It’s Sunday afternoon, the sun is out, it’s a lovely day and we are at anchor just north of Jekyl Island GA.   You might want to ask “So, Bob, why are you anchored near a bridge in the middle of the day when y0u should be underway and heading south?”  Thanks for asking.

We are anchored because we reached the bridge at high tide and with the strong NE winds over the last few days the tide is VERY, VERY HIGH.  The posted clearance at high tide is supposed to be 65’ but with the winds the board is showing only 62 ½’ of clearance.  As I require at least 64 ½’ to make it under the bridge that would suggest a bad outcome if I don’t wait a bit.  Can you say “shear off the gear on the top of the mast or worse?”  High tide was supposed to be at 12:30 but by the time the current slacked, signaling that the tide had stopped rising, it was actually 1pm.   That means that I will have to wait perhaps as much as two more hours until the tide drops enough for me to make it under the bridge with good clearance.  Oh well.

The problem is that with the days so short combined with some problem spots along the way with shoaling, this will certainly slow me up for today.  Happily, we should still be able to make St Mary’s by Monday afternoon.  Well, with that extra two or three hours to sit here, perhaps it’s time for a post.

Georgia is the part of the ICW that we had planned to skip because of the wind-y course that the waterway takes combined with shoaling issues that limit the times of the tide when a boat with Pandora’s draft can make it though.  However, with the nasty NE gale force winds offshore we decided to make the run inside, slow or not.  I have to say, circuitous route and all, it’s been a very pretty run.   The route as the crow flies Georgia is about 100 miles but the ICW route is close to 140 miles.  That’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to get from here to there.

Well, enough of why we are anchored instead of going south.  So, how was Savannah?

We had a lovely visit to Savannah for a few days and enjoyed the city.  We tied up at the city docks which are located right adjacent to the historic district.   As is the case with so many things nautical, there was ample opinion as to the best way to visit this particular city by boat.  Most say that going to the nearby town Thunderbolt, and taking a bus into the city was the better way. That way you can avoid the 8 mile run up and back down the river to rejoin the ICW.  Others said that the best way to visit is to be right in the thick of things and use the city marina.

It’s hard to say which is better but I do have to say that the amount of debris in the water including the tarp that I snagged on my prop does give one pause for thought about visiting by water.  Having said that, it was very pretty, nautical trash aside.

This shot of Pandora is particularly interesting for us as the hotel in the background is where Brenda and I stayed a few years ago when we visited the city for business.  Me, I like visiting aboard Pandora, minus the “business” thing.If one shot of Pandora at the dock is good, two is even better.The area down near the water is very scenic.   Speaking about high tides, the water came within 6” of flooding this brick walk area at high tide both days that we were there. Just adjacent to this is a row of old buildings that were once business that catered to the ships coming to the city.   Now, it’s candy shops and tee shirts.   Still pretty.

Just above the waterfront is where the city is.  These buildings are the back side of the ones in the picture above.  Not likely to get flooded there.  This is a very nice wrought iron bridge.   Below is the river. The local architecture is really great and perhaps one of the most famous is the house where the murder as chronicled in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.   Nice place.  Me.  Not sure I would be willing to kill to live there though. 

There is a big park in the city and this fountain is particularly nice. I just love the amount of greenery everywhere.  Very lush.  However, I expect that plenty of gardeners are needed to keep up with even the ivy that is all over the buildings.

No, not exactly one-of-a-kind but what a nice run of porches and rails. 

This garden was hidden, sort of, behind a gate.  Glad that there was a slot to peek through to get this photo.  Imagine what sorts of gardens we must have missed.

The visit was really nice but it’s good to be on our way again.  Well, sort of on our way given the bridge thing.   The marshes that we are traveling through seem to go on for ever.   The last few days have been cold and grey but today, sunny!  It’s amazing how different things, and life in general, look in the sunshine.   While most of the land, if you can call it that, is covered by marsh, there is the occasional hump with a few trees.  It’s really very pretty.

Well, it’s nearly 2:30 and I do so hope that my next post won’t be about shearing the gear off of the top of my mast.  Fingers crossed.

