HOMEWARD BOUND!

St Augustine Lighthouse. Pretty sight!

It seems like a month since I last posted a blog, but in reality it has only been about 10 days. As I said in my last posting, it feels like we’ve been on the express lane since our return to the states and heading north. We are anxious to get home, but in many ways neither of us wants the trip to end.

            After leaving Marineland, we made a short run to St. Augustine, FL, one of my absolute favorite places along the ICW. This, the oldest city in America, has just the right amount of history, nightlife and yes, even tourist traps. Heck, Diane almost bought an alligator head here! We enjoyed two days at the city’s well-run mooring field and spent a lot of time enjoying the sights and sounds….and flavors of this great place with the crews of Veritas and Tehani. I even made not just one, but two pilgrimages to what I’m convinced is the best pizza joint south of NYC, PIZZA TIME. I “discovered” this place last fall and fell in love with their crispy, New York pizza and enjoyed meeting owner Dominic who brought his family recipes with him from their place in Brooklyn. If there had been room in the fridge, I’d have purchased several of his pies and eaten them the rest of the way north!

There are parts of St. Augustine that aren't doing all that
well. It appears as if this "Good Times" restaurant
fell upon Hard Times! 

            All too soon we had to leave St. Augustine and, with the crew of Veritas, made an offshore run up the coast to St. Simon’s Island, GA. In order to ensure a daylight arrival over 70 miles north we had to leave the mooring well before sunrise, never a pleasant option. We did wait just inside the channel for good light since the route offshore can be tricky with shifting sandbars requiring the Coast Guard to continually move the channel markers. Even with good light it was an interesting run with 10-foot seas that had both boats bobbing like corks in a bathtub! We thought that after we got away from land and headed north the seas would subside but once again the forecasters were wrong and we rocked and rolled for the next 50 miles. UGH!

Shot of Veritas as we depart the St. Augustine channel.
The photo doesn't do justice to the pitching we
were both doing!

 Still, we were able to skip a lot of the worst ICW currents and save a full day or more in our journey north.

            After an all-too-short night at anchor in St. Simon, we again turned north on the ICW for another series of long, boring days as we wound our way along the tidewaters of Georgia and South Carolina. Unfortunately, at our next stop in Kilkenny Creek, GA, Diane lost her “almost new” IPhone 5 overboard.  She tossed it onto a cockpit cushion and we watched it bounce…onto the side deck and bounce…right into the water! Our hearts sank faster than the phone as we watched her $600 phone drop out of sight and down into the muddy bottom 18 feet below. Big time ouch. Bless her heart, even though it was blowing 35 mph at the time, she insisted on launching the dingy and using our longest boat hook with a net on the end to try to find it. For those of you who know Diane, you know any attempt of mine to derail this futile attempt (the pole was only 10 feet long!) fell on deaf ears. Trust me, she has REALLY missed her phone ever since and has basically taken over mine! Not fair!

           

A comorant dries his wings on
an ICW daymarker

After Kilkenny Creek we had a series of incredibly long days on the water with runs of between 60-75 miles a day as we meandered (with the twists and turns of the ICW in this part of the world, I mean meander!) our way north. It seemed as if the boat was headed east and west as much as pointed north for much of Georgia and South Carolina! Still, the scenery was beautiful with miles and miles of marshlands in all directions while egrets, herons and the occasional eagle soared overhead. Totally used to the crystal clear, blue waters of the Bahamas and Florida, we were unprepared for the coffee-brown waterways of this area. The water was very clean, just tainted with tannins from nearby trees…and kind of ugly! We slowly passed by Savannah and soon after that, Hilton Head Island. Our original plan was to anchor near HH for the night, but decided to follow our buddy boats and continued another 20 miles to Port Royal, South Carolina. Another wind event was predicted to peak in the next couple days and we were anxious to be in a secure location with easy access to shore…guaranteed at a marina! On our way south we’d passed by Port Royal since it was just a few miles south of Beaufort where we’d spend 3 days, but I’m glad we decided to stop this time.

Spanish Moss hanging from
trees in a Port Royal park

You have to be over 60
to know what this is
and how it worked!

