Savannah to Charleston: July 2

Savannah to Charleston: July 2 through July 15, 2005

(Photos at bottom of page)

Barb:

After sleeping like the dead on our first night on the hook, we headed north after a leisurely breakfast. We met up with our friends Jack and Jo Brinckerhoff on their 39' Krogen "Bodacious" and we both anchored near Daufuskie Island (southwest of Hilton Head). The Brinckerhoffs treated us to a leg of lamb dinner followed by a champagne toast to celebrate our new life. Excellent! The next day we all got our kayaks down and went for a long paddle in the nearby creeks. It was a beautiful day but I ended up getting sort of towed back part of the way by muscleman Chuck as my hands were bothering me a lot. Hopefully, I'll build up some strength and resistance with regular kayak use. We had passed Susan Bruce and Jerry Coleman on their boat Midnight Skulker on our way from Savannah and knew they were in HarbourTown, so we took the dinghy in to visit them and have a nice dinner. It was a bit windy, so poor Jack, ever the gentleman, got a bit wet on the ride there and soaked on the ride back while the rest of us stayed pretty dry.

Jo found a good anchorage for us the evening of July 4th. We were able to watch the Parris Island fireworks off our port side and the Port Royal fireworks off our starboard side. An unbelievable display that went on forever! Actually a bit too long for me as I was still recovering from sleep depravation and was ready for bed. I always think five or ten minutes of fireworks is enough - after that it gets repetitive. The next day we cruised to Beaufort, SC to dock our boat at the downtown marina, rented a car, and headed to Savannah for George's wake that evening and funeral the next day. The funeral was very sad. But we were pleased to hear that Marie is going to move up to Virginia to be near her brother and his family. The Brinckerhoffs headed to Charleston to leave their boat and fly to Chicago and Seattle to see their kids and grandkids.

While having a rental car we couldn't resist the temptation to pick blueberries at the Brewer Tree Farm in Midway. We have made a yearly event of this for years but had not able to find time to do it while we were getting ready for the move. We picked enough blueberries to last us for weeks; enough to give some to other boaters and to freeze some, but mostly to eat fresh. We will need to figure out a way to be back in Georgia next July so we can pick some again. Delicious!

After two nights at a marina, we had had enough of being at a dock and moved out to a nearby anchorage. We spent four enjoyable days lazing around the boat and occasionally dinghying in to have a meal, to get exercise (Chuck to run and me to walk), or to just check out the town. Shopping and buying anything new is the last thing on our minds after our recent downsizing and with our continuing efforts to find room for everything we already brought on board. We did see see "War of the Worlds" at a local movie theater one evening and even found a good sushi place for dinner. We spent most of our time doing projects and I began to learn FrontPage so we could get this website underway. I learned just enough to throw something together, but will hopefully do a redesign when I get a little more experience.

We did have a nightmarish evening one night in Beaufort when I connected to the Web to pay some bills and discovered that our checking account did not exist. It was strange because our two other accounts with Bank of America were there but not the checking account. We had deposited the proceeds from the sale of our house the Friday before into our checking account and were just about to transfer the funds to pay down our boat, but hadn't had a chance to do it. The bank's customer service department did not open until 7:00 am the next morning, so we spent the entire evening believing we had lost a great deal of money and envisioned how that might change our retirement plans. Fortunately, the next morning the bank rep reported that the account was there and all was well. I guess the computer system must have been undergoing maintenance the night before and for some strange reason our account did not show up. All's well that ends well - I guess?

We headed to Charleston on Tuesday the 13th and spent two nights at Ashley Marina. We reprovisioned, ate some good meals there, visited the aquarium, got a lot of exercise, and were there for the celebration of the opening of their new Ravenel Bridge - the longest cable-stayed span in North America. It is quite beautiful, has eight lanes, and a bicycle/walking lane. The City put on a fireworks display that was awesome in that it was two synchronized displays - one from the bridge and one from a barge. We watched the display from the comfort of our flybridge rather than dealing with getting back across town with all the traffic (cars or boats). There were hundreds and hundreds of boats out on the water to watch the display. We sat up to watch the boats come by after the show and were amazed at how many there were. It seemed that there was no end to them.

We decided to leave Charleston and head north after all of our financial chores were finished on Thursday. We found a nice anchorage about four hours (30 miles) north of Charleston were we nestled in for the night. It was quite a beautiful evening and we spent the evening watching the stars from the foredeck. I guess someone has to do it. :-)