Through Georgia to South Carolina

         That front was quite spectacular.  The sky darkened all at once, the wind came up and suddenly there were three foot waves slapping at us.  Dan started the engine to keep us from blowing over the anchor rode.  We had a brief spurt of lightning and thunder and the rain was anticlimactic.  And then, just like that, it was over.  The sky was purple with the setting sun, and we had a rainbow.  

Monday, April 23 we made a long day of it, mainly to take advantage of the rising tide early in the morning to get through some potential trouble spots in Georgia’s portion of the ICW.  It’s a very winding waterway through marshes and crossing several big inlets, and shoaling is an issue.  We made the decision to push right on into the greater Savannah area, so we could make a day stop in that town on Wednesday just to walk around.  There’s a free dock (for three hours) right in the historic River District.  We got there about one pm and tied up for a walk around.  We’ve been to Savannah before by car, so we had no particular destination in mind, just wanted to stretch our legs a bit and see what we could see.  We found the park square where Forest Gump told his story to people waiting for the bus, read many signs about Savannah’s contribution to the Revolutionary War, and admired the old brick buildings.  By 3:30 we were on our way again, crossing into South Carolina.  We spent a quiet night anchored off Hilton Head island. 

        Today, Wednesday April 24, we started out early again to manage the tide, and got to Beaufort by 10:30 am.  We have long time cruising friends here whom we had arranged to meet for lunch.  We took advantage of Beaufort’s free day dock, and our friends picked us up and took us to a local restaurant where we enjoyed a great meal and did a lot of catching up.  It was a sentimental parting - we don’t know when we’ll next meet, but we will meet again.  Then Dan and I untied and kept on going another hour, to anchor off Brickyard Point, adjacent to the Marine Naval base.  We have been treated to their military plane maneuvers since we dropped the hook.  We’re hoping they don’t practice at night…

Tommie is enjoying the sun on the flying bridge.