Georgia

We are underway southbound in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of southeast Georgia, after a two-night stop in the Golden Isles. We will end the day somewhere in Florida, most likely anchored on the St. Johns. My last post was from South Carolina and my next will be from Florida, so I guess this is my Georgia post.

Harbour Town at night.

We had a nice dinner Saturday evening at the Quarterdeck with Dorsey and Bruce. It was very nice of them to gift us the half dozen bagels from Rain-n-Bagels in Beaufort, and they even provided the cream cheese. Later they also gave us a two-pound bag of ground coffee, so our joke in the morning was that it was nice to stay at a place that provides free breakfast. By the end of dinner they were still ruminating about heading offshore in the morning.

Sunset over Daufuskie Island from The Quarterdeck.

They were out of the marina before we could even pry ourselves from under the electric blanket in the morning, and while they reported it was lumpy crossing the Savannah River entrance, conditions were good enough that they continued on to St. Simons Sound. We, on the other hand, lingered in our slip until the noon checkout, basking in the warmth of electric heat and topping up our water tanks.

As we were making preparations to get underway we heard the marina directing an incoming boat to our slip, and I had to call them to say we were still there. Evidently check-in and check-out are both noon. I was going to linger to the last minute and take one more stroll, but with another boat hovering outside the marina we expedited singling up and were off the dock ten minutes early. We proceeded directly to the fuel dock to pump out, which necessitated spinning the boat around both before and after.

This sculpture in the plaza, "Out to Lunch," was very familiar to us from in front of the Sunnyvale, CA Public Library. I'm not sure how many were cast. Louise had a dog who would walk up to it and lick the hamburger.

We had an easy cruise down the ICW, with enough tide to easily get us over the nasty shallow spot at Ramshorn Cut. At the Savannah River we faced the choice of going upriver for a stop in Savannah, or continuing south on the ICW, and we chose the latter after learning we'd have just one day and two nights of nice weather in town. That's a long detour for a short stop.

We instead set our sights on the Thunderbolt area as a stop for the evening. While we normally anchor in the Herb River, this time we would arrive at a high tide of +7', and we decided to try our luck with the anchorage up Turner Creek just before the bridge. That would let us get ashore for dinner and a walk, with plenty of daylight to backtrack to the Herb if the anchorage did not work out.

This was the festive view from our deck. The flip side is that we were the view for the tourists.

There is a 4'-deep shoal at the entrance to this creek, which means it's really unusable for us unless we have at least half tide both coming and going. Long-time readers may know that we basically started our boating life here, as Turner Creek is where Hogan's Marina is located, where we moved the boat for a month right after we took possession. We did not know enough back then to know this was a terrible choice for newbies in a big boat, but it was a friendly marina that let us park and live in our bus while we moved aboard.

After a dozen years, 56,000 nautical miles, and a Merchant Mariner Credential, Turner Creek is no big deal anymore, and at a full high tide it was an easy cruise upriver past Hogan's to the anchorage. We squeezed in to what amounted to the only legal spot to anchor in a line of five other anchored boats and dropped the hook (map). Setbacks from marinas, docks, and the bridge have shrunk the anchorage since our early time here.

This weird mural adorns the unisex restroom at Basil's.

I tendered over to Hogan's, which is now actually called the Sun Life Wilmington Island Marina, before they closed to get some gas and pay the daily ten buck dinghy fee. Dockmaster Bubba (really) still runs the place and it was nice to catch up with him after a dozen years. We returned together at dinner time and walked across the highway to Basil's for pizza and draft beer, followed by provisions at the Publix right next to the marina. It was all very familiar, and I'm happy to now have a track into the anchorage that follows the channel thalweg. It was very quiet overnight.

With access to so many things right there, we contemplated staying a second night. Maybe it was nostalgia for the early days. But in the morning we decided there was nothing further we needed on Wilmington Island, and we decked the tender and weighed anchor at 7:45, while we still had a good 4' of tide to get out of the creek.

One of my current projects: replacing these instrument lamps with LED.

Leaving the creek on 4' and falling put us at the notorious Hell Gate at dead low tide. We need at least 2' to get through, and so we dropped a lunch hook off-channel to wait. A previously scheduled conference call at 1:30 meant we'd actually have to wait until the call was over, maybe close to 3, and that suited us, because it would give us a bit more tidal help, and more of a push on the other side of the Gate.

We were far enough off-channel that everyone could get by us, and a whole conga line did. One boat pulled off channel and anchored a couple hundred feet from us, waiting for the same reason. All was well until Louise noticed the northbound American Liberty, a cruise ship with a 6' draft that is also 56' wide, on AIS well ahead of us on the other side of the Gate. Shortly, I heard them making meeting arrangements with another boat. While I knew he had plenty of room to get past us, I did not want even the appearance of being in the way, and so I called and talked with him. They figured to come through at 2:54, when they had enough tide to be comfortable, and that might well have been while we were on our call. We moved another 200' from the channel before our call, just to be safe.

At one point on Tuesday we had our own personal flock of gulls, feeding on what we were stirring up.

As it turned out our call lasted just a half hour or so and we were back underway a little after 2. I called American Liberty back to let him know we'd shoot through ahead of him, and after we cleared Hell Gate I called and gave him our soundings. We pass these big American Cruise Line ships pretty regularly, and when people tell me they think their boat is too big to take down the ICW I will sometimes point out that these guys do it every day.

