Week 4: Nov Nov 24–30 After a comfortable motor-sail in the ocean, we entered St. Mary’s Inlet and anchored in Fernandino, FL, just across the Georgia line. We’re moving further south, but the weather is still cool (actually cold!) Tuesday we started motoring down the ICW again. By late afternoon there were no marinas and no good anchorages along the waterway, however we did come across a set of newly constructed floating docks that appeared to be part of a much larger construction project. There wasn’t a “no trespassing” sign, so we tied up for the night and enjoyed the rest of the left over Frogmore Stew and and red rice. Just making use of what’s there. Wednesday we headed for St. Augustine, FL, Americas oldest city and tied up at the city marina. The computer didn’t come up today! Jim called Lenovo support and they determined we needed to ship it in for repairs. Now you know why the web site hasn’t been updated lately!
The computer repair was a lengthy, frustrating process. Lenovo had to ship a box before we could even send the computer in. Then they couldn’t tell you how long it would take to fix it and ship it back. Sounds easy, but when you don’t have a mailing address and aren’t planning to stay to stay in one place for a week or two waiting for it, it’s not.
If we had to be stuck somewhere for almost a week, St. Augustine was a great place. We were able to anchor near the historic section of town and dinghy to shore every day to go exploring. We were anchored right in front of Castillo de San Marco, an old Spanish fort that’s maintained by the National Park Service. They fired an old cannon about 6 times a day – quite a show right from the boat. We played tourists for a couple of days and got the narrated tour on the “Red Train”. Jim and Jennifer went and drank from the Fountain of Youth one day while Linda toured one of the historic hotels that is now Flagler College. I guess time will tell who made the wiser choice!
We had turkey sandwiches on Thanksgiving Day. There seemed no need for a big feast after all the food we enjoyed last week.
Week 3: Nov 17-23 Monday was as sunny day to motor down the icw. When the icw turned out of the South Edisto River, we continued on to Edisto beach where dolphins escorted us into the harbor. Jim's cousin, Mark had offered us the use of his beach fhouse there. With nighttime temperatures in the 30's we decided it was too good an offer to pass up. To sweeten the deal, Jim's aunt Shirley arranged for dockage for Opus at the local judge's dock for as long as we were there. We enjoyed the comforts of home, full sized beds, rerigerator/freezer, oven, even an internet connection if we hung the antenna up high enough on the screened in porch. A few days soon turned into almost a week.The highlight of the week was having Jim's aunts, uncle, cousins, and their families come over for the weekend. Wow, can the Webster's cook seafood! We enjoyed boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, fried fish, hush puppies, french fries, frogmore stew, red rice and two bushels of cluster oysters freshout of the sound. The highlight for Jennifer was having 4 second cousins to play with for the weekend. They rode bikes, played hide and seek, roasted marshmellows around a great campfire, built a fort in the trees out of palmetto fronds, walked on the beach, and giggled until they finally fell asleep at 2 am.
Sunday afternoon we left Edisto Beach heading out to the ocean for the first time ou our trip. Again we were escorted by dolphinbs as the Websters waved goodbye several times from different docks as we rounded the point and headed out. The temparature was still cool, but the light northeast wind made for a comfortable motor sail through the afternoon and Sunday night. We entered St. Marys inlet about 4 pm and anchored off of amelia island for the night.
Week 2: Nov 10-16Jim is itching to go offshore but with nighttime lows in the low to mid 30s we continued down the ICW to Georgetown, SC, where we docked at The Big Tuna restaurant overnight. Our friend Jim Woodward arranged free dockage at the Big Tuna for us. Georgetown is a quaint little town with lots of good seafood restaurants. Jim helped Perkins, the kitchen manager, pop heads off 50 pounds of large local shrimp at the dock in the afternoon, so we had to try the shrimp for dinner. They were excellent. Perkins had his 8 year old boy Jacob with him and he and Jennifer hit it off great. Its pretty neat how wherever we wind up, Jennifer seems to find a playmate.From there it was on to Charleston, SC, where we docked at the Charleston City Marina for the weekend. With around 500 boat slips, that’s the biggest marina I’ve ever seen! While in Charleston, Jim’s aunts, uncles and cousins treated us royally. They fed us, invited us into their homes, gave us transportation and entertained us with old stories of life in the Low Country. Thank you to all the “Websters”. While in Charleston, we also replaced our oars which disappeared in Wrightsville Beach and had breakfast with John Krueger, a friend of ours who lives down here.
Sunday we left Charleston heading for Edisto Beach for more Webster hospitality. Just outside of Charleston at Elliot Cut, we encountered some very strong tidal currents. The boat could not make progress against them so Jim decided to turn around and anchor below the cut until they mellowed out. Halfway through the turn, we got caught in a strong eddy and were driven towards the rocky shore in the 100 yard cut. Fortunately, we wound up on a mud bank with the bowsprit over the rocks and the keel in the mud. The tide was going down fast so we called TowBoat US and they pulled us off and then pulled us through the cut as well. To add insult to injury, the transmission cable broke during the melee so the only way we could shift the transmission was to reach down through the engine hatch in the cockpit and move the lever by hand. It sure is nice to be intimately familiar with how the boat works. Fortunately, we have a spare cable on board. We were able to go on, but Jim will have to replace the cable when we get to Edisto Beach. Don’t worry, things started looking up again once we got to Edisto Beach, but that’s next weeks news.
Week 1: Nov 4-9We’re still in North Carolina, motoring down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The first night we anchored in Beaufort, NC and listened to the election coverage on the radio. The second night we anchored in Mile Hammock Bay and listened to Marine helicopters practicing maneuvers near Camp LaJeune. The remainder of the week we were anchored in Wrightsville Beach, NC, so we could spend time with Jim’s parents and sister & brother-in-law. We enjoyed their company and especially the big home cooked meals. Thanks to Jim’s dad, who loaned us his truck, we had land transportation and could run any errands we didn’t get to in Oriental. Jim’s mom gave us an early Christmas gift - she made us top covers for the V-berth and quarter berth cushions (our beds) on the boat. They look great. Kind of like an Extreme Makeover for the boat interior.By Sunday night we were ready to move back on our boat and be on our way. This proved to be more difficult than expected. When Jim’s sister brought us to the dinghy dock, we found someone had swamped our dinghy and stolen the oars. Now how are we going to get back on OPUS, who was anchored about 100 yards from the shore? The Wrightsville Beach Police came to our rescue and loaned us one oar (that was all they had) so Jim could row out to OPUS and get the spare set of oars we had onboard. We have quite a few spare parts and pieces, but I never imagined that we would need to start using them the first week! Thank goodness we bought some cable and locks to secure the dinghy while we were running errands on Friday, or the whole dinghy might have been gone.
Nov 4 – Election Day - Today we left the dock in Oriental, NC, to start our adventure. We’ve been living on OPUS, our 25’ sailboat, at the dock for about 6 weeks now. We’ve been packing and organizing for our trip and just getting used to living aboard. The cool rainy weather wasn’t what we would have planned for our send off, but we were ready to go and it seemed like the right day to head south toward warmer weather.