Update 12/21/08 - Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!
What are we doing here? We've asked ourselves that a few times since we came to our home in Maine two weeks ago, since then we've had the coldest day of the year so far, an ice storm that took out our power for 22 hours, two snow storms, the last one yesterday dropped about 4 inches of snow. Today we have a third storm going which is expected to last most of the night and drop 10 to 18 inches more on us! Included is a picture of the house after yesterday's storm.
The answer to what we are doing here is to visit friends and family which is going quite well. we've spent time with both Bill and Steve, made a trip to Cape Cod to visit my mother and brother and have spent several evenings with friends and neighbors. We've also had time for a few shopping trips and to decorate
the house.
Since my last update, we spent another month or so in Hilton Head and then worked our way south through Georgia to Jacksonville, where we left Sun Cat to have her bottom painted.
At Hilton Head, we walked, biked and enjoyed the pool until it got too cold to go swimming. We then concentrated on walking and biking and took a number of long beach walks. We also did some boat projects and went out with Pat & Pat from Salty Dawg a couple of times.
In late October, we traveled back to New England for a week where we spent a few days visiting friends and family in Maine. I also finished winterizing Trader and got her covered for the winter. We then went down to Cape Cod where we celebrated my Mother's 90th birthday. The celebration was a nice party attended by Mom, Ron & Brenda, my sister Sue and Jean and I.
When we returned to Hilton Head, we took a day and visited Tybee Island where we toured Fort Pulaski. This fort controls the entrance to the Savannah river and was captured by Union forces during the civil war. The fort is notable because it was the first use of the new rifled cannon against a masonry fort with the result being that masonry forts were obsolete.
On the first weekend of November we attended the Hilton Head Concours de Elegance, an annual event featuring most older classic cars and race cars. We attended the Saturday event which included a drive in rally by many car clubs and an auction of mostly classic cars. It was great to see all of the older cars, especially those from the 50’s 60’s. Pictures of some of the classics are included with this update.Early in November, we left the marina for the first time since may, We traveled out to the anchorage at Bull Creek where we met up with George and Marion on Time Out. We had not seen them since May and it was great to catch up. We were joined for the afternoon by Pat and Pat from Salty Dawg who had dinghied out to the anchorage. They had a rather rough trip back but made it before dark. we spent the night rafted with Time out and then returned to Hilton Head while they headed on to Georgia and a tour of the St John river in Florida.
On our way back into the Marina at Hilton Head I decided it would be a good idea to run up the engines to give them a test. I discovered that neither engine would get close to its full RPM, confirming my suspicions that the props had been badly fouled during the long period of inactivity. The result was that we hired a diver to clean the props and bottom. The diver indicated we had over 2” of muscles and other growth on the props. No wonder we couldn’t get any speed!
For the next couple of weeks we continued walking and biking around Hilton Head. This included a long bike ride sown the beach which was something we had never done before. We also spent a day playing tourist in Savannah with the crew of Salty Dawg. What a nice town Savannah is to visit. I’ve added some pictures of savannah to this update as well.
The time had come to leave Hilton Head as we had reached 179 days. If we stayed 180 we might be liable for South Carolina property taxes. So we left and headed for Georgia where our first stop was Skid away Island .
The purpose of our stop at Skidaway Island was to visit with Bruce & Jean elder, a looper couple who we met at the rendezvous in Penetang. Unknown to them they had had some influence on our choice of boats for the loop as we had really liked the layout of their boat. we also wanted to see Skidaway island. We stayed at the island for two days and had a very nice visit with them. We had a personal tour of the entire island by Bruce, breakfast & dinner at one of the country clubs and a good walk along the shore bike path. We also got a look at Bruce's classic cars.
The next day we went to Walberg creek where we anchored with several other boats. We then went to the anchorage at Wahoo creek which is one of our favorite anchorages in Georgia. We were joined there by Lamb Chop who had been working their way down from the Chesapeake for the past month. It was great to see Tim and Jan again! We would cruise together from there to Jacksonville.
