Adventures of Obiewan and Jo

31deg49.0, 81deg08.1

Our start time was 8:45, short day cloudy and cooler, shorts and sweatshirts are the dress of the day. Hopefully it will warm up as the day goes on and perhaps the sun will come out but this area of the country really needs rain. The swamps of Georgia and South Carolina are very twisty and windy one can see a boat coming miles away because the windy, curly waterway. I read somewhere that the 100 miles of waterway in GA becomes 150 miles because you are traversing back and forth in a snake like fashion.  Our next stop Beaufort, SC. we arrived about 3PM went a shore and took a carriage ride thru the old town, saw some lovely old buildings, the movies Forest Gump, The Great Santini (I never saw the movie but I read the book years ago) and The Big Chill were filmed in Beaufort Of course Beaufort is just North of Parris Island where 19,000 male and female Marines are trained every year. Beaufort (pronounced Bew-furt is named after the Duke of Beaufort.  By the way we saw the Indeprendence again in Beaufort that is the 4^th time, Fernandina, Crescent River, Savannah, Beaufort, and again in Charleston.

N32deg01.45min, W081.deg02.8 min

Woke up to expecting bad weather decided to stay in port and do boat chores.  Laundry, changing the filters on the engine, some general cleaning we managed to barrow a car to do grocery shopping as well as filling the propane tank (which is hard to do most places), washed down Harmony just as the rain started. Did some homework, had a shrimp dinner (we managed to score jumbo shrimp cheap) they were great. Watched more of John Adams and collapsed.

Buckhead Creek, GA MM609

N31deg49.0min, W81.deg08.1min

Short day to Thunderbolt Marina arrived at noon, fueled Harmony and met some people on the dock.  Went in to town and took  a buggy tour of the town, did some shops and did the river front and headed to a great place for dinner  lovely spot, called the 1790 between President and Lincoln Sts. it is reported to have ghosts. We took a cab home to Thunderbolt Marina and Harmony

Crescent River, Marshes of Georgia MM643

N31deg3.5, W081deg20.4

Waited around until noon to leave because of the tides, as we came out of our little night time hiding place in the morning, what did we encounter but the cruise ship we saw on the docks of Fernandina, radioed and asked how fast he travels, 9.5 knots and how much he draws 8.5 feet and we decided he was a good one to follow thru this narrow shallow area we would be attempting  at that time, well he had to slow down to 4.5 knots and we stayed right with him and felt safe.(pretty dicey it was) but as we arrived in deeper water he took off, needles to say, we could not keep up . We did some open waters today such as Dog Hammock Spit, Sapello Sound as well as the narrow spits where you have to stay on the magenta.  Ended our day

in a wonderful anchorage for the evening, deep, protected and only one other boat as company. A beautiful old Power Boat named Lady Katherine, which is a 1947 Trumpe, that has won awards for the restoration and can be chartered for a mere $10,000  week.  We had a lovely sunset and dinner and did our homework and watched some more of John Adams, well worth the time spent watching, very interesting makes me want to know more about our history.

Jekyll Island, Georgia 684.8, N31deg02.5’ /  W081.25 deg4.30’

We had a good exit from Jekyll at 7; 50AM on the floating face dock, turned around and headed north thru the Jekyll Sound, Jekyll Creek to St Simons Sound, Frederica River and Range after Range, stopped at 11AMWally’s Legg to wait for high tide. I started dinner cooked a pound of bacon for various dishes today’s being some fresh zucchini with tomatoes and onions, the rest went into the frig for other dishes also made bread, we are  out of bread for sandwiches even wraps which last for ever. We were back on the ICW at 2:30 the plan was to go until 6:30 before we put the hook down and we did. We came thru some pretty hairy stuff, the Little Mud River where the magenta line and the books do not agree, just go slow.  Pelicans, Pelicans everywhere, are diving for their supper, Shrimp boats everywhere working for their supper.  Those shrimp boats sure are great looking especially with my love of shrimp.