 

We are tied up to the municipal pier here in historic downtown Savannah for a few days to enjoy the sights.   The weather has turned cold with a periods of rain and the sky is the color of slate.  Having said that, it’s not as cold as Essex back home where I am told that it dipped into sub freezing temperatures overnight.

Because of the strong north/east wind blowing offshore the tide was particularly high yesterday, perhaps 3-4′ higher than usual.  As a result, an amazing amount of trash washed into the river.  As we were heading up the river on Wednesday morning we passed plastic bottles, branches and all sorts of stuff floating along.   Brenda was at the wheel as we came to within the last mile of the dock, dodging debris as she headed up.  All of sudden the engine RPM dropped to almost nothing and the engine nearly stalled with tons of thick black smoke billowing from the exhaust.  We were dead in the water.  I couldn’t imagine what we had tangled with.  As the engine had quit so suddenly but there wasn’t a “clunk”, my first thought that it was some sort of fabric or plastic that had wrapped itself around the prop.   However, I did imagine that it might be something much , much worse.

Oh, and did I say that there was a 900′ car carrier bearing down on us along with two 90′ tugs?  Oh yes, it was not a good situation at all.  Besides, the river is so narrow, you can’t believe it.   Given the amount of traffic that comes up the river you’d expect that it would be much wider than the 650′ that it is where we were drifting.    So…no engine.  drifting in the middle of a busy shipping channel.  Over 1000′ of steel bearing down on us.  So, what to do?  Hmm…

Well, I did what anyone in my predicament would do.  I CALLED FOR HELP!  As luck would have it, Brenda and I have been traveling with another boat, Brilliant, for the last few days.  Traveling with a “buddy boat” is something that we almost never do but we were yesterday.  So, I called our new best friends on Brilliant and asked for a tow.

Brilliant’s crew are Pete and Stephanie who have been living aboard for about ten years and brought their boat across from the Med about 5 years ago and have been doing the snowbird thing here in the US since then.    Boy, was I glad to have them near by.

So, Pete and Stephanie sprang into action mode putting out lines and fenders so that they could come up along side of Pandora, raft with us and take us in tow to the dock.

At the same time Pete was on the radio talking to the tugs and ship about our situation and plan so that they would know that we weren’t just idiots waiting to be crushed by them.  When I tell you that the ship was close… Trust me, it was very close, and getting closer by the minute.

This isn’t the actual ship as I was too busy to get out the camera.   However, it was one more in a constant stream of massive ships that are coming by us as we sit on the dock.  This one was passing a lovely schooner that gives day trips on the river.  Trust me on this.  These ships are very LARGE!!! As I was on the deck getting fenders and lines ready for the tow, I couldn’t hear the conversation going on about Pandora.   It seems that the plan, if Pandora couldn’t get out of the way in time, was for the tug to hit me with his prop wash and push me to the side of the channel.  Remember how narrow it is?  I shudder to think what that prop wash would have done to Pandora as she was blown to shore by the tug.  However, I expect that it would have been a lot less traumatic than being crushed by a 900′ ship.

So, how did it go you ask?  Swimmingly.  We were able to drift with the wind and current to the side of the channel.  Get out of the way of the ships and tie to Brilliant who deposited us on the dock like a pro.

People often ask me how big Pandora is when they hear that I have a sailboat.  I say that she feels really little the further we are from land and really big when she is near something hard like a dock.  I think that I will add to that one more description now.  Pandora feels like a fly spec, about to be squashed, when she is in the path of a 900′ ship.

Once all the fun was over and Pandora was safely at the dock I couldn’t help but be curious about what had tangled in our prop.   So, how about a swim in the Savannah river?   I have to tell you that it’s not that much fun.  The current is immense  the water about the color of coffee with milk.  That would be strong coffee with milk and what I estimated to be about 6″ visibility.  And, the temperature?  A lovely 63 degrees.

I waited several hours until the tide was slack, suited up in my full wet-suit, boots and hood.  Fired up the compressor and went for a swim.