After Wahoo we traveled to the Frederica River where we anchored off of the fort as we had done in May. We were disappointed to find that the dinghy dock was under repair and there was no way to get ashore. We spent a nice evening there and part of the next day and then moved down to Golden Isles where we anchored near the marina for the night. The next morning we went up to Brunswick to purchase fuel at a low price and then traveled to Jekyll Island where we went into the marina for the day, arriving before noon. We took the courtesy car and went to the
store and then did a driving tour of the island. this included a stop at the Horton House, which was built in the early 1700's and was the original plantation on the island. A picture of the Horton House is also included with this update.
The next morning we borrowed the courtesy bikes and rode to the Jekyll Island club for breakfast. It was wonderful buffet in very pretty surroundings. when we finished we were walking around the club when the bell captain offered us a tour of the Presidential Suite., so up we went to the fourth floor. As expected, the suite was very elegant. it also included the cupola which provided a panoramic view of the ICW and surrounding marshes. We then biked over to the beach and rode the bikes several miles down the beach before returning to the marina.
Our next stop was St Mary's, GA where we anchored with around 70 other boats for the Thanksgiving events in St Mary's., arriving on Tuesday night and leaving the next Monday. while there, we attended several happy hours with other cruisers, we also walked around town quite a bit. Its a pretty town with a number of old southern houses. On Thanksgiving Day, we attended dinner with about 200 other cruisers and some locals. The way it works is the local community provides turkeys and hams and the cruisers provide the fixings, side dishes and deserts. On Friday they had a nautical swap. Lamb Chop was able to purchase a big Delta Anchor very reasonably. That Sunday night we got some very bad news that one of our cruising friends had died in her sleep the night before while at anchor. It was certainly sobering news. Our thoughts are with her family.
We left St Mary’s the following morning and traveled to the marina at Fernandina Beach, Fl. The wind and current were quite strong which made docking an adventure. at Fernandina we were joined by Larry and Sue on Sue Sea Q, John and Pat on Gypsy Time and Ron and Janice on OB Too. Tom & jerry Claire from Sea Knight live there and they were able to join us also. Tom took us around shopping and then we had a good happy hour on Suzy Sea Q and all went our for Pizza. We hadn’t done that for a long time.
The following morning we left with Lamb Chop and Suzy Sea Q and went to Jacksonville. We had timed the tide right and got a great push up the river, picking up 3-4 knots as we went. We tied up the boats at Jacksonville Landing which is a free dock right in downtown Jacksonville. The Landing has shops and restaurants and in a lot of ways is similar to Waterside in Norfolk. They had a 60 artificial Christmas tree at the Landing with over 87,000 lights and every evening we were treated to a light show as well as various performances, mostly by school groups. We attended one by a middle school jazz band that was especially good.
We wound up spending 3 days in Jacksonville. One of our adventures was a trip on the monorail to the south side of the river. There we visited the maritime museum and the science museum and took in a show at the planetarium. We also sampled the fare at the River City Brewing Company. One evening there was an art show downtown. apparently they hold this once a month. They way it works is they open a number of buildings and various artists display their work. They also serve free wine and soft drinks in a number of the locations. It gave us an opportunity to tour some of the facilities in downtown Jacksonville that we might not have gotten into otherwise and made for an interesting evening overall.
On Friday, Lamb Chop headed downriver again to visit St Augustine and we traveled about 5 miles further up the river to Lamb’s Marina where Sun Cat would stay while we went to Maine for Christmas. We were greeted by Pat on Salty Dawg and Phil and Alice on Wonderland and wound up going out to dinner with them and Pat & Clyde on Momacita.
The next morning we were surprised to receive an email from Joan on Christine that they were headed up to Jacksonville to see us before we left. We quickly finished our packing and boat projects and they arrived around mid-day. We visited with them and Pat for a while and then we all took a trip to the used book store before having an early dinner at Tom & Betty’s, a local restaurant with good food and low prices.
The next morning, Pat was kind enough to arise at 0500 and take us to the airport for our trip home which was fortunately uneventful. Thank you Pat!
I started this update with our Maine activities. The next update should come out in early January. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for a healthy and prosperous new year.
Steve & Jean
Relearning how to shovel snow!
