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Nov. 8 to Nov. 21, 2005

Our last log had us anchored at Town Creek, Beaufort, NC. This year most of the cruising boats were anchored on the other side of the marina so we headed among the moored boats inside the triangle that is the official anchorage. There seem to be a few more moorings each year making finding a spot a bit harder.  During other visits it's appeared the holding in the area is not great as we've watched boats dragging anchor and have problems getting a firm grip on the bottom - there was a boat aground at the east end of the anchorage.  We found a spot that would hopefully give us swinging room once the forecast front passed through.


After doing the laundry, we walked to town and watched the boats approaching the town docks.  As usual there was a current running and enough wind to make docking interesting, even for power boats with bow thrusters and professional captains.  The Taylor Creek anchorage was pretty full, with more boats arriving hoping to find a spot for the night.


We were anchored next to a small boat with a live aboard couple, just off the dinghy dock.  When the wind shifted we spent time resetting our second anchor to have enough space between us.  They had 3 anchors out, with lots of scope on all of them.  After a couple of tries, Leonard was happier with our position. The front came through during the night and was not as strong as last year. We decided to stay another day and wait for the wind to die back.  In the afternoon we made a trip to the grocery store and wandered around town.


We started south on Veteran's Day, just one of many boats in a line with the clear skies and cooler temps.  At one point there were so many little fishing boats in the channel it was a challenge to pick our way between them and stay in deep water.  We were surprised to be hailed on the VHF by Encore, one of the passing boats.  They were members of the yacht club we stayed at in Mathews, Virginia, headed for Ft. Meyers.  We talked briefly and said we'd see them in Hammock Bay at Camp Lejeune, the anchorage most of the boats were heading for the night.


When we got to Hammock Bay, the anchorage was filling up (there were 21 by day's end).  We went over to talk to the folks on Encore.  They were in the spot we usually chose in the corner and, when we circled behind them, we ran aground briefly at the edge of the dredged basin - it shoals abruptly.  After we got anchored for the evening, we dinghied over to Encore to meet Nancy and Tom Hackman and their kitten, Pumpkin.  Being a kitten, Pumpkin was busy exploring, and at one point I noticed a wet cat in our dinghy.  She had fallen in but managed to keep her head dry and was busy cleaning the salt from her tail acting like things were normal.  We traded cruising tips and hope to catch up with them again.  They were heading to Southport while we planned on stopping at Wrightsville Beach.

Arriving at Wrightsville Beach the next afternoon, we went for a walk on the beach. Then Leonard suggested we take advantage the weather forecast and beat the next weather system by heading for offshore for Georgetown that night. So after a quick stop at the grocery store and the frozen custard stand, we pulled anchor and headed out having spent about 3 hours in Wrightsville Beach.

It was a beautiful night with a nearly full moon and with better winds than forecast.  What we'd thought would be an overnight motor turned into a good night's sail.  Both of us were joined on watch by dolphins.  This year Leonard got the watch where the military vessel joined us. They like to play cat and mouse with the slow speed maneuvers and strange light configurations which made for an interesting watch.  As the ship passed astern, we were surprised when the GPS loss signal. It apparently blocked our GPS briefly before slipping back out of sight.

The wind died back in the morning, leaving us rocking the the swell and left over waves.  Each were about 2 feet from the same general direction and, when they combined, had us really rolling.  The water temperature was about 67 F, so I suggested stopping for a swim and shower.  Leonard, after getting his feet wet, decided to just use the cockpit shower but I found the water fine, I just had to keep from getting hit by the boat as the stern bobbed up and down in the waves.

We arrived at Winyah Bay in time to catch a flood tide to carry us up to Georgetown.  We thought about anchoring at the bay entrance and exploring the beach there, but knew if we did, we'd fight an ebb current in the morning.  Given all the traffic on the ICW we also thought the harbor at Georgetown might get crowded since another front was forecast to pass through the area, so we headed up to find a spot.  Surprisingly there weren't many boats in the harbor.  We found a place just past the dinghy dock, set 2 anchors to keep us out of the channel during the tide changes, ate a quick dinner, and went to bed.


We spent a couple of days at Georgetown, going for walks and relaxing, waiting for the front to pass through.  It was shorts weather and with the wind not blowing from the paper plant. The steel mill behind us was busier than we remembered in the past.  It was interesting to watch the slag heap glow and flare at night when they dumped more ash on it or stirred it with a crane.

Our only problem was getting the Danforth anchor to catch.  It was supposed to keep us out of the channel, and when the wind switched some,  we found ourselves drifting more into the channel than we liked.  We reset it several times, during one of which I looked up to see a small cruise ship entering the harbor, headed our way.  I wasn't sure it would fit between us and the dock, but it did a 180 turn before it got to us and tied up at one of the marinas.  It was the cruise ship that we saw by the Ben Sawyer bridge last year, and takes people out of Charleston up the ICW.

