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January 27th 2009 Well, here we are on the boat again and I still haven’t finished the last log from Southport to Savannah. That was the last leg that got us here to our present position, a fun section which included our stop in Charleston and Beaufort, SC. I promise to get that done shortly. GLOBAL WARMING? A lot has happened since we left the boat in Thunderbolt, GA a few months ago. Zig and I have driven across country twice, for a total of 8000 plus miles. We all three froze our butts off this fall up on San Juan Island, WA while we waited until time to come back and get on the boat again. Yep, we thought we’d come back to the boat and get warmed up but that idea proved to be far from reality. Every single day since we arrived here in Savannah, we’ve been huddled under our recently purchased electric blanket shivering and listening to our also newly purchased space heater that has been working nonstop trying to make the unpleasant 20 degree temps tolerable in our little boat. So, what’s going on with Global Warming as its freezing almost everywhere? Well, the temps have been slowly rising the last few days but I have to say the weather here hasn’t been much better than back home where we were trying to escape the winter. Since we’ve arrived we’ve had nothing but rain and overcast days with well below freezing temps. I’m not complaining but just surprised. LOSE SOME WISDOM WITH THOSE TEETH? It would’ve have been different I guess if we would have been able to leave on schedule and get farther south but Larry unexpectedly had to have two wisdom teeth pulled. Yep, that’s right, he had to have his wisdom teeth pulled right here in Savannah and with a doctor again that we had to find on the fly. We’ve been lucky in our travels so far finding great doctors everywhere we go along the way, first to treat his eye problem and now his teeth. What’s next? PASSING TIME So here we sit for another week in Thunderbolt, GA (outskirts of Savannah). We have been familiarizing ourselves with little local joints here and Tybee Island. We actually have not spent much time in downtown Savannah except to take a drive through occasionally to gawk again at their wonderful residential streets, admiring the great architecture and block after block of streets terminating in lovely parks and lined with treed promenades. What a city. Why couldn’t the rest of America have taken a cue and designed their cities patterned after their well planned open spaces and tree lined streets? I love this place. Zig and I have much of spent our time here walking the Intracoastal waterfront in between nursing Larry back to health. Larry spent most of his time sawing logs, so to speak, down in the cozy stateroom. He was in a weird medicated world of drug induced sleep and pain killers and his swollen cheeks were cooling off under the weight of bag after bag of frozen peas and corn trying to reduce the look of a bad case of mumps. Zig and I picked up shells along our walks, shells surprisingly found just piled along the shores of the Intracoastal right here in the village of Thunderbolt. We carefully selected the best ones and brought them back to the boat in plastic baggies, packing them away for their journey eventually across country to their new home on San Juan Island where I’ll add them to my extensive collection. Surprisingly there are so many shells around here that you even see them mixed in concrete serving as structural foundations for local buildings, others mixed into planting beds like mulch and others broken and mixed into the sidewalks we walked on and the asphalt we drove on. I guess that’s what happens when you have a surplus of shells. We’ve also spent a lot of time looking out the condensation covered windows a result of the extreme cold weather meeting up with the heat from inside our cabin. We watched the local birds that we have come to think of as odd neighbors. We’ve come to know this little habitat that coexists at the marina where these little characters live. They have a strict schedule of feeding and sleeping that is coordinated and dictated by the tidal movements along the marsh as the water fills and recedes revealing a rich mud base full tidbits to pick and eat. Several of them are not native to the area but have traveled many miles like us to come here hoping to warm up. I wonder if they too are wondering why the world is so chilly. Are they asking each other “what’s up?”
