Heading toward Florida

October 25, 2014

Beautiful sunset!

Well, I have told you that our plans are written in sand. My last post had us leaving about a week ago and heading to Bull Creek then Savannah. That's not what we did.

I'm going to make a long complicated story very short. Our friends on Sea Salt called and told us they would be in Beaufort the next day so we decided to stay put and travel with them.

About 11:30 that night, Shay work me up and told me he was having a heart attack. We rushed to the ER and he was having a heart. He went to the cath lab, had a cath, had stent put in and left the hospital on Thursday. I told you it was going to be a short story. He is doing great, feels like nothing has happened and we are all thankful.

Thanks for all the calls, the offers of help and the prayers. Friends as far away at Texas and North Carolina volunteered to come down and help in any way they could. Thank you. A special thanks to Sea Salt, who changed their plans and stayed in Beaufort with us. Words can't express our gratitude to everyone.

So on 10-25-14, we did leave Beaufort heading to Herb River. Since we stayed in Beaufort longer than expected, we will pass by Savannah this time. We had a very easy trip to the anchorage. We are here with Sea Salt and will leave in the morning for the Wahoo River

Sunrise as we leave Beaufort, SC

Sea Salt sneaks by us.

This is the marine base at Parrish Island.

We think it looks like a prison

Got Shrimp?

Hilton Head, SC

Looking toward Savannah. Maybe next year.

The light blue area shows where the chart thinks the ICW is. You can see where it really is by the boat symbol.

Sea Salt

Big boat at Thunderbolt Marina.

And another

Pretty house near our anchorage

We anchored in the 8' area.

Beautiful

This dock has 8' tides

 

We are close to Thunderbolt

We left early the next morning heading to the Wahoo River. We are now in Georgia so I guess I am a Georgia peach. I told Shay that dolphins must like peaches. When he asked why I told him we had seen lots of dolphins since getting into Georgia waters. They have been playing in the water and following our boat constantly. I was on the phone and told someone that I could see at least 6 swimming around the boat at one time.

There goes Salty Turtle heading north. They will be coming back south soon.

If you are a cruiser, then you know certain areas are known as problem spots. Today we heading thru one of them. Hell's Gate is an area that has been know to be trouble. Thank goodness we passed thru with no problems.

The current was so strong here that it churned up mud.

Our anchorage

Wahoo anchorage

Sea Salt at Wahoo



After we anchored Shay looked out our window and said he thought he could see all the way to Africa. We are anchored up the Wahoo in a straight line to the inlet. It's a good thing the weather is calm. But if the weather was going to be bad, we would have gone farther up the river. Right before dark, two shrimp boats came in the inlet and dropped anchor. We kept hoping they would bring us some shrimp.

We have been blessed with great weather. The wind has been mild and the waters calm. We have been thru these areas before and had really rough trips because of the wind, current, and waves.

The only negative about mild winds is the no seeums. They are about to eat us up! It's awful when we are trying to get the anchor up in the morning and there's no wind and the no seeums are after us. They were terrible this morning! I was fanning them away while trying to handle the boat.

We did get a good push from the tide. We were going about 2kts fasting with the current pushing us. Sometimes it works with us and sometimes against. It's impossible to have a push all the time.

We had another great day on the water heading to the southern end of Frederica River. We have never stayed at this anchorage before and hope it will be a good one.

Sunrise leaving Wahoo

Looks like this marker has problems

Hey, come back! We want some shrimp!

Maybe we'll get some crabs?

Lower Frederica anchorage. We will stay here again.

Looking toward Brunswick, GA

This boat keeps following us!

Flat Georgia

 

We left our anchorage later today than usual. We waited for the tides so the water would not be so skinny. We are heading to Cumberland Island today. We anchored there on our first trip north, but didn't go to shore. We hope to be able to visit the island and spent some time there. We talked about spending a couple of days. Not sure what we will do.

Bridge boo-boo

Beautiful bridge

Brunswick industrial area

Sea Salt yields to BIG BOAT!

Big boat passing thru pretty bridge



We are heading to another problem area today, Little Mud River. Georgia has very high tides, sometimes going up and down 8'. So we have to be careful when we are passing thru certain areas that are shallow during low tide. So we calculated when low tide would be in the river and when we would be passing thru and how much water we would have. Didn't realize we would need a degree in math to be a boater.


 

Army Harbor Patrol boat

Yep, submarine.



Degaussing facility that removes the magnetism in the hull of sub.

Cumberland Island anchorage



Wild horses

David and Betty York

We were so glad to see each other!

So glad we stopped at Cumberland Island and went ashore! We were walking off the dock and I saw a guy coming toward me. Since we are not around people we know, sometimes I don't pay attention to who I'm meeting. Well, this guy kept coming toward me, so I looked at his face and guess who it was?  David York from back home. I was so surprised and so Shay when he saw me hugging a guy.

David and Betty love Jekyll Island and come down every fall. But they haven't visited Cumberland Island in several years. Now, what are the odds of us being there at the same time? I'm not sure what the odds are but there we were together on Cumberland Island.

We had a great visit with them and enjoyed catching up. Sea Salt and us walked across the island to the beach and had a good time.

Deer hiding in bushes.

Connie and Richard

Shay and Elizabeth

Beautiful tree. It was a beautiful place. Glad we visited.



Shallow area in the anchorage

Richard and Connie rowing to our boat for dinner.

We have decided to head to Florida in the morning on the outside. We will head out just south of Cumberland Island and go in at St. Augustine, FL. The miles and time are about the same, but traveling outside is so much easier. Instead of over a hundred waypoints we had 15. No crab pots to avoid. No "no wake" zones to slow down in. No shallow water to avoid. It's so much easier.

The water was calm and the trip was great. More about that in the next post!