BEAUFORT SC, JEKYLL ISLAND GA, FERNADINA BEACH FL

He Said:   Good-bye Charleston.  We really enjoyed our near 1 month stay in Charleston SC.  We enjoyed the marina and really enjoyed the cool city with all of its southern flavor.  So it was time to head further south on Wednesday the 4^th and also it was time for our good friend Tim to head back home to Seattle.  The 3 of us had a blast hanging out on the boat doing little projects and finding fun little places with Tim to enjoy some southern cooking.  Between Tim and Pat they do a great job of finding fun little neighborhood places to grab a bite to eat. What is terrific in Charleston is the fact they have no chain type restaurants so everywhere we go would be owned by the fellow living down the street - really cool.  

 

Our plans were to anchor the following week after being on a dock for nearly a month.  I mentioned earlier that we truly enjoy both and we have many chances to do both as we travel.  We also enjoy going onto a mooring ball but they are not so popular down south for whatever reason.  We enjoyed an anchorage on Wednesday following about a 5 hour trip.  Thursday we headed to Beaufort to also anchor; we traveled about 4 hours on Thursday also.  On Friday we decided to move our anchorage a few 100 yards, because we felt a little uncomfortable where we were at.  It was pretty easy to simply move.

 

Sunset from MTB - Beaufort, SC

 

We went into Beaufort on the dingy Friday nite for their annual lighting of the tree and the x-mas street party.  It looked like the whole town must have been there.  They closed the street so bodies were walking everywhere enjoying the evening.  Toward the end of the nite we listened to the Marine Corp. orchestra singing really cool holiday music and then headed back to the boat.  Our dingy ride from the dock to our boat was very short but still very dark.  Now days we keep a light or 2 on MTB so we have no problem finding the boat later in the evening.

 

 

The Marine Corp Band - Beaufort, SC

 

So here comes Saturday and of course I find the bar in town most likely to have college football on.  We arrived early enough for the 8PM kick off between OSU and Michigan State.  The bar was packed and we worked our way into a couple of seats at the bar to anticipate a good close game.  We got exactly that, but the wrong team won.  After our performance vs. Michigan I was plenty nervous about the MSU game.  I needed to be nervous.  So no BCS Natl Championship Game - we are heading to the Orange Bowl to play Clemson.  It should be a good game.  I am still kicking around going to the game since we will be around 100 miles north of Miami in early Jan.  We will see what happens.  If you ever decide to bet on college football, please check with me first.  I do not bet at all other than a 6 pack here or there.  Saturday I pulled for OSU, Oklahoma State, Duke, ASU, and Maryland.  Nice job - all 5 got whipped.  You could probably get rich quick by simply laying your $$ down on the other team than I pull for.  Oh well!



Boat Parade

Boat Parade

The following day we departed Beaufort and headed S. towards Savannah, Ga. After spending nearly a month in Charleston we decided to not go into Savannah.  We spent some time there on our trip last year and due to the marina not being close to the city we passed on it.  We spent both Sunday and Monday kicking back on an anchor, eating in, and pretty much relaxing.  Sometimes this is important for us to do.

 

Sunset at anchor

 

 

 

We headed S. on Tuesday to anchor again but the winds made us change our mind.  We pulled into the marina at Jekyll Island and played it safe.  Our plan was to stay just 1 nite, which we did, then headed towards Fernadina Beach, Florida.  We traveled about 4 ½ hours like we do very often, maybe 40 to 45 miles.  We like those travel days.  We arrived into the fine state of Florida on Wednesday in mid afternoon just as planned.  What we did not plan was heavy winds along with very fast currents.  Another challenge, but not the end of the world.  We had our hands full but finally hooked up to the mooring ball.  We spent that nite on the boat and decided due to the very choppy water and fast current to not roll the dice and head into the dingy dock.  We cooked on the grill, caught some TV and headed to bed early.  When we are on the ball our boat swings a ton especially if it is windy.  The good news is you are going nowhere.

 

This cool little town is really neat, just like a bunch of cities we have already visited.  We have to keep telling ourselves that we are in the winter and in the northern part of Florida so it isn’t exactly a heat wave, but 70’ish.  Hard to complain when about 90% of the country seems to be freezing their asses off.  We’re pretty darn lucky.