One freezing day when Larry was recovering and feeling like going on a drive, we drove out to the beach on Tybee Island. The beach was expansive and at low tide was filled with another bounty of shells. Again I gathered more shells to add to my collection thought the wind was so cold and freezing that it took me hours to get warm again. Even a bowl of local spicy Brunswick Stew at a nearby diner didn’t do the trick of thawing me out. READY TO LEAVE We are getting ready to leave as we moved the boat to the outside dock along the river. We tied her on her opposite side so the marina can finish polishing her from the dock. Yep, the boat is getting some necessary bright work done after being neglected for a few months. We have to admit we were glad to get out on the outside dock and into the free flow of the river as the water locked in between the docks has been pretty darn disgusting. Now we have free flowing water and an expansive unobstructed view of the marsh lands. There are many exotic birds to look at across the water in the marsh; tons of egrets, herons, terns, cormorants, hooded mergansers, hawks, vultures, etc. The view down river in the other direction is rewarded by the sight of two historic shrimp boats setting quietly at a rustic old dock and beyond them peering high in the distance are the mega monster boat yards housing massive expensive yachts getting maintenance work done. YUM We’ve spent our time enjoying the delicious southern food here, you know, delicacies like low country boil, fried pickles, fried green tomatoes, hush puppies, Brunswick stew, peel and eat shrimp and lots and lots of grits. NOT BORING It hasn’t been a boring stay either as one night here at the marina the Savannah School of Art and Design was filming what looked like a detective movie and worked late into the wet night. We’ve also spent a lot of time watching the news day after day as Obama has moved into the White House and the hullabaloo that went along with it day after day making dramatic changes to our lives whether they are for good or bad only time will tell. We’ve also kept our noses to the Weather Underground site, hoping to see a future turn towards warmer weather coming our way. Well as I type, Larry is at his follow up doctor’s appointment where his doctor will check out the empty voids left in his mouth by the removal of his wisdom teeth that once spent a good 71 plus years there. Hopefully he will give Larry the go ahead so we can head down river tomorrow. I think finally we can actually allow ourselves to anticipate heading south tomorrow. THE DRIVE ACROSS I This time we stopped in Las Cruces, NM which I’d always wanted to see but arrived after dark and left before sunlight so still haven’t seen that place. The next day’s stop, was San Antonio, where we stayed in a nice dog friendly Sheraton Hotel downtown with only time for a short walk along their famous Riverwalk and then a brief stop in front of the Alamo before we were quickly shoo’d away as “no dogs allowed” , not even as far as 100 yards away though we noticed several bums laying around nearby closer than Ziggy was allowed. Ziggy I have to say by far has better hygiene than they so go figure. Then we were off to our next stop in Biloxi, LA but not without some good BBQ at a roadside pitstop in the middle of nowhere in Texas. By now we were numb with too many miles, too many hours of driving and days of the only visual stimulus was the sight of what looked like the same strip mall after strip mall for over 2000 plus miles. The next stop we decided was going to be Biloxi a strange place and a short detour off Interstate 10 giving us a glimpse for the first time of the Gulf Coast. The town was nearly wiped out from the last hurricane but new construction and buildings were going up everywhere until I guess the next hurricane wipes them out again. (Will they ever learn?) We almost stayed in the Hard Rock Casino right on the waterfront but who woulda’ thunk that they would be completely full in this economy so had to settle for a dog friendly La Quinta. The next day we took our first break
from driving on Interstate 10 by taking a National Geographic recommended
scenic side trip along the pan handle of Florida’s Gulf Coast. We don’t