With the stop at Hell Gate I figured to make the "top of the hill" (where incoming tide from both directions meets) on a fair tide, and stop at a familiar anchorage there for the night. But it was barely 3pm when we arrived, and still cold, and we decided it was better put push on another hour, even against the tide, to have the heat and power. We instead dropped the hook in Big Tom Creek (map), a new spot for us. We had the place to ourselves, a lovely, if windy, night among the spartina of the low country. We would have gone another hour, but this was the last decent anchorage before St. Catherines Sound.

Our view in every direction from Big Tom Creek. Spartina grass and not much else.

We got a fairly early start Tuesday, another cold day where we wanted the heat afforded by moving. That put us at the Darien River by 1:30, where we seriously considered turning upriver for a visit to Darien. This side trip has been on "my list" for a while, and in all our transits this is only the fourth time we've passed by. But after learning that what was a free overnight dock is now day-use only, and the formerly $1/foot city dock is now double that, we decided it was not worth trying to anchor when the weather was not even good enough to call us to Savannah. We'll save Darien for a warmer time.

Unless we wanted another cold night trapped on the boat, continuing on meant making it all the way to St. Simons, with a bail-out option to the Two Way Fish Camp if it started to look like we would be too late arriving. We lucked out and arrived at the shallow Little Mud River just as the tide came up to 2', the minimum we need to get through. We had just a few inches under keel in spots. The 8' draft tug boat behind us, whom we had overtaken just an hour earlier, plowed right through it.

One of a pair of historic tabby slave cabins at Gascoigne Bluff Park.

When it became clear we would make St. Simons in the daylight or soon after, I reached out to our local friends there, John and Laura Lee, on the chance they might be available to get together. They were busy Tuesday but said they were available Wednesday, and we just decided to make it a two-night stay so we could connect with them. We dropped the hook in a familiar spot between Lanier and St. Simons islands (map) and tendered in to the newly reopened Coastal Kitchen for dinner. It was decent but they are still having teething pains. We got a much-needed walk in before dinner.

With a full day at anchor ahead of me, in the morning I jumped right in to a problem that has been nagging at me: we seem to be losing an ounce or two of engine coolant on every run. I went over the engine and hot water heater very carefully for leaks, checked in all the bilges, double-checked the oil and coolant for signs of cross-contamination, and then hit the Internet for research.

Park rules say no docking after dark. I suspect no one cares but we did not want to test the waters.

Quite a number of sources implicated the hot water heater, which, while not cheap at about a thousand bucks, would still be much preferable to anything wrong with the engine itself. This theory is consistent with the heating loop through the water heater constantly losing prime of late, and my fingers are crossed that this is the issue. I have valved off that loop, and it will take a few days' running to learn whether or not that is the problem. I am having cognitive dissonance over actually hoping for a busted $1k water heater.

After learning that my next step requires more sea time, I took the afternoon off, and I went ashore at Gascoigne Bluff Park and walked the 1¾ miles to the nearest shopping center. I found a Dollar Tree there with some items I needed and then hit the Winn Dixie for some provisions before hoofing it back. It felt good to finally get a long walk in after days on the boat.

This brand new sign is the only new thing in the park. I suspect the result of the horrific incident in nearby Fernandina Beach in July. 

At 6:30 we tendered to the St. Simons Island Marina, after learning that Gascoigne park technically closes at dusk and is also pitch dark. This county marina has allowed us to tie up the tender in the past, but on this visit I found no one to ask. Laura Lee and John picked us up and whisked us to Nest, one of their island favorites, for a nice dinner. It was great to spend a couple hours catching up with them; they are dear friends.

We had a cold dinghy ride home, and with the tide unfavorable this morning until 8:30 we decided to deck the tender in the morning. It was cold this morning, too, at just 49°, but at least it was daylight, which somehow makes it feel warmer. We had the anchor up just ahead of the turn of the tide, and had a nice push out the inlet this morning.

Golden Isles Sunset from our anchorage.

As I wrap up typing we have already passed the St. Marys and are on track to arrive at the St. Johns just as the flood starts. We should be anchored by sunset just off the ICW, and in the morning we will decided whether to continue upriver to Jacksonville for a brief stop, or continue down the ICW toward St. Augustine. In this cold weather we are leaning heavily toward the latter.

Thankful.

We are underway southbound in the ICW, after what turned out to be a pleasant two full weeks in Charleston, including Thanksgiving. Half of that stay was at the dock and the rest at anchor. This morning found us in Brickyard Creek (map), just an hour from Beaufort, SC, and today we are headed for Hilton Head.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving, aboard Esmeralde.

We arrived to Charleston Harbor just as the tide turned and we had an easy cruise up the east side, dropping the hook right at 4pm in a new spot for us, adjacent to the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier museum ship (map) and just across the channel from our destination of the Charleston Maritime Center. We tendered ashore to the nearby Charleston Harbor Resort, which is not in Charleston at all but rather Mount Pleasant, for a casual dinner at their Reel Bar. We remembered this place from our first visit here a dozen years ago, when we docked at the resort's marina.

Approaching our anchorage near the USS Yorktown.

We needed slack to enter the Maritime Center, and that was at 10am on Friday. It was a short 15-minute cruise across the ship channel, and as Louise was on deck setting out fenders, a couple of playful dolphins came over and used them as toys, booping them with their snouts. Making our way into the marina basin at dead low tide we plowed our way through a 5' hump of silt between the entrance and the dock. Thankfully we had a couple of feet under the keel once we got alongside (map).