 

Both Thursday and Friday nites we traveled with the dingy into the marina and hit the town. We found the oldest bar in Florida and a great Mexican restaurant on Friday.  We also found a great little place to have a terrific seafood dinner on Saturday nite.  We also found some pretty good music and of course $2.00 PBRs.  Enough said!!

 

Jack at The Palace Tavern (Florida's Oldest Bar), Fernadina Beach, FL

Our plans are to head out on Saturday and arrive in Jacksonville Beach for a few nites.  The marina in JVille has a party for all of the boat folks on Saturday and we plan on being there.  We will keep you posted.  Tired of typing. 

 

Merry Christmas - MTB lit for the holidays.

 

Take care.  Later, Jack

 

 

She Said:  It’s been a busy week or so.  We finally left Charleston and traveled about 45 miles and dropped anchor in the Edisto River.  I watched a YouTube on setting an anchor and we tried a couple of different things.  They worked perfectly.  I’m not saying we’re now expert anchorers, but we are greatly improved and sleeping better at night. 

 

Our plan was to anchor in Beaufort, SC.  When we arrived at the anchorage area, we didn’t really like it.  We always have a backup plan, so we were off to our 2^nd choice anchorage.  The proximity to town was better at our 2^nd choice, but the hold and wind protection weren’t as good.  It was also a busier anchorage so that meant we had to find a place to set our anchor among many boats.  (Not my favorite thing.)  We found a place, set the anchor, checked and double checked it, and everything looked good.  That is until the winds and current shifted direction around 11pm.  Because I’m a little narcotic, I put out a lot of “rode” (line/chain) for a good strong hold.  I apparently put out about twice what the other boats near us did, so when we all turned around on the anchor we got too close to the boats that were behind us.  Nothing happened, but it was a bit unnerving to see those boats so close to us.   We could have pulled in some of the rode, but I wanted to be sure that we had a strong hold.  The next afternoon we would reset the anchor.

 

Sunset - Beaufort, SC

 

Resetting the anchor the next day was easier said than done.  It took us about an hour.  Everything was going just fine until I started pulling up the last 20 feet.  The anchor just wouldn’t come up.  I was sure that a log or something settled on top of the anchor.  Jack kept driving MTB forward, backward and sideways trying to dislodge the anchor.  When it finally dislodged and broke the waterline, we saw that a chain was draped over the anchor.  We think one end of the chain was attached to the bottom of the Waterway.  If we weren’t able to dislodge the anchor we would have had to cut the chain and lose the anchor.  We dropped and reset the anchor and everything was good.  Whew – I think we dodged a bullet.

 

The town of Beaufort was great and well worth all the challenges.  Think Pat Conroy, The Big Chill, Forrest Gump, The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides.  They were all set and/or filmed here.  We were in town 3 nights and hit a different restaurant each night.  We were in town for their annual Christmas street party one night and their annual boat parade another night.  What a great time to be there.  It was a fun place to finish my Christmas shopping.  Because we were anchored and had to dinghy into town, that meant I had to watch the Big 10 Championship game with Jack.  Even though Jack’s team lost, he wasn’t too grumpy.

 

Tree Lighting - Beaufort, SC

 

Boat Parade

Boat Parade

It was finally time to leave SC and we weren’t looking forward to the trip through GA.  We had heard so many horror stories about shallow water and general nothingness that I considered going “outside” (traveling in the ocean and not the ICW).  But, we agreed that we like the “inside” (ICW) challenges better than the “outside” challenges so decide to stay with the ICW.  The trip “inside” is about 50% longer than going outside because the ICW twists and turns so much.  There is little residential/commercial development along the GA ICW and few marinas so that meant we would be anchoring out for 3 straight nights. 

 

 The shorter bridge was scheduled to be demolished the day after we came through

 

Our first travel day was a piece of cake and we didn’t understand what all the grumbling was about.  We passed the Bonaventure Cemetery popularized in the book/movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  We set anchor just over the SC/GA state line and had a nice quiet evening onboard.  We woke the next morning to fog.  Because of the tide heights we didn’t want to leave early so there was plenty of time for the fog to burn off.  When we could see a good distance we took off only to find that the fog was patchy; we’d be in the fog, then out of the fog, then back in it.  We were using our radar and followed a sailboat for awhile that sounded her horn every two minutes (a USCG rule when traveling in fog).  After a while we realized that the fog intensified when we crossed a sound. After a couple hours it was completely gone.  Our challenge was then water depth.  It’s not just that it was shallow in a lot of places, it’s that the actual depths in some areas weren’t what was reported on the charts and GPS.  But we made it another day and dropped anchor for a peaceful night on board.

