We knew we wanted to cross Charleston Bay early for a couple of reasons. First, we had to traverse Eliott Cut to get there, which can bustle with boaters and jet skis. Being narrow and shallow it would be nice to have it to ourselves. Second, the bay itself can be snotty, so an early morning crossing would be calm. And it was.
Plan A was to get to McClellanville. We had reservations but realized we'd get there before noon. Plan B was to get to Minim anchorage, which should be calm, However, glancing at the weather, things might be nasty tomorrow. There's a second body of water, Winyah Bay, that might be challenging to cross then, so we decided (plan C) to put in a longer day and get it behind us.
On the sand mound is a bald eagle.
Not too far beyond Georgetown (a stop we've made a couple of times, now) was an anchorage. We dropped the hook and made dinner.
Possible t-storms tonight, possible big winds tomorrow. Most weather apps update every 4 hours. It's best not to make plans until the morning.
The voyage here would be short so we weren't in a hurry to leave the anchorage. It was one of the quietest anchorages we'd been in for a long while. The morning was calm and gorgeous.
We weighed anchor around 8:30 in the morning and headed to St. John's Yacht Harbor, near Charleston. Russ made reservations for us about 2 days ago and he understood they were going to put us on a T-head. Tides here are a thing, so if we were going into a slip, we'd want to time that with slack tide, or close to it. Knowing we were on a T-head, however, meant it really didn't matter.
I talk about T-heads a lot. Here's a bird-s eye view of
the current marina. The end of each dock makes
a T. That's the T-head. You can see where we are.
Lovely dawn this morning
We called them just to confirm our reservation. Which they seemed to have lost. "No worries, we can put you in a slip." Russ got information about the size, it's location, how we'd tie in, and somewhere in that someone said it was 16.5 feet wide. We're 16, and a true 16. Not an inch less. After some negotiation and investigation the marina did have space on a T-head for us. As a result, getting inQuest docked was trivial. For a few moments we were thinking of dropping anchor again and waiting for the next slack tides.
Martha and John Babinski came down to visit us before they headed south to go survey a boat they hope to purchase by the end of this month. We hope it all goes well -- we miss them!
We could have gone all the way to Charleston today but decided to stop and anchor out. We made arrangements to meet looper friends Martha and John (As You Wish) tomorrow, so we'll bide our time. Besides, Russ wanted to change some belts. He's getting that done now.
Our anchorage. But largely the day looked just like that.
Today had a couple of dicey cuts we had to navigate. These man-made channels are small and unnatural, so they seem to shoal in almost as fast as the Coast Guard can dredge them. We traversed 3 today, and 2 of them we had depths less than 3 feet beneath the keel. Needless to say, we went slow and watched our gauges.
This is a screen shot from our trip on the Atlantic. The pinkline is us and our trajectory. The blue line is how you travel on the ICW. It's a huge win -- time, stress from depth and tidal changes -- to go outside when you can.
I'll tell you what: I would so much rather be up and out by 6 am and ending the day at noon than be out at noon and ending the day at 5 pm. By 3 in the afternoon I'm yawning and asking, "Are we there yet?"
A week or so ago we had a few things we wanted from Amazon and a marine supply place. Russ put in an order and had them shipped to Thunderbolt in Savannah. We'd already arranged this with Thunderbolt when we had the conversation, "How long in advance do we need to give you notice we're coming to get a slip?" The answer was, "Oh, just a couple of days." That was a lie -- we tried for days and the never had vacancy, which was why we stayed at the yacht club. This morning, Russ lowered the dinghy and took the trip across the ICW to get to Thunderbolt and claim out packages. We both showered, ate a quick lunch, then headed out around noon.
Note how many boats are there. Rant to follow...
The section from Savannah to the Savannah inlet is a bit dicey; twisty and lacking depth. Then things got better. I believe it had been dredged, so depths weren't as iffy. We left at lowish tide, but it was rising.
By 3, as I mentioned above, I was ready to end the day. We started looking for anchorages around Hilton Head (since we've yet to stop there) but nothing looked sheltered from the many ferries and tour boats that zipped up and down the bay. Besides, the weather was nice enough to traverse the Port Royal Sound without effort. We moved on.
We thought we'd take an anchorage on the right. However, with the direction of the winds tonight and an outgoing tide (which we'd have most the nigh) previous folks at anchor claimed it could be rough. We moved on. (If you look closely at the map you'll see a dipsy-do maneuver.)
A longer vid from Sunday, when we left Brunswick,
got into the channel heading east and got onto the
Atlantic. All during sunrise.
From the same vid, but focus on the sailboat that
hoisted it's sail and forget where it was going...
Watching that morning it made me laugh.
Nearing Beaufort, SC we spied an anchorage near a yacht and sailing center we'd docked at before. We tried to hail them, but they were teaching (we deduced that by the teeny, tiny sailboats going in circles in front of the place). So we took the anchorage.