Twinsies.

Right after we were tied up a lovely 55' Burger motor yacht came in right behind us; it was nice to meet Victoria and Kevin aboard Set Free.  On a lovely Friday evening in Charleston we thought it best to have a dinner reservation, and at dinner time we walked to Vincent Chiccos, an Italian joint on Hutson alley downtown. One of the things we like about the Maritime Center is that there are at least a handful of decent places in walking distance. We did spend part of the afternoon putting the scooters on the ground, but we both needed the walk.

Vector at the Maritime Center. Skipper of the tour boat at right admired Vector and invited us out on one of the cruises but we never had the chance.

The tender battery has been signalling end of life for the last couple of weeks, and I have been needing to pull-start the tender when it's cold. So Saturday I took the scooter up to Walmart in North Charleston with the old battery to swap it for a new one. On the way I stopped by the North Charleston Amtrak station to scope it out for my morning departure on Monday.

As long as I was at Walmart I picked up a bunch of staples we normally get there, and I almost lost half of them when the trunk flew open over a bump on my way home. I think the force of the battery hitting the lid overwhelmed the latch. Fortunately I only lost a microfiber towel that I keep in the trunk, which must have blown out before I discovered it was open. I had the new battery installed and the tender buttoned back up before dinner time.

Between the train station and Walmart I stopped by the outlet mall. Holiday shopping is in full swing.

It was a gorgeous day and we decided to again walk to dinner, and so we had made reservations at Muse, a place we remembered fondly. As we arrived we noticed a city work crew fixing a water main break right in front of the joint. As soon as we walked in we asked if everything was working, and they told us that yes the water was on in the kitchen ans the upstairs restrooms but not in the downstairs restroom. That seemed fine and, at the very start of the evening, they seated us in a choice table upstairs next to the window overlooking the street.

One of our neighbors, Vision of the Seas, departing.

That was lovely right up until the Binford 900 vacuum truck pulled up right outside the window, boomed over to the hole in the street, now full of the leaking water, and cranked the engine up to 11 to suck it all out. It was actually quite comical and we had a good laugh about it with our server. The food was good, and apart from the very brief racket from the vacuum truck it was a nice spot.

Louise toasting the vacuum truck right outside the window.

Sunday was my day to prepare for my whirlwind three-day trip to NJ, the reason we were at the dock in the first place. It was a sunny but crisp day, and we were surprised when the quayside started filling up with kayaks, each being carried down the dock one at a time and launched. We could see little flags with numbers and surmised some kind of kayak event.

Searching online for kayak events turned up nothing, and slowly it dawned on us that this was actually a swimming event. Each swimmer had a safety kayak with their number on it. We had a great view of the start of the inaugural Charleston Trident Swim, which began at our dock and ended on the other side of the city on the Ashley River. Apparently they raised over $100k for the Navy Seal Foundation.

Trident Swim leaving the marina. I was surprised the marina did not kill the power for the event.

I needed cash for my trip and I hoofed it into town to the lone Chase ATM on the peninsula, only to find it out of cash. The bank across the street was similarly out and I ended up paying the vig at the third bank I tried. On the way home I stopped at Harris Teeter and picked up a deli sandwich for the train. We rode out to D'Allesandro's Pizza, locally known as D'Als and one of our favorite spots, for dinner.

D'Als. These pizza paddles fold down from the wall to become the stand for the pie.

The next three days were something of a blur. It was an all-day train ride, 12-13 hours, each way. I packed enough food and drink for both lunch and dinner on Monday, and we pulled into Philly more or less on-time just a few minutes before 10pm. I had booked a hotel only ¾ mile from the station and had a pleasant walk. It was my first time at a Hilton "Motto," where everything was diminutive, but comfortable. Even the front desk was a tiny affair, overshadowed by the upscale Mexican restaurant that occupies most of the space.

My train, the Palmetto, arriving in North Charleston.

Enterprise car rental was literally across the street, and I picked up my car when they opened at 7:30. I had a two-hour drive each way, a nice two-hour visit with my folks, and an evaluation stop at a continuing care facility for when that time comes. I had the car back to Enterprise an hour before their 6pm closing time. Too late to take in any of Philadelphia, but I did have a nice walk around Rittenhouse Park and dinner at a local pub before retiring. A late forecast for rain in the morning also had me in the Target across from the hotel to buy an umbrella, which I foolishly had not packed.

The Wharf, DC, a familiar stop for us, from the rail bridge over the Washington Channel.

Sure enough it was raining in the morning and I arrived at the train station with damp feet but otherwise mostly dry thanks to the umbrella. The underground trolley that would have taken me almost directly from the hotel to the train station was closed for tunnel repair. The train station is classic and beautiful, but entirely covered in scaffolding while it undergoes restoration. This brief taste of Philly has me thinking that we should make another stop there in the boat; lots of renewal and cleanup in the decade since our first visit.

What passes for a workspace at Motto. A combination nightstand/ottoman and a tray table. These and another nightstand containing a mini-fridge were the only furniture in the room.