So, I went for swim to see what I had “bought” from lovely Savannah.   I ducked in and under the boat and immediately realized that I had misjudged the visibility in the water.  No, it wasn’t 6″, it was ZERO.  Even with the front of my mask touching the blades of my prop, I COULDN’T SEE A THING!!!  Well, it wasn’t hard to “see” what had caused the problem.  I could easily feel that it was a large piece of polypropylene cloth and I unwrapped it in less than a minute.

This is what was what we had picked up.  I am so glad that we had someone standing by to help. I must have someone watching over me, my own personal guardian angel along with Brilliant.While I was waiting for the current to slacken at low tide, I decided to drop by and visit another boat on the dock.  This survey boat was waiting for a job up river and the owner/captain was only too happy to answer some questions.    Fred’s boat is a technological wonder and he was happy to share information about it with me.

His business Bottom Line Echo Company which maps or surveys waterways for folks who have “lost” stuff.  Along with finding sunken planes and boats, he has found plenty of great things for insurers and owners over the years.  He told me that his equipment is so precise that he can find a handgun in the bottom of a muddy river.  Note to self, as you are running from the cops after robbing that liquor store, don’t throw that illegal handgun off of the pier if Fred is working in the area.

Fred’s boat certainly looks like a good example of “form follows function”.   Pretty slick.   That pole on the port bow with the two black disks is a fancy depth sounder.    His site says that it’s a KNUDSEN 320mm depth recorder with dual 28 and 200 KH depth transducers.  OK, yeah, got it.  I guess that means he can tell how deep it is. 

If that’s not cool enough for you, how about the side scan sonar that he can tow behind his boat.  Very high tech.  This isn’t the actual one.  His is a lovely green. The cabin is pretty tricked out. Here’s Fred slaving away at his PC.  Or should I say “at one of his PCs”.  This is his nifty towed sonar.   It looks expensive and Fred said that it is.   I asked him what was the most interesting thing that he had found.  After thinking for a moment he described finding a whole collection of heavy equipment, that’s bulldozers and dump trucks heavy equipment, that he located for an insurance company.  It turns out that someone had stolen the stuff, taken out the engines and had pushed the “remains” off of a barge.  They assumed that they would never be found however I guess that they had not met Fred.  Oops!!

The boat is small enough to tow behind a truck so he can move from place to place easily to take on jobs.  After he is finished in Savannah he was headed up to New Jersey to survey a harbor near an oil refinery that had been badly damaged by Sandy.  It seems that some equipment had washed into a harbor there and he needed to map it so that the stuff could be pulled out by a salvage company.

Unfortunate for us, Fred had not yet found that great poly tarp that we tangled with.  However, it just proves once again how much fun cruising can be and validates that boating is “hours of boredom punctuated with moments of sheer terror”.   Or, put another way, “cruising is boat repair in exotic places”.

Me, it adds spice but Brenda may have another view on that.   Besides, on occasion we do find interesting stuff when we are on the water.  Sometimes, a bit too interesting.

 

 

Yesterday we left Beaufort SC after several wonderful days exploring the city and enjoying the local eateries.  Brenda and I really loved it, the food, homes.  Such a nice city.  What was even better is that the temperature has finally warmed up into the 70s and we didn’t even have to turn on the heat.  The last two days are the first since about a week prior to our friend Sandy that it has actually warmed up to something that is compatible with palm trees.

I can hardly decide where to begin with the wonderful architecture.  We went for a number of walks and spied these, and many other, fabulous homes.

It’s just wonderful to see the live oaks draped with Spanish Moss.  Some of the trees are too big and sprawling to imagine them staying up in a hurricane.  They are so stately and individual that you have to believe that the locals might be inclined to name each one.  How about this one hanging out over the street.  The last time that I saw a tree marked with sign on a road was in the Redwood forests in California where the tree had been carved out so you could drive a car through it. It’s hard to say where I should begin in posting about these houses.  Somehow, stucco doesn’t look tacky here like it does in NJ.  Far from it. Just like in Charleston, the locals must get a bonus or painting their homes white. You can just imagine a horse and carriage driving up to drop off the owner here. Not all the homes are old.  There are some lovely “contemporary” homes too.   Not to be picky but it would be even better if the posts on the porch were a bit more substantial.   But then, perhaps it’s just me.  Agree?We were told that one of the homes in the area was used in the movies “The Big Chill” and “The Great Santini”.  I thought that I had taken a photo of the right one but I am not sure.  We thought that this was the one.