After going for a walk in the morning, we hoisted the dinghy, pulled the anchors (they were set now!) and headed for the North Santee River.  The cold front was moving much slower than originally forecast and hadn't come through yet, but since we still weren't really happy with our spot (we'd be into the docks before the GPS anchor drag alarm would go off) so we thought we'd find a new anchorage.  Last spring we liked our North Santee anchorage, and now we had time to explore further up the river.  We found a good spot just before we went off the chart with plenty of swinging room.  It was a beautiful night with a full moon.

The next day, we headed for Whiteside Creek for a visit to Capers Island.  It looks like Mama Gator must get enough to eat, since she looked bigger than we remembered.  The impoundment at Capers had a lot herons, mostly white, and we saw a big bird soaring on the thermals. With the sun getting lower in the sky, it was really magnificent to see the under side lit up.  I think it may have been a golden eagle.


We walked out to the beach, which seemed to stretch forever.  The spring tide was especially low, and just starting to turn.  We walked out to explore some of the sand banks and realized it would be easy to get caught by the incoming tide filling in some of the low areas.  We headed back to the dinghy and the boat.  We were surprised only 3 boats were anchored in the creek for the night.

By morning the front had come through and it was 45 F in the cabin.  The wind was up too, making for a wet dinghy ride if we went back to the island, so we started toward Charleston.  As we headed out we saw Rus II, a Canadian boat, that had been at Georgetown with us.  They were from Kingston, Ontario and we had chatted briefly before we'd left.  We both cleared the Ben Sawyer bridge and headed for the harbor.  We talked on the VHF and they decided they'd follow us since this was their first trip through the harbor.

I had called the marinas in Charleston in the morning and was lucky to get a reservation at the City Marina.  The place we usually stay was filled with no openings until Sunday.  When Rus II called on the VHF, they were told the City Marina was filled too.  We got shoehorned into a slot at the end of what they refer to as their "mega" dock.  I was glad there was a dock hand to grab the spring line - it was much further than I would have jumped and there was a catamaran in front of us - and the current was running.

The mega dock is something else.  It is a 20 foot wide cement dock that is 1530 feet long.  It was about a 1/4 mile hike to the head and showers, one way.  The boats along both sides of the dock ran the full gamut - little sailboats in the 22 foot range to one called Themis - over a 150 foot yacht that had a golf cart as a tender.  We were one of the smaller boats on the dock.


The marina had a shortage of power adapters, the mega dock was only set up for 50 amp connectors, and we didn't see the logic of buying one since we only use 30 amp service.  We left the wind generator on, and it was windy enough to keep the batteries charged.  An adapter was available for the second day, which was good, as it clouded over and the wind died.  I was glad since I was trying to freeze some of the provisions we got.


We did our chores, got the boat washed, laundry done, inside cleaned up, freezer defrosted, food bought and stored.  Then we had time to explore the town.  We found the Charleston College campus center.  It was a lovely campus, we've only seen parts of before.  There appeared to be a sorority pledge stunt show at the Customs House in town on Friday evening that sported everything from Big Bird and Smurfs to Dolly Parton.


Sunday morning we headed for Elliot Cut, having determined it would be a good time to go through it.  Since it was before 9 AM, the bridge we needed opened was on demand, making the segment to the Stono River an easy passage. It can be unpleasant if you miss the bridge opening since maneuvering room is limited and can be complicated by a strong current.

We set the jib for a while once we got past the initial twists and turns and into more open water, but the wind was too variable to give us much of a boost.  Rain was forecast, with the probability increasing almost hourly.  It is 60 some miles to Beaufort, SC, making it a very long day with currents switching every few miles as you go from river to river through land cuts.  The rain held off most of the day with the sun even making appearances, so we hoped to reach the anchorage at Wimbee Creek, off the Bull River, before it started.


We did get through the last land cut before the rain began.  This is the cut where we had a problem on our first trip with a crab pot.  There were more marks than charted, fewer pots than  before, and it seemed like less water.  It is one thing to be in shallow water in the Keys where the depth is fairly consistent, it is something else to get rapidly decreasing depths and not know where the channel is.  It was time to throttle way back and feel our way across the bottom to deeper water. The boat behind us must of thought we were lost (which we were), but we noticed they had the same problem, and looked like they had a deeper keel.

Leonard had charted a course up the Bull river on the GPS which was good as the rain started and the shoreline disappeared.  The mark at the entrance to the Bull River wasn't showing up on the radar either.  As we entered the Bull river, the boat behind followed us and, when we called them on the radio, learned they were also headed for Wimbee Creek.  When we both got to the Wimbee Creek anchorage, we found Cipango, the boat that had been across the dock from us at Charleston, already there. They had left about 45 minutes before us.  There was plenty of swinging room and we really set the CQR in anticipation of the forecast winds.