The train makes a 45-minute stop in DC to change locomotives, and since I know Union Station like the back of my hand, I disembarked, hoofed it up to Pret-a-Manger, and bought a sandwich for lunch time. I actually like Amtrak's dining cars, but the Palmetto, a day train, does not have one. They have only a café car, which sells packaged or microwaveable items. I did end up buying a chicken Caesar for dinner, which I had at my seat with a Pluff Mud Porter I smuggled aboard.

The Philly train station should be beautiful when they are finished.

The whole trip was uneventful, and I arrived back in North Charleston on time at 7:30pm, after a brief glitch wherein the train went into emergency a quarter mile from the station. I ordered a Lyft, got in the car, and when I went to text Louise that I was on my way, my phone lost its mind. I spent the rest of the car ride fiddling with it to try to revive it but it was so far gone that it would not power off or reboot. I had to give the guy a cash tip. Louise could see my progress on a tracking feature built into Lyft.

These built-in shelves and diminutive closet bar were the total of storage.

The demise of my phone sealed my fate for the next two days. Even though they were a couple of the nicest days we had in Charleston, weather-wise, I was in recovery mode. I had a replacement phone ordered on second-day delivery not even an hour after I got home, and we extended our week at the marina by two days, all they had available, so I could receive it and get squared away. That would still leave us just enough time to make our Thanksgiving reservation in Hilton Head.

The restoration is clearly quite extensive.

Like most people I have become unduly dependent on my cell phone. From driving directions to boarding passes to communicating with family and friends, it all revolves around this infernal device. And while I like to think I am careful about making sure everything critical gets backed up, a catastrophic failure like this is often a lesson in just what, exactly, you forgot.

Ice and vending for the whole hotel were in the basement. But they had these fancy vending machines with lots of choices and a couple of microwaves.

My new phone is back up and running now, but in the process I lost my entire WhatsApp chat history, my Signal chat history, and a few dollars of stored value on a Washington DC Metro card. Getting everything else working took numerous hours, and some apps which are no longer supported by the current Android version and which I was previously able to side-load are additional casualties of the situation.

Part of the station already complete hosted the holiday tree.

One of those apps was the remote viewer for our Chinese 8-channel video camera system, and the only way to fix that problem turns out to be to replace the 8-channel DVR with a newer Chinese DVR that comes with a working app. That project took the better part of another day, and drew blood. I still don't have the whole thing dialed in, although it is mostly working.

When I was not beating my head against the wall with my phone, we did enjoy our final three days at the Maritime Center. We rode to dinner at Mario's on King Street, and when our friends Dorsey and Bruce on Esmeralde landed across town at the City Marina, we met them for dinner at Costa one evening, and they met us at D'Als the next. Costa was new to us (and, I think, new overall) and while it was fine, I have to say neither the food nor the service was commensurate with the price tag. It does have the advantage of being one of the very few places in walking distance of that marina.

The DVR is crammed into this barely accessible space for security reasons, which made for a difficult time replacing it.

At one point we also rode out to James Island to offload some Goodwill donations and get badly needed haircuts for both of us. We had breakfast one morning at Saffron, just a couple of blocks from the marina, which was quite good. And one late night bit of excitement was monitoring the radio traffic as the inbound Maersk Frederica container ship collided with the shrimper Jesus Lives, who was trawling in the channel and paying no attention. All five crew were OK but the trawler sustained some damage; the ship had to keep going and the pilot boat Fort Moultrie went out to check on the shrimper.

When last I posted here I mentioned I needed to figure where we'd be on Thanksgiving, and after looking at our schedule from Charleston I settled on a familiar joint, the Dockside restaurant at Skull Creek, on Hilton Head Island. They have their own dock just a short tender ride from a nearby anchorage, and they were doing a prix fixe with all the holiday flavors. I made a 4:30 reservation and we figured to have a couple extra days of buffer on our way from Charleston.

Every city has its causes. I can't say I disagree with this one.

Meanwhile Dorsey and Bruce had made plans to have their Thanksgiving at the dock in Beaufort, SC, just one stop before Hilton Head. When they learned we'd be nearby, they invited us to join them, which is quite a lovely gesture. Home-cooked Thanksgiving with dear friends beats restaurant Thanksgiving alone by a wide margin and so we jumped at the chance.

Our plan from Charleston was to depart the Maritime Center at high slack and, with the tide then unfavorable for continuing south, round the peninsula and drop the hook in the Ashley for one night before continuing. From there it would be a comfortable two days to the Beaufort anchorage, working our way over a number of shallow sections.

A look down the Charleston City Market.

After decking the scooters we dropped lines on Sunday at high slack, made our way out of the marina, and cruised down around the Battery and up the Ashley. The Ashley River anchorage can get crowded and has a foul bottom, and we were hoping to drop the hook in the exact same spot we've used three times previously, where we knew the bottom was clear. When we arrived, however, we found a new green buoy right in that exact spot.

Since our last stay two years ago, the City Marina has expanded their face dock, which is now another hundred feet out into what used to be the channel. So the channel itself has been moved that much further to the southwest and the Coast Guard has placed new buoys to keep it clear. The anchorage is now considerably smaller. We continued upriver until we found a nice clearing past some submerged dolphins, just before the high bridge, and dropped the hook there instead (map).

I came across this Poinsettia exhibit in the library, with a bit of the controversial history of their local namesake, Joel Roberts Poinsett.