I looked it up on the Web and see that this is the one credited with being in the two movies.   Not sure if I have a shot as it looks a lot like others that I saw.  Oh well, we saw a lot of great homes.   I loved this one.  The trees and gardens just swallow up the home in spite of it’s size. Speaking of a nice setting, how about this perched on a lovely marsh.   To come home to this means that you have arrived in more ways than one. This one was nicely nestled into the landscape.   Sitting on that rocker wouldn’t be tough duty. We saw some great gardens but none that could rival this one.  The photo doesn’t do it justice. There is a strong military presence with two bases nearby and a national military cemetery in town.   We were there on Veteran’s Day and were treated to a first class parade.
It’s great to see folks from the service in dress uniforms. Each branch of the service was represented. After enjoying the parade we did a bit of shopping in the local gourmet store.  Compared to prices in the New York area, this was a downright bargain.   What a great looking store.  I think that we bought one of everything in the store.  Perhaps not but we did buy plenty.  Not a great idea to shop when you are hungry.

Beaufort goes out of it’s way to encourage folks to visit.  The waterfront has a great park that is very popular.  There are plenty of places to eat that look out on this lovely scene.  I still haven’t gotten used to the palms that are everywhere.

As I write this we are tied up at the city docks in Savannah GA.  It’s hard to believe that we have made it all the way to Georgia.  Massive ships go by and the river isn’t that wide here.  As you can imagine, the current runs very hard.  As we were about a 1/2 mile from our destination today we snagged something big on our prop and it tangled it up badly. As  a result we were dead in the water.  Happily, we were traveling for the last two days with another boat and they towed us to the dock.

As soon as the tide is slack I plan on going swimming with my wet suit and dive compressor to untangle whatever is wrapped.  That should be fun in the 65 degree water.  Oh yea, did I mention that the visibility is about 6″?   Wish me luck.

And yes, the two cities, one in North and the other in South Carolina, are spelled the same but the pronunciation is much different.    So, we enjoyed both cities and it was fun to visit Beaufort.  That’s Byoofert to y0oou.

I guess it’s almost time for a dip in the Savannah river.  Yuck!  Make that a double yuck.

We left Charleston on Thursday to continue our journey south, working our way to Beaufort.  As we were leaving Charleston we circled under the bottom of Charleston and got a good view of the lovely historic homes on the waterfront. Yes, these homes look as good from the water as they do when walking around Charleston.  Love the whole palm tree thing.
I didn’t quite know where to put this photo of a local canine that we ran into the other day so here goes.  As random as it may be, how about this for a great looking dog?   What’s even more interesting is that the breed is fairly large, about the size of a Golden Retriever.   The owner said that she is a Briard, a Russian breed but this link says French.  Well, the French would say that they were there first.
 The cropped ears make her look, to me, like a breed that George Lukas would have conjured up for Star Wars.  I suggested to the owner that to me she looks more like an Ewok than a dog.   The owner didn’t seem particularly amused.   See the resemblance?After leaving Charleston we continued to head south and decided to anchor up a creek in a marsh for the night. The view was spectacular and we were treated to a brilliant sunset.    Did I say that I like sunsets?   Indeed, and made all the better when accompanied by a proper beverage. In the other direction there was a new bridge.  The contrast between the soft, flowing marsh grass and angular bridge was striking. Brenda and I arrived with Pandora to our current spot near Beaufort SC yesterday and are anchored in  one of the most tranquil spots we have seen to date.  We anchored here, as opposed to downtown Beaufort because there is a SSCA cruising station, the home of Rick and Carol, long time cruisers, who were highly recommended by other SSCA friends as a particularly nice place to stop.