It was a restless night.  The wind blew, the current held us stern to the waves so they slapped under the boat, and it rained or poured most of the night with some lightning now and then.  In the morning there were dire forecasts of tornados, thunderstorms, water spouts, strong winds, the whole nine yards.  We spent the day in flat conditions with only a few sprinkles, but about 4:00 the wind switched to the forecast direction and began to blow.  Cipango spent the day here too, but the other boat left mid morning with another one arriving to take its place late this afternoon.

Nov. 27 to Nov. 30, 2005

We spent Sunday and Monday in Brunswick, GA, checking out the town.  It has a sleepy southern ambiance with the sidewalks literally rolled up on the weekends.  The boater in the slip next to us said his timing had really been off, since the only place open over the long weekend had been a pub.

We saw a notice tacked up by the dock regarding a bakery that had recently opened.  The address wasn't on the map we'd been given of the town, so Leonard checked on our street finder software.  It was within our walking distance, so off we went.  They had interesting treats and mostly made with spelt flour and other natural ingredients. There was an interesting maple cream cookie we tried.  I commented that we should have brought some maple syrup with us, and the fellow waiting on us said yes, but they do get their syrup from a friend with a sugar bush on the Canadian boarder in the North East Kingdom!  We find a lot of Vermont connections as we travel.

When we told him we were on a boat at the marina, he said he lived in the "big blue" boat at the end of the second dock.  We had noticed it. A very interesting and unusual boat, wooden, with a back end that folded down to store things like the dinghy, with a door into the boat - not the usual mega yacht type stern storage where they stow jet skis and the like.  I'm not sure how they close it if and when they go to sea.  The boarding ladder looked like it had about 20 steps when we went over for a closer look.

We also chatted briefly with a man working on another old wooden boat on our dock.  He said it originally had been Edison's sail boat, but was conscripted by the government during WWII.  Forty feet were added, the boat converted into a power boat, and used as a mine sweeper during the war.  He had purchased it about a year ago and agreed with me that owning it would be a labor of love, needing lots of both.  It looked like he was working on a manifold cover.

On one of our walks in town, we found the "lover's oak", a live oak that is said to be more than 900 years old.  The town was planned in the 1700's and laid out on a grid. One addition appeared to have been planned in the 1920's, with streets around an oval shaped park. The town is the county seat as well as an active shipping port and has a large fishing fleet.

There are some lovely sections of town with interesting homes surrounded by large live oaks.  The difference between the have's and the have-not's seems to be more evident in the south than at home.  The poorest of the population live under fairly dire conditions, in tiny houses, more like shacks, that sometimes look uninhabited until you see dogs in the yard.  Perhaps the warm climate makes living under these conditions possible, our cold northern winters would be untenable.  Yet everyone is friendly and always offer a smile and a greeting when you meet in the street.

A passing cold front brought some showers during the afternoon and night, but the worst of the storms were south of us.  After the second night in port, we opted to take our chances with the weather (more thunder showers forecast) and the falling tide and headed toward Cumberland Island via Jeckyll Island.  The channel behind Jeckyll is both skinny and narrow in places with ample mud flats on both sides. Even the big power boats took it easy going through since some of them draw as much water as we do.  If we got hung up, we'd only have to sit a couple of hours before the water returned since the tide was almost out. Fortunately we didn't touch although there were spots under 8 feet.  I'm not sure which is harder, transiting these spots at low tide when the mud flats are really evident, or at high tide when the channel looks deceptively wide, making it even easier to get out of the channel.

We decided to anchor in the Brickhill River to give us access to the northern end of Cumberland Island National Park.  It is a large island that would be difficult to see in a day.  The river is not buoyed, but charted, so we picked our way around the shoals.  The noseeums were in evidence when we anchored, but hopefully when the wind switches to the north west and the temperatures drop they will not be a problem.

The next morning, after we dinghied to the park dock, we found the posted maps indicated a series of trails and cross trails, but there weren't any maps to take with us.  We walked over to look at Thomas Carnegie son's house, Plum Orchard, and saw a park ranger trimming the bushes.  When I asked if any maps were available he took us into the house while he went to look for one.

The house, built in 1898, is only open on alternate Sundays when tours are offered (for a fee), so this was a real treat.  The Carnegies lived here until the 1950's, when the park service took over the property. The entry area has a staircase with a sunken fireplace with benches set into it.  The wallpaper was original, actually a flax cloth, not paper, printed with griffins.  One area was roped off, but we wandered through part of the house while we waited.  Very impressive.  It would be nice to see the whole place.  The caretaker said it is a slow time of year and that most visitors don't make it up to this section of the island since the main park services are on the southern portion.  We were glad for the map, as it would have been easy to get lost. 



We plan on transiting the south end of the Brickhill River around high tide since the chart indicates a 4 foot spot.  We will have spring tides with the new moon, and don't want to get hung up at either end of the tidal range.  We'll then check into Lang's Marina in St. Mary's where we'll leave the boat for our winter break.  We've arranged for a car since we know that although the town is nice, provisioning is more than a few miles away.

Dec 1 to Dec 6, 2005