We had originally figured to be here just one night, otherwise we might well have left the scooters on the ground. We splashed the tender and headed to a new spot for us, California Dreaming, which is more or less a steak-and-seafood joint right on the water, across the river from Charleston. It has its own dock, and turned out to be surprisingly nice, even though we've both been shrugging if off for a decade. I think as ex-Californians the name alone had been off-putting for us. They had the local porter on draft, which is always a plus for me.

I liked this play sculpture in Brittlebank Park, where we land the dinghy.

Somewhere along the line, Bruce and Dorsey got word from the marina in Beaufort that the slip they wanted was unavailable. As they were already in a perfectly nice spot at the City Marina in Charleston they decided to just stay through the holiday. No way were we going to miss our dinner invitation, and so our one night on the Asheley morphed into five. Our new spot turned out to be ideal, calmer than our previous digs closer to Wappoo Creek.

The problem with anchoring on this side of town is that there are few eateries in walking distance. In the course of our stay, in addition to Caifornia Dreaming, we also ended up at Saffire in the Marriott, a short walk from the Publix that we also needed, and the Charleston Crab House, a mile or so dinghy ride up Wappoo Creek. We've passed this latter joint for years in Vector but this was our first visit. It was just OK, a typical waterfront fried seafood place. They did have some nice drafts.

I ordered this charcuterie board for my entree at Saffire. Apart from the crostini, it was pretty good.

One evening we tendered over to Esmeralde and the four of us Ubered to Hall's Chophouse, where we got the corner spot at the bar by being there before the doors opened at 4. We love the bar at Hall's, and the corner of the main bar is almost like a small round table, so it really worked for the four of us. I also tendered over to Esmeralde a couple of times to get in a walk or to run errands, including picking up at the on-site Amazon locker at the marina, one of the key benefits to being on this side of the peninsula.

Cheers from Charleston Crab House. No great shakes, but they have a dock.

On Thanksgiving day I spent part of the morning re-caulking the shower, which of course is when Amy and David from Selah Way stopped by in their tender to say hi. Louise chatted with them briefly, and after I was done I swung by and said hello to them at Corporate Approved at the dock, where they were having Thanksgiving with friends. They anchored upriver of the lift bridges, which we might try on our next visit as it is closer to the dinghy dock with the restaurants and grocery store. It was nice to meet Brian Donovan of Corporate Approved.

I had sold a couple of items on eBay and I hoped to drop them in the mailbox Thursday, but the mailboxes in Charleston have been modified to just a letter slot. I ended up leaving them at the front desk at the Hilton, and I hope they make it out. We did not want to delay our Friday departure for me to run the ashore in the morning.

I was stunned to see this bird come out of their tiny oven. It was perfect.

At the appointed time of 3pm we arrived at Esmeralde bearing a large salad, a bottle of wine, and a few beers. We had a pleasant hour or so of cocktails and conversation before the main event, wherein Dorsey plied us with home-made turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, gravy, and the best cranberry relish I have ever tasted. We did not make it back to Vector until past 7:30, toting enough leftovers for a whole second Thanksgiving dinner. Bruce and Dorsey are the consummate hosts and it was very, very generous of them to share their holiday with us.

Thankful for good friends. Photo: Dorsey Beard

We decked the tender as soon as we got home, because as chilly as it was Thursday night, it was even colder yesterday morning. Both the cold and the tide favored an early morning departure, and we weighed anchor after our first cup of coffee and got underway. The early start and the rising tide meant we could get through the troublesome shoals not only at Watts cut but also the Ashepoo-Coosaw cutoff if we just kept going, and that's what we did.

Our view during dinner.

Once we were in the Coosaw it made the most sense to press on to the protection of Brickyard Creek, and we ended our day there shortly before 5pm, dropping the hook in an oxbow, a new spot for us. That had us just an hour from Beaufort, but we could not have made it there in the daylight. Esmeralde had left Charleston just ahead of us and made Beaufort with plenty of daylight to spare. We polished off the Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner; they were just as delicious the second day.

Just as good the second night.

This morning we had another early start owing to tide, and we passed them at the dock. They taunted us with photos of fresh local bagels and said they planned to leave at slack for Hilton Head. By the time they were ready to leave, they were of the mind that they could make a run for it outside tomorrow, and figured to be in Hilton Head just a single night, with an early departure in the morning.

We wanted to try to get together one more time before we recede in their rear view mirror, and so we made a last-minute decision to try to grab a slip at the same marine for tonight, Harbour Town at The Pines Resort. That was a long shot on a holiday weekend, but I think we landed the last available 50' slip. I expect Esmeralde to pass us en route.

Sunset over Brickyard Creek.

Update: We are docked at Harbour Town on Hilton Head (map). The only other time we've been here is a lunch stop we made on our final day of training back when we first started out. The pricing is commensurate with the resort nature of the place, but we decided to splurge. Esmeralde did not overtake us but arrived about a half hour after us, with a half dozen bagels for us. We've already heard the marina turning away boats on the radio. We strolled around the kitschy "village" with its rows of tourist shops and fake lighthouse, and we have a dinner reservation with Bruce and Dorsey for the Quarterdeck restaurant this evening.

Vector at Harbour Town.

I have no idea where we are headed tomorrow, but we'll linger right here until checkout time. One option is to make the side trip to downtown Savannah for a couple of days before we continue south toward Florida and warmer climes.

Holy City, Batman, here we come.