Pasta was made, beer was served, and we're settling down for the night.
Now for a rant (feel free to skip): We did enjoy our stay at the Savannah Yacht Club. There are many reasons you should come here. The food at the restaurant was wonderful, the fuel was very inexpensive, and the showers were very nice (I rarely shower off the boat). On the negative side, the dockage fee is kinda crazy. $4 a foot. I mean, it's Savannah, not Key West. But fine... it's a nice yacht club.
Russ took this coming back from Thunderbolt on the dinghy. Soooo muuuuch spaaaaace!
But to make sure you don't lie about your length while at the dock they measure your boat, eyeing the start and end and using a rolling-wheel length counter. Okay, we get that too, and it's not the first time. Some walls are stuffed and need to know exactly how long you are to fit as many boats in as they can. Therefore, we know that from the tip of the anchor to the back of the dinghy we measure maybe 44 feet. They came up with 48. They measured it twice, both times 48. So that's what we had to pay. Fine. Again, nice marina, and we saved a ton on fuel so whatever. Do you see those docks? I mean, why? It's not like they were full, it's not like they had to make room for everyone -- we were the only boat there. Just seemed like a bad way to treat a guest, which, given reciprocity of our own club, we were. 4 dollars, that's high. 48 feet, that's off. No reason to do that other than to make as much money as they could. Despite a reservation for 2 nights, that's the reason we did not stay. That might also explain why no one is there.
Up at 5:30 we made coffee, turned on the running lights, and headed out around 6:30, well before sun up. The channel out was wide so we didn't fret about doing it in the dark. By the time we reached the main channel the sky was bright enough to see.
While it wasn't as calm as the forecasts predicted, the ocean was only 1 foot, sometimes choppy, sometimes swells, but smooth. Talk about serendipity: we had an outgoing tide leaving so occasion we made 10 knots, we missed hours of winding, twisty waterway of the ICW that's rife with shoals and low spots, AND we had an incoming tide push us to our marina. Serendipity!
In Brunswick, minutes before leaving
We fueled up first and pumped out, then took our slip. By now I was hungry, which is never a good thing when docking, so getting in wasn't as easy as I hoped. The current and wind made lining up tricky. We did get it done, but emotions flared.
Otherwise, the day was amazing. We'll be on the lookout for great days to take the trip outside.
This is our AIS view. Many other boats had the same idea. AIS makes is easy to see other boat and know, at a glance, their position, their direction, and their speed.
This wasn't how we planned the day. But sometimes you gotta go with the flow.
The winds howled a fair bit last night, rubbing us up and down on the dock at Jekyll. As a result, I didn't get a solid night's sleep. When we woke around 5:30 am things had calmed down to around 10 mph. We didn't waste time. We fired up the engines and headed out at first light.
We could no longer push off fueling up. If the day had been better yesterday, we would have gotten fuel at Jekyll even though the prices were high. But the winds made getting on and off the dock a number of times -- once to get fuel, then off, then again to dock -- unappealing. It had, however, been the song so far. We've pushed off getting fuel all this time because the winds have been so treacherous.
The wind was coming from our port side. That made getting docked... interesting.
Today we had to do it. We headed for Brunswick, which was only one hour of travel. They opened their fuel docks at 8 am, and we were on it by 8:10. This was doable because the winds remained fairly calm throughout the morning. Everyone knew, though, big, nasty winds were coming, due to start beating around noon. We only took on a bit, enough to comfortably get us to Savannah. The marina there, a yacht club, will give us member rates. About $3.90. A steal theses days.
Unlike all the other marinas we'd been to of late, Brunswick Landing had a bunch of slips available. The plan was to fuel and get going, trying to be anchored before the big winds hit. But, really, we're in no hurry. We have no real place to get to. We asked if we could stay the night.
I liked the "Be Aware!" sign.
Keep in mind this all happened (engines on, getting up the East River, docking, and fueling) before we ate breakfast. And by the time we were pushing off the dock the wind had started to grow. So when they assigned us a slip down a fairway and next to the rip-rap wall (that's fancy boat talk for "rock"), I nearly had a meltdown. But we did it without much issue -- fighting the wind a little but we set her up early and let the wind push us down the fairway until we just bumped her back into the slip.
That all accomplished by 8:30 I took the opportunity to do laundry. We had lunch with neighboring loopers who stopped by to see inQuest (apparently, they're about done with the loop and will sell then buy the right boat). We get that a lot.
Russ took this from the end of our dock.
This water isn't that big, but the winds were so bad
we got a fair bit of chop. Quite a day.
We looked at the weather for tomorrow, knowing things will calm down tremendously. To our surprise, way tremendously. So much so we're planning a long day outside. We're going to make the run from here to Savannah. On the Atlantic.
