Beaufort to Fernandina

We left Beaufort heading down the ICW. Of course, we have more shallow water in front of us today. We left the mooring field at 7:10 heading to Possum Point.

Our traveling companions

Parrish Island Marines

Looking at Port Royal Sound

No, the buoy is not supposed to be out of the water. But that shows how low the tide was.

Looking toward Savannah, GA. Yes, we just crossed from SC to GA. 

We had no problem going thru Field's Cut, even though we were going thru at low tide. Ramshorn Creek was ok. We crossed the Savannah River with no problem. Sometimes a huge cargo ship can be heading up the river at the same time and cause big wakes. We passed by Elba Island, again no problem.

We got to Possum Point at 3:30 after traveling 8hrs, at 6.6kts for 54nm. Spray and SeaSalt are joining us for dinner tonight. It's good to get together and enjoy a meal and tell boating stories and lies. 

Not much at Possum Point

 

Beautiful sunset

We had stopped at Possum Point to stage for our passage thru Hell Gate. We are only about 4 miles from it and will be going thru with 3' of tide. We have seen lots of birds and dolphins today. It started raining about 12:30 and rained on and off most of the day. 

We got to our anchorage at 4:30 after traveling over 10 hours at 6.6kts for 67nm. It was still drizzling when Shay went down and put the snubber on and we anchored in the rain. We had planned to eat on SeaSalt tonight but decided to have soup on Escape. Too wet to get out.

We don't go fast enough to churn up anything. What are they getting?

No, the crab pots are not usually out of the water. But when there is an 8' tide things change.

Here comes the rain

Our Fernandina River anchorage

More rain

We left at 7:00 heading for Fernandina. Yes, we do have some possible shallow places, but we have and 8' tide so shouldn't be a problem.

Foggy bridge

 

Finally, they stayed around long enough for me to get a picture.

Kingsbay Naval Base

 

We've never seen a sub in the degaussing station before.

Our friendly naval patrol boat. He followed us along for a while, so I got a closeup.

These next few pictures are of the lovely downtown Fernandina waterfront.

These boats have been gathered after the hurricane come thru. Three years ago Fernandina was hit really bad and they are still recovering.

Unusual paint job.

Salty Turtle in Bell's Creek, across from Fernandina.

From our anchorage

We got to Fernandina at about 1pm after traveling almost 6hrs at 6.6kts for 38nm. We are anchored near Vic and Gigi on Salty Turtle. Vic is going to pick us and SeaSalt up and take us to shore for a late lunch. It will be good to see them again. They left Morehead City before we did, so its been a few weeks.

Fernandina in the dark. I thing it's prettier.

We  didn't have any problems in Field's Cut, even though we were going thru at low tide.

South Santee River to Beaufort

Oops, we did it again! It's 52 degrees today. We waited too late to head south, again. We left the anchorage about 7:20. We have several possible problem areas today.

We had a good day on the water. W e had timed our arrival at McClellanville so we would have enough water the get thru. This is one of the places we can't get thru at low tide. Too Skinny.

Do you think they might need to do some landscaping?

Beautiful old tree

Our next problem area is north of Charleston near the Ben Sawyer Bridge. Again, we planned our arrival just right.

We saw lots of dolphins especially north of Charleston. None of them stayed with us long enough to get a picture. But they were there.

The Charleston Harbor is a very big area of water, with the potential for lots of problems. There are lots of markers and if you don't pay attention, you can get confused very easily. There can also be lots of boats that can make navigation difficult. It can also be very rough depending on the wind and current. We had a very calm ride across the inlet with no problems.

There were several barges working in the harbor.

 

Beautiful bridge

Coast Guard Center

Beautiful downtown waterfront

Famous or infamous Elliot's Cut, south of Charleston. If the current is swift, this can be tricky.

We had talked about anchoring in the Stono River south of Charleston, but decided to go farther down and anchor in Church Creek. That would put us going thru our problem areas the next day at a better time. We've anchored here before. It's not our favorite place, but it should be a calm night, so no problem. As long as the other boats know how to anchor.

We got there at about 4:30 after traveling about 9.5hrs at 6.4kts for a distance of 60nm. We were surrounded by crabpots, but had plenty of room to swing around.

Spray

Beautiful

Sunset

My Captain

We headed on the Beaufort, SC the next day. We left the anchorage at 7:40 and headed for our problem areas.

We had no problems in the Asheapoo/Coosaw Cutoff. Again, our planning paid off. We did lose about 2kts of speed when we entered the cutoff.

Saw lots more dolphins along the way. Again, no pictures. But I will get some!

We were very surprised when we went under the bridge in Beaufort. There was a dock in our spot! No one asked us if the city could put a dock in our anchorage! As far as we know, we are the only people that anchor between the bridge and the marina. We don't know why, but we guess they are afraid of their anchor not holding good them and them hitting the bridge.

Since we had the possibility of some windy days, we opted to go on a mooring ball. Shay asked me if I remembered how to do it, since it had been a while since we'd picked up a mooring ball. No Problem. He had put the lines on the bow, got the bow in position, and held me there until I got a line on. Yeah! We got there at 2:15 after traveling 42nm at 6.3kts for almost 7 hrs.

We put our dingy down and picked up SeaSalt and headed to shore. It's hot dog/hamburger night special at The Filling Station so we walk across the bridge and have dinner on shore. Shay liked it since I'm not a hot dog person, so he had two dogs! Walked back to the boat for a quiet evening.

Back to shore the next day for a very long walk and some sightseeing. We found a grocery store on this side of the bridge within walking distance. We stopped in a small convenience store to look for bread. He told us there was a BI-LO about a mile up the road. Then he asked us if we could walk that far!! How dare he! We were insulted! Of course we can walk a mile. Stupid jerk!

So we went grocery shopping and then Shay lugged two heavy bags of groceries for a couple of miles back. Not my fault. He kept adding heavy things to the buggy.

Dinner on SeaSalt and thank y'all again.

Another walk around and cemetery stroll. The National Cemetery there is amazing. Now, I'm not usually a cemetery person, but its beautiful. Big trees with Spanish moss hanging from the limbs. Row and rows of symmetrical lines of stones. We stopped by the office and asked if they had tours and the guy said he had ordered a bus so they would start soon. I asked how many were buried there and he said 15,000 with room for a total of 25,000. They have people buried there that fought in the Civil War. They also have wives, husbands, and children of veterans buried there.

We are leaving tomorrow to head on down the ICW. We'll leave Spray and its crew here. Maybe we'll see him later.

Up and dropped mooring ball at 7:40. We were the first in a long line of boats leaving the area today.