We are again underway southbound in the Atlantic Ocean, this time off the South Carolina coast. We are making the day run to Charleston Harbor from Winyah Bay. Our reservation there starts tomorrow, but we need to make a slack-water entry at 11 AM, so we will anchor someplace tonight and make our way to the marina in the morning. It was supposed to be a nice day for a passage, but we have been bouncing over three foot rollers under medium chop since making the turn south.

Sunset over the Bird Island anchorage off the Little River.

Saturday we arrived to the Little River inlet against the last of the ebb, but we were glad to get inside the jetties and out of the slop. I was also happy to have a little against us as I worked my way into Bonaparte Creek behind Bird Island. The anchorage was chock full, between several cruising boats and a couple of  locals on day hooks, and we had to work our way back past a 6' shoal, at dead low tide, to find a decent spot (map). One of the locals looked to have wrapped his prop and was diving on it as we passed. I'm happy to now have a track, because that might be the best spot in the anchorage. We had a nice dinner on board and a very comfortable night.

Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand can be something of a gantlet on pleasant weekends, and so Sunday morning we made an early start to beat the traffic. We had a quiet couple of hours through Calabash Crossroads, Little River, and Myrtle Beach, and did not see traffic picking up until we were past the Rock Pile and approaching Barefoot Landing. It was a gorgeous day, and even in the more remote stretch through Socastee we saw a lot of small boats out enjoying it.

Wait, where are we? Not Easter Island, but Grand Dunes.

The early start had us at Wacca Wache before 2, and we pulled up to the fuel dock to squeeze another couple hundred gallons in at a great price of just $2.96 per gallon. We dropped the hook in our usual spot across the river at the mouth of Cow House Creek (map), where on this visit we had to squeeze in among three other boats. Several more boats from the day's conga line passed us to anchor further down the creek. We dropped the tender and headed back to the marina for dinner at Outriggers Bar & Grill.

We were well set on a short scope, but kept a watchful eye out through the evening's 20-knot gusts. We had a comfortable night, but found ourselves in just 7' of water Monday morning with king tides. We caught just the last hour of the ebb and then slow-rolled against the flood the rest of the day, all the way to Georgetown.

We always see turtles on the Waccamaw. This was the closest shot I could get.

We normally anchor in Georgetown, but with two nights of forecast subfreezing temperatures, and not a lot warmer during the day, we decided to take a dock with power and hunker down until the cold snap passed. We were a bit late on the draw, and all the marinas in the Georgetown Basin were full up when I called on Sunday, and we settled for the Georgetown Landing Marina out on the Pee Dee River.

This was our first time here, and after making the nearly 180° turn off the Waccamaw it was just about a mile to the docks. We tied up on the inside face dock at the north end (map), which turned out to be a comfortable spot. They still had room when we arrived but had filled up before the day was out and were turning boats away.

The building shoal at Cow House Creek is visible at low tide.

While it was still warm enough to be comfortable I put the e-bike on the ground and made a pilgrimage to Walmart for provisions, stopping at the UPS drop in the hardware store en route. From this dock the quaint downtown with a half dozen restaurants is too far to walk, and so at dinner time we walked the mile to El Cerro Grande, a decent Mexican place that was really one of only two options. The food was good and they had Dos Equis Ambar by the pitcher, but the walk along US 17 is not the pleasant stroll found elsewhere in town.

The temperature dropped rapidly overnight and the winds picked up, gusting up into the 40s. We had doubled lines when we tied up, and we buttoned up every opening on the boat. We ended up running the heat all night, uncharacteristic for us even at a dock. By the time we awoke in the morning the temperature had climbed back up to just 32°.

The high winds and low temps persisted all day, and we mostly stuck to indoor activities. In the mid-afternoon it warmed up enough for me to add water while tracking down a leak in the engine room that only occurs when we top up the fresh water tank. I also remediated a persistent rust streak under one of the portlights. It looks like the outer trim will need to be removed and re-bedded. I also bundled up and took a short walk around the marina neighborhood.

The steel stand for this scarecrow outside the pizza joint literally snapped in the high winds.

At dinner time we braved the cold to walk to the closest place, Southern Pizza Company, ironically right next door to Pizza Hut. Draft beer and surprisingly good pizza; we had the thick crust. We had two slices left over and neither of us wanted to carry a box home with the temps in the 30s; we persuaded them to give us some food service foil instead and I was able to stuff the wrapped slices into my parka pocket.

After Louise turned in for the night I started seeing posts in my feed about Northern Lights being visible in the Carolinas and as far south as northern Florida. I did go outside to look, but there are far too many artificial lights here to be able to see anything that faint. Ironically, boats that could not get marina reservations and stopped in some of the more remote anchorages probably had a great view.

Yesterday things started to warm back up and it would have been a fine day to make the first of a two-day run to Charleston down the inside. But this is one of the most shoal-ridden sections of the entire ICW, requiring judicious timing of tides in several spots and focused attention to the helm, so when Louise deemed today acceptable for an outside run, we opted to just stay put in Georgetown and leave this morning.

Last night's sunset from our anchorage in the Western Channel of Winyah Bay.

With the cold snap over we had no need to stay at the dock, and I wanted to be able to enjoy downtown for one evening, and so we made plans to leave the dock and drive around the corner into the basin for the night. We knew the anchorage would empty out by mid-morning and we watched the exodus on AIS. We planned to linger at the dock until close to lunch time to take advantage of power while things were still warming back up.