The view that greeted us this morning was so tranquil in the soft morning mist.  You could almost imagine a hippo surfacing to look around.   Our hosts, Rick and Carol lived aboard and traveled to the Bahamas for something like 10 years.  In their travels, Rick and Carol were looking for a place to live when the time came for them to “swallow the anchor”.  Just like us, they anchored where we are now and found out that there was a piece of property on a point that was for sale and the rest is, as they say, history.

They open their home to visitors from SSCA whenever they arrive and even have dock space for some.  When Pandora arrived we were instructed where to anchor and last night they hosted a cocktail party for the 15 to 20 cruisers that were visiting.   What a great time we had making new friends and even seeing a few who we had met along the way.

Rick and Carol have done a wonderful job of crafting the design, siting and details of their home and it is an inspiration for me and Brenda.  What an attention to detail, from the kitchen cabinet details, built from Rick to the huge copper mobile hanging from the tall ceiling in the living room complete with a flock of our favorite, the pelican.

Windows dominate the front of the house.  This is the living room and the bedrooms are behind.  It’s a bigger house than meets the eye.Rick is a retired Navy skipper and you can certainly see an attention to detail in the house with a nautical flare.  That and a penchant for keeping everything ship-shape.  Even his dock, which is nearly 600′ long is carefully painted and in excellent shape.   Rick told me that he had the house framed up and covered and then spent three years finishing the inside himself.  His work is really impressive.  The floors are cherry and trim is carefully varnished and looks for all the world like mahogany.   The kitchen cabinets were built from scratch by Rick and there are wonderful cherry accents on the counters and cabinets.  The moment I walked into the home I realized that Rick had done the work himself as nobody pays for that level of detail.

Perhaps the most elegant room in this amazing home is a diminutive bedroom up in the loft that Rick designed and built to look like a ship’s cabin.  The room has bunk beds just like you would see on a ship.  Notice the wainscoting on the walls.  The room doubles as a place to keep artifacts from his time as skipper of ships in the Navy including commissioning pennant from his commands.The details are impressive, including ships knees and curved deck beams overhead.  There are even port holes, complete with blast covers.  You can almost imagine the movement of the ship if you sat here to write a letter.

This box with cutouts is actually the AC and heat vent crafted to look like it belongs.  Nice work, really nice work. He even went to the trouble to install a speaking tube that was once used on a ship to speak from the bridge to the engine room.   Alas, this one does not go to the kitchen as one would hope.  Perhaps commands from a disembodied tube “please bring me my slippers” wouldn’t sit well with Carol.Among the many details in their home, Rick was once given a porthole by a friend.  The gift was contingent on Rick promising to use it in the finishing of their home.  After much thought, Rick decided to install it in the one room in the house without a water view, the bathroom.  So, he had the mirror over the sink specially cut and now there is a water view, all 10″ of it that you can see as you brush your teeth.How’s this for a view of the water from their back yard?   At night the live oaks are lit with flood lights.

Their side yard has an equally brilliant view.  This is a wonderful setting to share with friends and share they do. Rick and Carol have hosted some 500 cruisers over the last 10 years and even keep an old pickup truck on hand to lend to those who need to make runs to the market.  He told me that they call it the “magic truck” as it is used all the time and yet never needs gas.  Visiting cruisers always put in a gallon or two to replace what they have used, enough so that the tank always has enough gas for the next visitor.

Even though we have only known Rick and Carol for only a few hours, we feel like we’ve been friends for years.  I guess that’s the best way I can describe this trip, making new friends that we have already known for years.  This whole trip is turning out to indeed be “our little slice of heaven, one bite at a time” and we aren’t even in the Bahamas yet.

I should note that Rick visited us aboard this morning to give us a very thoughtful tutorial as to what makes a successful cruising couple.  Words of wisdom and great advice for us and me in particular.   Perhaps I will share some of his advice here soon.

It’s Wednesday morning and we are still in Charleston and look forward to our last day of sightseeing after a week in this wonderful city.   Our loose plans have us heading down to Beaufort SC over the next few days, perhaps on to Savannah and then on to St Mary’s GA for Thanksgiving.