We got off the ball in the early hours, before we even had breakfast. This would be the calmest part of the day. There's an inlet we had to cross that's sizable, St. Andrews sound, and we wanted to get it done before the afternoon winds picked up. It didn't matter as it turned out -- the winds picked up pretty quickly. There's a nasty shoal smack in the middle of the bay so you have to go almost all the way out to the Atlantic before you turn back in. But the winds were from the west, which meant choppy waters but nothing drastic. Russ and I talked about it later and it didn't rank near any of the worst water we'd had.
Along this section of the ICW the tide is pretty intense. Due to the bow in the land between Florida and New England, upper Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina all have big tide swings. They can be 8 to 10 feet. As a result most marinas have long docks that run along the waterways, so it's just a matter of sidling in and not some trick maneuver to get into a slip.
Downtown Fernandina Beach. It's very cute! Last stop in FLA.
The tide was pushing us along as we approached the marina. On any other day we would have turned around to get on the dock, since it's easiest to do against a tide. But the winds were howling, blowing us onto the dock. We lined her up in the empty spot we'd reserved and let the wind do the rest.
Then we had Mexican food at Tortuga Jack's, which is our favorite restaurant here.
Jekyll Island Clubhouse. You can even see the croquette players on the lawn, dressed in white.
The plan tomorrow is similar, except we know there will be even stronger winds. Cooler temps, too. Various weather apps have already alerted us. We plan on anchoring so we're not too concerned. So far, though, the word to describe the trip thus far is windy.
We're experiencing a very weird weather pattern: Calm winds and waters in the morning, then crazy high winds by the time we reach our destination. Today was no different. We thought we'd stay in St. Augustine for 2 nights because there were reports of strong storms for 2 days. When we woke this morning to calm conditions, we said go. Now the reports are for the next 2 days... so we'll see.
There's a free dock in Jacksonville in Sisters Creek just after you cross the Jacksonville inlet. It wasn't full but if we had to wait for 2 nights somewhere, we'd rather to that in Fernandina Beach.
Bad weather does give dramatic skies.
We'd been in Fernandina before a couple of times. The first was on Cat-n-Dogs when we looped. At that time the marina was closed from hurricane damage so we anchored out and "illegally" dinghied the dogs to shore. The following year we were here with inQuest, but Covid had the town shut down. Today we arrived around 2:30 pm today with 25 mph winds. The water was decent for a dinghy ride to the dock, but the threat of rain made us just eat in. Not looking for a downpour while in the tender. Storms have been coming and going all afternoon.
Yay, my cilantro is sprouting!
Russ needs oil filters for the engines. He ordered some from a boatyard near here. Tomorrow he'll take the dinghy to get them. Then we'll watch the weather, and make the decision to keep moving or stay another day.
By the way, if you're wondering why we're doing so much mooring ball nights when it's not been a favorite of ours, the answer is "practice." We have made the decision to go to Maine for the summer. (Woo hoo!) We're told many marinas have mooring balls, and anchoring might not be an option (rocky bottoms are tough to anchor in). So... we get ready.
My brother joined us for a night while in Palm Coast. We walked to the nearby mall/condo area but, given it was Monday, many of the restaurants were closed. The sushi place, however, was open. We had a great dinner. We even introduced my brother to sake.
The voyage to St. Augustine would be very short so we dawdled our departure with some breakfast as the Cracker Barrel. Say what you want about the place, they have awesome blueberry pancakes. Then my brother dropped us off at the marina and he went to work. And, for some value of "work," so did we.
Color overlay to Aquamaps. The blue dash is our "bread crumbs." Red is bad!
The wind and waters were crazy still when we left, making getting off the dock trivial. We had a number of skinny sections today, where we navigated by USCG depth sounding maps that we uploaded to on of our navigation tools, Aquamaps. The colorful overlays certainly gives you more confidence while traversing the shoals. We do, however, keep one eye on the depth gauges as well.
We're behind the lighthouse of St. Augustine.
As we traveled the winds came up... and came up... and came up. We'd been instructed by the St. Augustine City Marina (owners of the mooring balls) that we had to check in at their pier before proceeding to the ball. By that time the winds were steady at 22 mph. It helped blow us onto the pier, but the chop made being there a bit bouncy. They weren't sure our ball was open yet so we had to wait while their little skiff went to see if it was open. Getting off the pier took a bit of effort, but all went well.
The interesting part of this plaque is it mentions Conch Island didn't exist until they dredged in 1939. That totally changed the currents in St. Augustine, making them much stronger than they were naturally.
Next came navigating the tiny channel behind Anastasia Island to get to it. Nothing like trying to make your way in a little waterway for the first time in a small gale. While the wind was tough the waters were fairly calm, so once we got attached we didn't bounce much. Should be a good night.
We then dinghy-ed to the lighthouse public dock where we met friends from the loop, Jamie and Trish (About Time). We are cheering on their search for "the next boat", hoping we'll do some traveling together next year. Fingers crossed!