Before that time came, I learned the space weather event was still ongoing and there was a possibility again last night of an aurora visible on the horizon from our location. We both decided the chance of seeing the Northern Lights trumped dinner in Georgetown, and we shifted gears to anchoring in the Western Channel, where we might get a view over the distant light pollution of the Grand Strand. The marina gave us a late checkout and we stayed at the dock until after 3 PM.

We pushed downriver against the flood and dropped the hook in a familiar spot south of the ICW junction (map). We found four sailboats already in the anchorage, and we unplugged our string of lights as a courtesy. We had a nice dinner on board and settled in. Sadly, by early evening the NOAA aurora forecast was saying the view line would be quite far north of us, somewhere in Pennsylvania. I still got up and looked several times throughout the evening, but saw only the glow of the Strand.

Sunrise underway this morning as we made our way out Winyah Bay.

If nothing else the move to the Western Channel cut nearly an hour off today's cruise. We still left before dawn, but the plotter has us arriving ahead of 4 PM and not just before sunset. That's early enough that we might be able to tender ashore for dinner, depending on where we end up dropping the hook.

We'll be in Charleston a full week, and my next post will be underway somewhere south of there. My next project is to figure out where we might be around Thanksgiving and make some dinner reservations, before everyone is sold out.

A week through North Carolina

We are underway southbound in the Atlantic Ocean, with Oak Island and Cape Fear receding behind us. It's been a week since I last posted, and in that time our always-fuzzy plan for the immediate future has coalesced a bit. More on that after I catch up the week.

Saturday's cruise across the Albermarle and through Croatan Sound was quite pleasant, but the wind picked up and things got a little lumpy at the very end of the day in Pamlico sound. We tucked further into the Long Shoal River than on previous stops and dropped the hook (map). We had a comfortable night, with two other boats joining us at a respectful distance over the course of the evening.

That stop made it a long day Sunday to the first decent anchorages in Adams Creek, but we knew we needed to be off the Neuse before Monday. It's a nice open-water cruise, and only two days out from my last blog post I used the time to organize a few things and research our next few legs and some travel plans.

Sunset from our anchorage on Long Shoal River.

Somewhere during the cruise I realized I was starting to come down with something. In hindsight, it's probably the same thing that made Louise miserable for several days and that we both hoped was just a bad allergy attack. I was mostly OK the rest of the day and we dropped the hook a little before dinner time in Adams Creek, at a new spot for us owing to forecast northerlies (map).

As I expected, by Monday morning I had a full-blown cold, but it was not yet bad enough to be popping pills, and we weighed anchor to make it to Beaufort before it got any worse. The anchorage was packed full when we arrived, with a couple of boats still circling like vultures. We proceeded directly to our secret-squirrel spot wedged in between a green daymark and the rear range light for the offshore channel (map). This is a tight spot and I have to maneuver to land the anchor in about a ten-foot diameter circle, but the holding is good, and no one will get too close to us here.

I took some cold meds and had a big nap, which had me feeling good enough to tender ashore and go to Finz, a casual burger joint with drafts, for dinner. We both really needed to get off the boat and stretch our legs after three days on board. I dropped an eBay sale in the mailbox before we headed home. By bedtime I knew we would not be going anywhere in the morning, even though it would be a good outside window to Wrightsville Beach.

Our defensive channel marker, close aboard.

Tuesday is sort of a blur; I was in and out of bed and tried half-heartedly to get some things done around the house. We managed to get back ashore for dinner, which was a very disappointing return to Mescalito. Louise had a disappointing "burrito" at Finz that was not Mexican at all and so was craving it, even though we knew from experience Mescalito can be hit or miss. North Carolina is not known for its Mexican food. Anyway, the steak fajitas were tough and hardly seasoned.

By Wednesday morning I felt OK enough to drive the boat, no longer needing any meds, although we got up later than the pre-dawn start we would have needed for the last of the window offshore. Wanting to be moving on, we set off down the ICW to the lone anchorage in range, the basin known as Mile Hammock on the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. We ended up at the north end of the already crowded anchorage and dropped the hook in 20 knots out of the south (map).

This anchorage has a soft mud bottom that is not exactly the Bruce's forte, and even on 7:1 we dragged slowly for a couple of hours before re-setting a little further south. I kept an eye on things until the wind let up a bit before I turned in, and the rest of the night was uneventful. We have not had this sort of problem in other parts of the anchorage, so I think the holding is a little better further south. In hindsight we could have squeezed in among the boats already there, and this paragraph will serve to remind us next time.

A quick glimpse at the wind as we passed through Camp Lejeune on the ICW.

With the supermoon come king tides, and Thursday we did a lot of dodging and weaving around well-known shoals as the water level dropped below zero. We heard lots of boats running aground, and I radioed back to one guy following us, no doubt wondering why I was going Crazy Ivan, that he had best follow my line through one particularly bad spot. We made it to Wrightsville Beach without incident, but it was dead low when we arrived and we went the long way around rather than take Motts Channel, which has a shallow bar right next to the ICW.

The anchorage was busy but we found a decent spot to drop the hook (map). After our disappointment in Beaufort the third time is the charm, and we tendered ashore to Tower 7 Baja Grill for dinner, where the fajitas were as good as always. Since our last visit they have brightened the interior, changing the ceiling from black to white and adding brighter lights. I preferred it a bit darker and less harsh, but the food is still good and you can still get Ambar by the pitcher.

