Creek.  Today the tides were about even.  We had slow points but about equal to speed up zones where the tide was with us.  In Georgia you wander through miles of river tidal marshes.  The dolphin are everywhere.  However, this year only once did a dolphin ride our boats wave as a free taxi ride to a better fishing spot.  They mostly dive under us looking for bait fish.

During the day, I learned that everyone within our range had taken the day off from their marina jobs and there would be no fuel on Christmas Ever or Christmas.  This now presented a problem.  I was getting a bit low.  My last top off was Wrightsville Beach, NC.  With conservation, we'll make St. Simon's Island, GA.

There are several spots along the way that the dolphin cannot swim under your boat.  This is one of them.  Our traveling companions found a four foot mound in the middle of the channel.  They were hard stuck and it took a good pull to break the suction and get them off.  This was only a fifteen minute interruption.

We passed Hilton Head Island and then approached Isle of Hope, one of my favorite places on the ICW.  As we passed we watched the finish of a block party by residents along the water's edge.  Beautiful old homes amazing decorations. It was just after this that we had a bigger bump in the road.

While setting up for a bridge opening, we bumped the bottom.  It appears our keel first picked up the line to an old small anchor and then when we pulled away from the bottom, transferred the line and anchor to the rudder and then propeller.  There is no other solution to this problem except dive on it.  Fortunately, I had a war suit and within a half hour we had the trash out of the water and the propeller none the worse for wear.  I now have a dingy boat anchor and a trophy to grounding.


We were too late now to reach Red Bird, so we found another spot twelve miles closer in a place called "Moon River".  This was an amazingly quiet anchorage with only a small current.  The boats did not move nor make a sound all night.  We had our friends over for Christmas Eve dinner.  We did not sing the 12 Days of Christmas but had a good time otherwise.  Our plan was for an early departure in the morning (6 AM) as there was a full 12 hour day ahead of us.

Sunday: Charleston to Beaufort

Up early and off the Megadock.  I failed to mention that three boats down from us was the recently built Classic J Boat Yacht, Hanuman without her mast.  I had seen her in Antigua in 2010 just after her launching, but never saw her race.  She has no mast (in repair) but a very busy crew working on all the wood and bright work.

 While it was a beautiful day, the tides were not going our way most of the time.  So we arrived in Beaufort just before the marina closed.  I should have refueled here.  More about that later.

We found a nice hamburger place and with our traveling companions we had supper and turned in.

Saturday, 21 Dec

Well, winds are still up.  However, more relevant is that tides are still 3 foot lower than normal.  South Carolina marshes that are the ICW routes are already shallow, but with even more water gone, they can become impassable.  So one more day of getting ready and cleaning up the mess the storm made of my sides.

So off to West Marine and Harris Teeter.  Then a full afternoon of cleaning.  I did the outsides and Jan did the insides.  Jan prepared an incredible dinner and after a cocktail hour we finished our day.

Plan is to depart at 6:45 and head toward Beaufort, SC.
We will travel with a Canadian couple who are just starting their cruising career.  

Catch up Post

Departed Dowry Creek Marina continuing on the ICW.  Smooth trip with arrival in Beaufort at 5 PM.
Moored at City Dock.  We plan to spend another night here to visit the area.  Dinner at Skudder's .  On Monday we walked the city, borrowed one of the marina cars for a trip to the store, and prepared for departure in the morning.
Underway at sunrise.  We spent most of the day slogging against tides.  Almost none of the trip was above 5.4 knots, which means we had at least a one knot current against us.  We made arrangements to stay at Topsail at a marina I had found several years ago.  Jan's brother had lived here once and we were familiar with the place.  It turns out that the marina had been through foreclosure and had only four or five 25 ft slips that we could use.  It turned out that the two other boats with us had also made the same deal with the x-owner.  We all paid in cash and then Jan and I found a great pizza restaurant for dinner.  We left in the morning before 7 (dark) and got thru the Topsail Highway Bridge before its restricted closure .  We had much better luck with tides today.  We fueled up at Wrightsville Beach where were instrumental in finding a little dog lost on the fuel dock. After a little detective work we got him back to his owner who had stopped at the fuel dock ten minutes before us. He never knew the dog had jumped off.  
We got a push thru Snow'sCut entering the Cape Fear River but ran into a 2 knot head current for the run down to Southport.  Facing a very severe cold front approaching the next afternoon, we chose to take the offshore overnight route to Charleston and speed up our move south.  Leaving Southport and making at least 5.5 kts, we would arrive in Charleston by noon the next day.
Overnight we ran into a piece of the Gulf Stream that kept us at 5 knots.  When we passed Cape Romain at 3am, we lost the stream and our speed went back to 6.3 kts.
We arrived at City Marina around 12:30 and within minutes the winds began to rise.  As we had not slept, we tied up, showered, started a bit of laundry and crashed.  When we woke around 7:30pm, the whole harbor was a mess. The Lady I was bucking on 3 and 4 ft waves while tied to the dock. All four fenders earned the Medal of Honor for the protection they provided.
On Thursday, the winds were just as bad and the tides were almost 4 feet lower than normal due to the tides being blown out.  We left the marina for a trip downtown for lunch and some touring.  Tonight, the winds are still howling as we make tentative plans to depart in the morning.  If the winds are down we are off after 9 with a goal of Beaufort, SC.

I will use pictures in upcoming blogs when I learn how.  But blogging from an Ipad is not picture friendly.  But that's all for now.

Underway

After a week of preparations for both the house and the boat we departed on schedule.  Underway at 8:18.  With complete calm, we crossed the Albemarle and entered the Aligator River route to Belhaven.  We checked off night navigation and total darkness mooring in Belhaven where we arrived at 7:00pm.  Wonderful dinner and off to bed.  Here are a few pics Jan took on the way.