30deg40.2min. 81deg28.0min

Harmony had a good exit from the marina, backing out into very open area towards the shrimp boats, nice and deep had a compliment by a police boat saying" he liked seeing a sailboater theat knows how to handle his boat" the exits are not always as good as that one. Traveled through some very rough spots, St. Mary’s entrance of the Cumberland Sound (we are now in Georgia). Thu Kings Bay where there are markers that do not make sense to the incorrectly charted area of Kings Bay the books said to ignore the chart plotter and follow the markers sticking close to the greens, thanks goodness for the books That is why we need to do hours of homework before we take off each day, also the markers changed to river markers and back to ICW markers (that happens frequently). Arrived at Jekyll Island at 3:30 tied up and had a coke to relax before we went ashore.  Walked to the Historic area saw some of the Old houses that were the summer homes of the rich and famous such as Goodyear, Marshall Fields, Joseph Pulitzer, William K. Vanderbilt and J P Morgan to name a few, they formed a club called Jekyll Island Club.  The Island was prized for its “sense of splendid isolation”   as well as its beautiful modern sea side resort which at the time was still a novelty.  Members experienced levels of luxury and service that were remarkable, even by today standards.  Wish we did our research before we went there, we would have allowed more time to see things everything closed at 5PM. We could not get into the Main dinning room because John was in Shorts.  The Old inn is stately to this day and well maintained now it is a Hotel with a pool and all the amenities,  lovely grounds, some of the old houses still remain, built as cottages we laughed, bigger then most our houses today.  We had dinner and were able to catch a ride with the Hotel Shuttle. Watched some more of John Adams and went to bed.

Atlantic Beach Bridge MM744.7

30deg19.5min / 81deg26.6min

Took off at 9:05 heading north to Fernandina Beach, Had one bump but not at all critical.  Arrived at Fernandina about 2PM checked in to the marina (another Long dock to walk) went to the adorable town and the info center, John found out there was a lighthouse and a fort (I need to pay more attention) walked in and out of some cute shops.  Went to the Post Office and he got direction to the fort.  We did not realize how far it was, we walked and we walked.  We arrived at the entrance  of the park, for the fort, we are told we had another 3 miles in to the fort and we could not see it because it closed at 4:30,Well I can tell you I was not doing another 6 miles on top of the 2 we just did and 2 more back. We tracked back to town and stopped for a beer, picked up some seafood.  Took shore shower and had leftovers for dinner. We did our homework, preparing for the next day and watched a movie.  I can tell you I slept like a  baby.

Conch House Marina, St. Augustine, Florida MM776.8

N29.53deg 716min

W81.17deg710min

The wind was blowing rather hard and I felt we should not go but the captain made the decision and we were off about 9:30AM.  Once we managed to get out of the slip, and narrow channel, aound the red #60 we were on our way,the wind didn't seam so bad once we were out there.  We were in a very wide open space and the indications from the guide books, said we had plenty of water WELL, we went hard aground (the good news we had a rising tide) about and hour and half later the wind turned the bow around and we managed to get her off but it ruined our schedule, we had to cut 10 miles off our destination.  We found an anchorage at the Atlantic Beach bridge but it was very exposed, plenty of water, almost too much.  The Current was running very fast thru the bridge we decided to go back thru the bridge to the marina, found a slip no amenities but we could walk around to get some exercise. Had dinner Shrimp, rice and Green beans, my Kiss method.( I love shrimp, have scrimped my way across Florida. Nice quiet night, even with the high bridge close by. 

Mosquito lagoon MM860 / 26deg35.5 min, 80deg03.9 min

It was windy at first but the wind died down and we slept quite soundly last night.  Anchor up 8:45AM and we carefully felt our way out of the area from the anchor, very shallow in this until we made our way to the main channel which is very narrow at that.  Today was a very nice day not too hot with a nice breeze blowing, most of the channel is very narrow and only about 9 to 1l feet, “we are one with the magenta line”.  We took a picture of a sail boat that was 75 feet off the channel lying on it side, very sad it was.  We arrived at Cement Plant a little cannel off the ICW, (They actually make Sea Rays there now) about 4:14 after I raved about our anchoring yesterday, we had to set the anchor 3 times today.    Dinner tonight is salad with broken Burgers on top.