recommend it and wonder how it ever got listed. PU Our final stop before getting to the boat was Jacksonville, FL. We ended strangely up on the 16th floor of the Omni Hotel with a view of the Jacksonville River. Jacksonville is surprisingly a big city the night we were there was filled with formally dressed people that came to the city to attend their Performing Arts Center across the street from the hotel. It was so cold that night that many of the women even had fur coats on! Yep fur coats in Florida! Can you believe it? The Omni Hotel was a very dog friendly hotel and the manager behind the desk has property on Lopez Island so we got a warm welcome. He said to tell the staff in the bar/lounge that it was OK for Ziggy to come in and sit under the table while we had dinner! The next and final day of our drive, we arrived at the boat. She looked fine, still in the same spot where we left her but in need of a good washing and polishing. We lucked out finding a crew that quickly worked on her bright work and she’s now sparkling again. And just as quickly Larry didn’t waste any time having his eye checked for the regular follow up with a new doctor and then off to the doctor’s son to have his wisdom teeth pulled. So that’s it in a nutshell. We’re full of shells, less some teeth, and polished and ready to go. We decided we’re going to skip some planned stops as we head south as we want to get to warmer temps as fast as possible. (So, Larry’s back from the doctor and we’ve got the go ahead to head out tomorrow.) This time we’re going on the inside to see some back water areas of Georgia. It should be interesting. Our first stop tomorrow will be about 40 miles down the way. We’ll tie up at the dock of a little Crab Shack restaurant, about the only place along this remote stretch to stop. The plan is to time the tides right and not rub bottom on the treacherous shoal ridden stretch of this part of the Intracoastal. Guess we’ll find out and let you know. Some photos from along the way Click on any photo to enlarge
It wasn’t even daylight yet. I heard Larry in the galley. He must be getting ready to put the coffee on, I thought, as we were planning to head out at first daylight. We had 100 miles to cover today and had to take advantage of the tide to get through some very shallow areas. We both were tense about it. Wait, something's not right as I don’t hear the coffee pot gargling. Wait, Larry’s climbing back in bed and is under the covers. “What’s up?” “We’re fogged!” he said frustratingly. “Did he say fogged or F#@%!?” I wondered. “What did you say?” “We’re fogged! Don’t even bother getting up. You can’t even see the dock. It’s just typical of our luck lately. We’ve been here for days and never saw a hint of fog and now it’s so thick you could slurp it up with a straw. One more day here in this marina is more than we both can take. We are anxious to get going. Too much time has been spent on this dock. There was nothing we could do. So might as well go back to bed and sleep some more. An hour or so later we finally we got up and both us of us were not in the greatest of moods. We were ready to go and now we missed our window of opportunity. Normally fog wouldn’t be an issue. Sometimes we love fog when cruising because it means the seas are calm and we can easily read the radar to show us where we are going or if there is a boat coming our way but not here on this next leg of the Intracoastal. We need to be able to see everything as today’s planned journey twists and turns like an early morning worm trail glimmering across a flat surface after a heavy rain. We needed to watch for shoals and shallow areas and to line ourselves up with range markers so we don’t get stuck in the muck. It was disappointing to say the least to be stuck here another day. We’d been here way too long but how could we have anticipated Larry’s tooth problem? Now we were ready to go and stuck like chewing gum on a hot pavement.
We moseyed back to the boat and Larry began looking at the charts. “If this fog clears even a little bit I think we should at least try to get to Isle of Hope” he said. It’s only 10 miles down the Intracoastal but it would a new place to see and would also give us a jump on the long trip the following day. The shorter distance would help us with the tide, giving us more deep water.
“Sounds good to me”, I answered.