           

We found both the town and marina to be an almost perfect blend of southern hospitality and charm. Port Royal’s history dates back to well before the Revolutionary War and they celebrate both their part in that conflict and their location at the mouth of a large river with easy ocean access, beautiful Spanish moss, tree-lined streets and home to both the Paris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot and nearby Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station. The marina itself couldn’t have been better with yet another team of dedicated dockhands and a not-to-miss experience at their next door café/bar…you’ll have to ask me in person! We enjoyed it so much Diane and I decided to remain for 3 days while our buddy boats moved on to Charleston. We made great use of the courtesy car and reprovisioned at the commissary (grocery store) at the Marine base and visiting the unique Shoofly café in Beaufort where we had the best panini sandwiches ever!

          

"Pigs on Sticks" outside the Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station. Korean
War all the way to the present represented. Can you name them?

  Even with our enjoyable stay at Port Royal, we were ready to depart after 3 days and put another 75 miles beneath our keel as we continued north. Once again we had to time bridge openings which forced me to constantly keep track of not just our position but our progress toward the next bridge. We finally passed into Charleston harbor early in the evening with just enough light to continue north for another hour to a peaceful anchorage near the Isle of Palms. Our quiet night was a dramatic contrast to the wild one we spent while anchored nearby last fall when one of the boats in our anchorage dragged ashore in a violent wind storm.

            We’d been on the water for something over 5 months at this point and although we’d had our share of mechanical failures, only one minor incident with “boat meets bottom.” Well, over the next couple days we made up for it! On at least three occasions, Magic touched bottom as we worked our way along, unfortunately arriving at the most “thin” spots at/near low tide even though we were in the middle of a channel or closely following the advice of other boaters. We were lucky, Magic only bounced a few times and kept moving but we heard of other boats that found the bottom in the same areas and were stuck until they could be pulled off. Still, it was a nerve-wracking couple of days as Diane kept track of shoaling area after shoaling area while I tried to keep the boat away from the shallowest of spots.

          

A white heron comes in for a landing. Looks like
his buddies could care less as they sleep!

  Marinas at Myrtle Beach and Southport, South Carolina hosted our motley group as we continued to push (mostly against the current…why is that?) along the charted magenta line called the ICW. As Veritas and Magic arrived at Wrightsville Beach on a Sunday, we found ourselves literally in the middle of a huge stand-up-paddleboard (large surfboards with a single paddle) regatta! We had to wind ourselves in-and-around hundreds of these human-powered craft as we worked our way toward the anchorage. It was quite a sight and we didn’t hit a single one! After finally getting our hooks down we walked around the beach (nope, not the same as the Bahamas…nary a sea bean in sight!) and had lunch ashore. That night we hosted a “surf and turf” dinner on Magic with fresh shrimp right from the boat and steaks from our freezers…a perfect end to the day!

           

We’d planned to go offshore for the next leg of our journey and head directly for Moorehead City, NC, but once again the weather forced us to remain on the magenta line and battle not just adverse currents but bridge opening schedules. Still, after yet another 0600 departure we made it to a nice marina in Swansboro, NC by mid-afternoon and enjoyed yet another nice meal ashore and filled up with the cheapest diesel of the trip. I really didn’t need a lot of fuel but couldn’t resist $3.10/gal!

            I write this from another favorite stop, River Dunes Marina near Oriental, NC. We arrived here yesterday just like we did last fall on the way south…in a rainstorm! After several days of hard driving, both Veritas and us are ready for a short break so decided to remain for 2 nights, clean up the boats and recharge our shore batteries for the last drive home. We face just three more long days on the water before pulling into our freshly dredge Salt Ponds harbor in Hampton. My next blog will be my last for this trip and I plan to put together a few thoughts of this journey as a whole and maybe provide a bit of advice for others who are contemplating the same thing. For those of you who have continued to follow our trip, I thank you for hanging in there and hope to see all of you on the water sometime!

           

Diane celebrates scoring
one of her favorite snacks. I
just don't get it!!

This journey nears its end…but the adventure continues!