Yeah! We are back in Florida waters and that means we are getting close to home.
This has been a week of paying close attention to weather, even cruising the ICW, the coast of South Carolina and Georgia many wide open sounds, so it can get nasty in a hurry if the wind is blowing. We departed Dewees Creek early Monday morning along with three sailboats. The weather was cool, sunny and calm, an easy day on the water. When we got to about 20 miles from Beaufort, one of cruising boats (Monk 36) that Mark knew was broken down on the waterway. They had called Sea Tow, but didn't know when they would arrive. So we anchored for Mark to give some help. As they're getting ready to come pick up Mark by dinghy, Sea Tow arrived. We decided to meet them in Beaufort the next day. We up anchor and traveled another 5 miles to anchor on the Bull River for the night.
Sunset at Bull River, the Georgia marsh
We arrived at Beaufort City Marina early Tuesday morning to buy dinghy gas and fill up water tanks. After anchoring Mark went on the Monk 36 and in two hours he got their engine running. We spent the rest of day just relaxing and went for a walk and grocery shopping. The weather service was forecasting a strong Nor'easter starting on Wednesday and lasting through Friday. So we left Beaufort early Wednesday morning and decided to go to Herb River at Thunderbolt, near Savannah, for the storm. We arrived at 1:30 PM, had our anchor well set, went for a dinghy ride, then the wind started to blow...and by Friday we had some gale force winds. So glad we're safely at anchor.
Gray looking day, beautiful sand bar with birds
We left Herb River at the crack of dawn on Saturday, the wind had calmed down but the sky was gray. The only good part was that the current was in our favor, where the waterway is thin we had high tide water. We dropped anchor at South River along with a sailboat "Charisma", Steve and Denny from England. They've called us along the way to warn us of some trouble spots and asked us if we're the boat that they've read about in a magazine. We invited them aboard for drinks and to see the boat. A nice change after being couped up for two days.
Charisma at anchor and sunset on South River
Charisma at anchor and sunset on South River
Today was a beautiful day, light wind and sunny. We followed Charisma out of South River this morning. While Mark navigated through some tricky spots, I enjoyed the changing scenes of the Georgia marshes, the seabirds and dolphins. A sailboat ahead of us ran aground, and we skirted around the shallow spot. He motored off just as we were passing, and followed us the rest of the day. We arrived at Fernandina Beach at 4 PM, went for a walk in town and Charisma invited us aboard for drinks and a tour of their boat. So happy we are getting close to home!
Brunswick bridge, seabirds and an old boat wreck on Jekyll Island
Our homeward voyage continues, this week we traveled 262 miles.
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