St Mary’s is home to perhaps the largest Thanks Giving Feast/Party on the ICW and attracts nearly 100 boats and hundreds of cruisers who make it a point to stop there on their way south each fall.    As I understand it, the Riverview Hotel hosts the event and volunteers provide turkeys and help run the event.   Here’s a description on the hotel’s website that describes what is involved.

“Every year the St. Marys boating community hosts a Cruiser’s Thanksgiving at the Riverview Hotel.  Local volunteers bring the turkeys and hams, set up tables and chairs, and organize the annual feast.  The cruisers bring all the side dishes.  We gather the night before at Seagle’s Saloon for an Oyster Roast and pot-luck social to meet new and old friends.  On Thursday, the Captains come over early to set up tables along with the locals.  Complimentary coffee and donuts are served.  During this time tables may be reserved for your party and decorated however you like.  The Captain & First Mate, and their Crew bring over the side dishes around noon with dinner at 1:00 p.m.   Also, on Friday morning there is a Swap Meet Sale and Book Exchange in the side yard of the Riverview Hotel.  Coffee and refreshments are served.  (Because of limited seating, the Cruiser’s Thanksgiving dinner is not open to the general public.)  To RSVP please email:  gailabrandon@tds.net“

I RSVPd today and look forward to learning more.

As we have headed south over the last two months we have met many cruisers who say that this is one of the highlights of their trip and a visit to St Mary’s should not be missed.

While we have done the entire ICW to date inside, we do plan to head out into the ocean from Beaufort or perhaps Savannah and do a run outside to St Mary’s.   Me, I am looking forward to sailing again as the mainsail cover hasn’t been off since we left the Chesapeake.  Going outside is a must for us as we draw 6′ and there is considerable shoaling in Georgia.  In order for boats with our draft to make the trip, we would have to time much of our time underway according to the tides which would make the trip very tedious as there just isn’t enough water at low tide for us to make it through.

Last evening we hosted two couples aboard Pandora for cocktails having met them both while doing laundry at the marina.   One couple, aboard an IRWIN 42 has been sailing to the Bahamas for the last 5 winters and it was fun to hear of all the great places that they have visited.   Hearing more about where we are headed was inspiring to us both.  The other couple, new to cruising, are heading south on their first trip. On top of that, they were also new to sailing so this is all new to them.  We learned a lot and it was fun to make some new friends.

Another highlight yesterday was the arrival of a Volvo Ocean Racer 70 footer.   Maserati was at the face dock at our marina and had just arrived from Spain with a full crew.  Their next step, after clearing customs here, will be to head north to New York City where they plan to make an attempt to break the New York to San Francisco monohull record originally set by the clipper ship Flying Cloud in 1854, a record that she held for over 100 years.   Interestingly, the Flying Cloud captain’s wife, Eleanor Creesy was the navigator and is credited with much of the success of the record run.

I didn’t take this photo of Maserati.  However, if I did, it would have looked much like this.   What an awesome machine. 

This is her under speed.  It seems that she can run 40kts.   That’s cooking.   Besides, at the dock she looks like she is moving fast already.  
As Maserati is an Italian boat, some of the crew feeds on their site are in Italian although much of it is in English.  The site is worth checking out.  There are also videos and photos worth looking at as well.  This is one slick looking boat.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger to get any photos before they shoved off from the dock.  It seems that the captain of Maserati was with the customs officer in the same room as the laundry, trying to stay warm, where Brenda was doing the wash so she was able to listen in as the officer went through the clearing process.  She overheard the captain say that their plan is to have Maserati in New York soon and that they hope to leave around December 11th to begin their attempt.  They fully expect to break the current record.  So where was I while this was going on?  I was off doing grocery shopping.  Bummer.

From our standpoint, Maserati is headed in the wrong direction and a NYC to San Francisco run certainly isn’t in Pandora’s future.  With regards to records, I don’t expect that the crew of Pandora will be breaking any records today with the possible exception of the most visits to the local grocer in a single day.   Well, you have to have goals in order to do your personal best.

Ready, set, grocery shop!!!