 

Our final day in GA started again with fog.  Not as bad as the day before but still a pain.  We also had a lot of wind along with the discrepancies in water depths.  Other than marsh grass and a variety of birds, there was nothing to see along the way.  It wasn’t picturesque, but it wasn’t ugly – just a lot of the same scenery.  We pulled into our anchorage at about mid-tide and the entrance (where some shoaling was reported) was about 5 feet.  That meant it would have been less than 3 feet in the morning when we would be leaving, and we need over 3 feet.  So we had to go to plan “B” which was an anchorage another 10 miles (over an hour) away.  That was putting us in around 430pm – later than we like, especially when setting an anchor.  There was a marina within ½ mile of the anchorage so that was another option.  We like to travel around 1100RPMS for fuel economy, but when we have a potentially challenging situation we know we can kick it up, spend $$$ for fuel, and get where we need to be faster.  That’s what we did.  The wind was also kicking up and the more we thought about it the better the idea of the marina sounded.  So around 4pm we pulled into the marina on Jekyll Island, and it turned out to be a great idea.

 

Jekyll Island and neighboring St. Simons Island are the only real stops along GA’s ICW.  Jekyll Island was owned by a group of wealthy New York businessmen (Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, etc.).  They initially built a hunting lodge (1880s) and later private “cottages” without kitchens promoting dining interaction at The Club.  By WWII the membership of Jekyll Island controlled 1/6^th of the world’s wealth.  The US government feared the island was a tempting target so the USCG evacuated the island in 1942.  The next morning we rode our bikes around the island and had breakfast at The Club before setting off for Florida.  It was very interesting, and I’m so glad we ended up stopping there.

 

The original hunting lodge on Jekyll Island GA

 

Have you ever seen greener grass?  Jekyll Island, GA

 

The courtyard at The Club in Jekyll Island where we had breakfast

 

As great as the morning started out, it turned out to be not one of my better days.  The marina assured us that the shallow water was behind us and it would be smooth sailing.  WRONG!  We ran into some unmarked shallow water as we entered the St. Andrews Sound shortly after leaving the marina.  We stayed safe, but got completely turned around.  I checked out the charts and GPS and sent Jack in the wrong direction.  We went about a mile out of our way before I figured out we were going the wrong way.  We turned around and got back on track.  The St. Andrew Sound was about 5 miles wide and it was brutal.  There were gale force winds ocean side and the current was running against the wind.  It was reminiscent of our arrival in Ptown 5 months earlier.  A fellow boater we’ve run into a few times crossed at the same time we did, and he said it was the worst water he’d ever been in. 

 

It was a short trip to Fernadina Beach on Amelia Island in Florida.  We were so excited to finally arrive in FL, but FL wasn’t too excited to see us.  The wind was blowing like crazy.  We weren’t looking forward to grabbing our mooring ball.  But Jack pulled us right up to the ball and I hooked it on the first try.  The only problem was that hook and I couldn’t budge the mooring ball line.  Then I couldn’t get the hook to release the line and had to eventually let go of the hook.  Hook over board!  By the time we circled back around to the hook, it was gone – it either sunk or blew so far away we couldn’t see it.  Fortunately we had another shorter hook so we made an attempt with the short hook.  Jack got us to the ball, I hooked the ball, but again the hook was stuck on the line and I lost the hook again.  Boaters on another boat saw our dilemma, said they had the same problem when they arrived, and took their dinghy over to assist.  Not only did they help us get hooked to the ball, they saved our hook.  We owed them a cocktail!  It was so choppy that night that we decided to stay on MTB rather than tempt the fates one more time that day.

 

Sunset Fernadina Beach on Amelia Island, FL
 

 Fernadina Beach is supposed to be the birthplace of shrimping.  It is a cute town and we enjoyed walking around town the next two days.  We went to the oldest tavern in Florida (The Palace, built in 1903), had a great fish dinner at The Crab Trap, listened to live music at the Green Turtle, Mexican at Pablo’s and lunch at Caribou’s.  And of course, we had to buy some shrimp for dinner one night onboard MTB.  When the wind wasn’t blowing the temps were nice.  We really enjoyed Fernadina Beach, but we’re really looking for warmer weather.