We needed a few grocery items and wandered over to Robert's after dinner. They had most of what we needed, and we judged it good enough to avoid me having to hike into town in the morning to go to Harris Teeter. I was still not feeling 100%, and I was happy to pay the boutique prices at Robert's to avoid another trip. On the ride how we remarked that an anchor light across the harbor looked pretty close to the docks.

These bombed-out (literally) personnel carriers on the barrier island are practice targets for the Marines.

We soon learned why. I had barely taken my coat off and sat down when a call came in to the Coast Guard from a boat in the harbor that was dragging anchor and had fouled its propeller. He sounded panicked that he might be dragged into the bridge. The CG put him in touch with TowBoat, but they were a half hour out.

We jumped in the tender and headed over to him. We were able to take one of his lines over to a piling at one of the docks, which evidently he had already hit, which would at least keep him from hitting the bridge if his anchor let go. He seemed very relieved to have that safety valve. With TowBoat already on the way we wished him well and headed home. Eventually we saw them tow him to a more distant part of the anchorage to await a diver in the morning.

I have been working through how I can get back to NJ for a visit with my parents ever since we had to blow right past them offshore on account of weather. We hoped-for plans to just take the train up from Hampton Roads fell through on account of lack of dock availability, my attention next shifted to right here at Wrightsville Beach, where it's very easy to get to Wilmington airport and a short flight to Newark.

This Nordhavn in Wrightsville Beach was also with us in Mile Hammock. I think that may be one of the international lifeboat colors.

The current situation with Air Traffic Control has given us pause about doing any flying, and literally while I was working through the possibilities the announcement came out that the FAA would be mandating reduced flights. That sealed the deal, and we decided instead that I should just tough it out on Amtrak from the next available station, which will be in Charleston. (Amtrak serves Wilmington via a four-hour bus ride; no thanks.)

With nothing thus keeping us in Wrightsville Beach (or turning us upriver to Wilmington), we set our sights on the next stop south, which is Southport. This is a challenging stop for us because there are no anchorages, leaving us to either anchor well out of town in the Cape Fear, or take a dock. We needed water and a pump-out anyway, which made the decision for us, and I booked a slip at St. James Plantation, which had everything we needed including an on-site restaurant.

That's where we were headed when we left the Wrightsville Beach anchorage yesterday morning, but about halfway down the Cape Fear we realized we would be arriving at a tide of -0.3'. We went back to our notes from the last visit which said the channel was shallow, and we had arrived then at a much higher tide. A call to the marina confirmed we might see just 5½' on the entrance.

Vector at night as seen from the Baldhead ferry terminal. Dwarfed by the 55 Nordhavn next to us.

We could stop someplace for a couple of hours for better tide, but that would cut into the time available to do the laundry with a marina water supply. I made some hurried last-minute calls and we settled for a spot at Deep Point Marina, which we remembered from a decade ago. I got off the phone literally moments before making the turn into the basin, where we had just a foot under keel in the channel and plowed mud at the turn into the slip (map). We docked bow-in with the anchor overhanging the dock so I could work on the anchor roller, which made for a tricky tie-up at the stern involving lassoing a piling from the boat deck.

We had noticed the anchor roller on the verge of losing a bolt when we weighed in Wrightsville, and when I could not budge the bolts with hand tools I knew we'd have to attack it from a dock or else I would be hanging off the bow in a bosun's chair. The dock made it easy and with some PB blaster, a mini torch, and an impact driver I was able to get the bent bolt out and remove the roller. I had to clean the axle threads up with a tap, and I replaced both rollers and two bolts as a precaution. It took me an hour and change working from the dock.

The reason we've never been back to this marina is that it is next to absolutely nothing, and so at dinner time we called a cab. Uber tried its best but had no drivers available, and the local "guy" who runs the service in town turned out to be "on a private drive all night in Wilmington." Oak Island Cab sent a taxi in 15 minutes and he dropped us in town for $22. That's pretty steep just to go to dinner, but Uber was available for our return ride for just half that. We had a nice meal at the Moore Street Oyster Bar, which has an impressive row of draft handles.

Tap list at MSOB. Many servers were wearing the "shuck me" shirts.

Had we made it to St. James Plantation last night, there is no question that we would have continued down the ICW today, weaving through some of the most notorious shoals on the waterway. And I can see on my scope more than a dozen boats doing just that. But stopping as we did a bit further upriver, we thought to check the outside conditions for the relatively short 30-mile hop to Little River. It's a little lumpy out here, but within our tolerance, and it's a much easier watch. That also let us drive right past the pump-out dock that we had planned to use. We left the river via the Western Bar Channel with five feet of tide. We found the least depth to be 8' MLLW, which would be nerve-wracking at low tide.

We should be at the anchorage off the Little River a good hour or so before sunset, and tomorrow we will get an early start to beat the weekend traffic in Myrtle Beach and continue down the inside. Louise has a big batch of pasta e fagioli on the stove for tonight. We have at least four days to Charleston, including a fuel stop and at least one night in Georgetown. We might take a dock there while the temperatures dive into the low 30s.

I was able to get a reservation at our preferred marina in Charleston starting on the 14th for a week, and I already have my train tickets. I'll be going in to Philly and renting a car there. Louise will be holding down the fort for the couple of nights I am gone, and the rest of the week we expect to enjoy Charleston. It's been a couple of years since our last extended visit there.