We waited and waited and I watched as the river went from slack to a slight running current. We had such a hard time getting into this marina when we arrived months ago because the current was running a good clip so I’m not looking forward to getting to Isle of Hope with the same conditions and the same problems. I’m always imagining the worst, maybe they’ll put us in some difficult spot, crammed between boats and posts with no turn around room. I always think of the doom and gloom of every situation. That’s why Bud Bishop our old friend used to call me “ole gloom and doom Jayne”. Hey, somebody has to think of the scenarios that might happen so you can be prepared. Right? I just worry about all the unimportant stuff and Larry worries about the bigger grander picture of things. I went down into the stateroom to lie down and wait out the fog. I barely got even a wee bit of a snooze when I was awakened by the noise of Larry closing the hatches. I knew it was time to go. I hopped out of bed to see if we were heading out. The fog had cleared enough so we
could see a vague imagine of things out on the river and that was enough
for Larry. Lickety split we were off the dock that we had been so glued too for days! Hooray. It was so great to see the marina finally disappear in the distance as we slowly went down the river. Goodbye! Now it was a challenge and strain to see the markers to keep ourselves in the deeper water, within the markers. Larry had his electronic screen in front of him to look at and I had the paper charts. My job was to scope the markers out ahead of time with the binoculars and give Larry a heads up on their location. There they were all of them surprisingly easier than we thought to spot through them through the fog. We also could see them on the radar and perhaps now we think we could have done this in the fog thought we’ve never been down this stretch of the ICW before and we weren’t too sure about what we’d get into. Better to be safe than sorry as we always say. We passed some amazing houses overlooking the marshes that seem to go on endlessly. Each house seemed to have what looked like their own mile long dock to the water’s edge. We passed a gazillion cormorants staring at us either from the marker platform or in the water, shyly disappearing as the dove into the murky water. We saw the ghostly image of a dolphin methodically surfacing and diving behind us and then when I got the camera he completely disappearing like a vision. We made our way down this strange worm trail. A trail that if you could stretch it out in a straight line like a string you’d realize that the distance we covered was not far as it twists and turn and doubles backs on itself tripling the mileage of the distance a crow flies. Soon we had sight of our short
destination, Isle of Hope. What a beautiful and peaceful
looking place.
We hailed them on the radio and they waved us in to a nice floating concrete dock on the outer edge. It was a nice easy docking and we had the help of a friendly dock hand giving us a hand with the lines. He gave us all the specifics of the marina and we settled in for hopefully a one night stay. So much for those ridiculous nightmare images of docking here. We checked the weather report for tomorrow and it again said to expect fog all the way down to the middle of Florida's Coast but wind also was predicted so maybe it will blow out early. Just north of us the East Coast is getting blasted again by another Arctic storm and we have been warned that we’ll start feeling the temps drop again because of it. Jesus, this cold weather is getting to us. We need to get south. Isle of Hope is a
peaceful and quiet place. There are no restaurants and no stores which
makes it so quiet. The waterfront is lined with beautiful historic
houses and just one block in from the water are at least four churches
all different denominations. The streets are lined with magnificent
huge old oak trees with grey Spanish moss draping from every limb. We spent a nice quiet evening eating on the boat for the first time in a long time. We had a great view out across the water and everything couldn’t have been more perfect.
Isle of Hope
We discussed options for tomorrow. We decided to make tomorrow another short day if we can and the fog is OK. We thought it sounded like fun to stop at a place where there’s a little crab shack and dock about 5 miles up the Medway River off St. Catharine’s sound. It’s a bit out of the way but could be an interesting stop and a real glimpse at some real Georgian back country. Larry called them and they said the restaurant will be open so “yes” we are going to get in at least one more low country boil meal before we cross the state line into Florida.
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f so, we’ll also be turning in that
trusty bright red Mountaineer SUV
we rented and drove over
5000 miles
starting in Seattle over a month ago, first heading directly south along
the Coast of California where we briefly stopped, in Oregon, Carmel, and
then Santa Barbara, Palm Desert and San Diego to visit friends and family,
and doctors to do our annual physicals, and then immediately drive East
starting at the very beginning of Interstate 10 and driving the entire
length to the end on the opposite side of north America on the East
Coast. This trip we took the most southern route across the US not
wanting to repeat our hair rising drive last year racing the several
severe winter storm front as we took a route on higher latitudes. 
We
also have no rental car now and the only nearby restaurant was closed and
we weren’t
within walking distance of anything. Maybe the fog will lift but it’s
too late if it does to do the planned 100 mile journey. So in frustration we
took a foggy walk with Ziggy filling the time just waiting for the fog
to lift. Larry was in a funk and so was Zig. You could see it clearly
in their faces as they waited on the dock of the nearby seafood seller
as I took a picture of a beautiful egret lifting into flight of a dock
post.
Even in this chilly weather the camellias were blooming. I bet in
season this place is blooming and is quite an even more of a beautiful sight. 
