Fernandina Beach-Hilton Head - April 13-18

Monday morning we climbed on our bikes and headed to Fort Clinch State Park on Amelia Island. The park was about 5 miles from the boat. This is a 1427 acre park with beaches, a campground, many trails, the fort, as well as a pier which runs along the inlet at the St Mary's River.  Navy Submarines come in and out of this inlet to reach the base at Kings Bay Navel Base. We did not see any go by, so we are not sure if any went by or not.  Captain "I don't go the same way twice" was determined that we could find a different to route out of the park. This led us to a dead end road with a locked gate and fence at the end. After checking the area for security cameras, we proceeded through the woods, around the gate and over the fence. Anything for a short cut!  Later that afternoon, the captain gave the first mate a haircut! This is a first! The rain came in at night, but we were prepared with our umbrella in hand as we walked into town for dinner.

Tuesday morning it was time to bid farewell to Fernandina Beach and continue north. After just a couple miles, we crossed into Georgia. It was sad to leave Florida as it's been our home for over four months.  We passed Kings Bay Navel Base and could see one submarine in dock. We traveled a total of 67 miles and dropped the anchor in Teakettle Creek. It was a calm, wide, deep anchorage in the marshes of Georgia. The anchor dropped, and we were set for the evening. This took a whopping 3 minutes. Much better than at St George Island four nights ago! Whew!

Wednesday as we continued north, we would need to pass through an area in the ICW called Hell Gate which cannot be traversed at low tide. Our timing was such that we would arrive this area at low tide. Our options were to wait several hours for the tide to go up or go around which would bring us nearly out to the ocean and back in. Since it was a beautiful day, we decided to go out, leave the ICW and travel on the Atlantic Ocean. We traveled 30 miles on the outside and came back in at the Savannah River Inlet. It was a nice change to set the autopilot and go for 3 hours. No boats, no curves or shallows to contend with. We saw a few dolphins and many, many, many jellyfish. We traveled 15 miles up the Savannah River and tied up the the Savannah City Dock. (Total mileage for the day was 82 miles)  This location puts us right in the heart of town and walking distance to all Savannah's attractions. The Savannah River is one of the Eastern Seaboard's busiest ports. It was fun watching all the container ships pass by. At night the rains fell in force. The steps from the town down to the riverfront became waterfalls.  This did not deter us from meeting our friends John & Jill from Endeavor for dinner. We all sloshed our way into the restaurant. We traveled with John down the rivers and crossed the Gulf with him. John completed his loop in the Fort Myers area in December. 

Thursday was overcast and cool, but a good day to explore Savannah. What pretty town with all its parks and history. Shopping was great also! Late afternoon, John & Jill picked us up with their car and gave us a short city tour. They also took us to one of their favorite restaurants named Johnny Harris BBQ established in 1924. Awesome ribs and chicken!

Friday was social day. We had lunch with John from Endevour and Ken & Terri from Roundabout at the Shrimp Shack. Then we had dinner with Jim & Connie from Patriot and Bill & Lori from Perfect Day.  It was fun catching up with these folks as we haven't seen them for some time now. 

Saturday morning we walked to the farmers market in one of the many Savannah parks. After loading up in some goodies we pulled out of Savannah.  We traveled only 22 miles to Hilton Head Island, SC.

We dropped the hook in Calibogue Sound just off the 18th green at Harbour Town Golf Links. The PGA tour RBC Heritage golf tournament was being played here this weekend. After watching some of the tournament from the boat, we dropped the dinghy and took a cruise up Calibogue Creek where there are neat little shops and the home of the The Salty Dog Cafe and T-Shirt factory.  In the evening we took the dinghy over to Harbour Town Marina to check our the tournament festivities. 

Have we mentioned tides and currents? As we are passed through Georgia, we experienced 11 foot tides. This means an enormous amount of water flows in from the Atlantic to fill rivers, creeks sounds and marshes at high tide only to turn around and flow back out to sea for low tide 6 hours later. This causes some grief in anchoring as the the current changes 180 degrees every 6 hours as well as great changes in water depth. While tied to the City Dock in Savannah, the current and flooding rains from Wednesday night brought an enormous amount of debris, logs and trees floating up and down the river. We could hear logs bouncing off the bottom of the boat during the night. Also, while anchored in Calibogue Sound noise in the night caused is to get up only to see a river of sticks and marsh grass flowing along side the boat. This brings back memories of the Mississippi! Argh!

 Submarine or no submarine. How do one know?

 Long walk on a long pier! HeeHee.

 Submarine at the base.

 Passing Cumberland Island which has many wild horses.

 Pura Vida docked in Savannah.

 Busy Savannah River.

 Container ship passing by. 

 Meeting container ship.

 John & Jill from Endevour.

 Spanish Moss hanging on Oaks

 That's moss in the background, not her new haircut!

 Harbour Town.