Ospray Marina, SC

Leaving Leland Oil this morning at 0800 hours we slowly made our way northward against a foul current.  It wasn’t until 1000 that we saw boat speeds above seven knots and that only lasted less than an hour.  However, by noon our speed topped our magical target cruising speed of seven knots and stayed there until we put into Ospray.

We have always known this place was here but it was always between stops, so to speak.  We made a point to land here today, requiring a fairly long day on the water, 68 miles, only leaving us 28 miles for tomorrow where we will put into Coquina YC for three nights to visit Uncle Dick and Aunt Marlene.  Generally we stop for two nights but we want to avoid some windy weather.  Besides, at Coquina, the third night is free, you just pay for power.

The prices at Ospray are more than reasonable.  Dockage is $40/night ($1/foot) for the first three nights, after that it is only $0.25/foot ($10 for us) for a maximum of 30 days.  Fuel is the cheapest in South Carolina, today we took on 55 gallons at $1.67/gallon.  That is about half of what we were paying last year.  The facilities are real nice although it is somewhat of a remote location.   The local restaurant will come and pick you up here and take you back for $10, or they can deliver your meals here for $5.   We chose to have leftovers this evening on the boat.  Well, the wine wasn’t leftover but it did come from an already opened box.

It was another windy travel day but today the wind was from the south between 15 and 20, with gusts to 25.  As our course was generally northerly this meant we were being pushed along and heading down the waves when we encountered them on open stretches of water.

Somewhere north of Jeremy Creek. I am not even sure there is a name for this waterway.

 

Waccamaw River scenery.  The trees are just starting to bud here.

 

On the transient dock at Ospray. They provide golf carts to get from our dock to the office/restrooms but we find that it is a nice walk. Besides, the head and shower on Liberty is nice enough.

Today:  68 statute miles in 7.4 hours.  Total:  3592 miles.

Dave

Leland Oil Marina

Since we are at Leland Oil, we might as well use this place as an opportunity to change our oil.  Well, we were do for our 500 hour oil change on the engine and gearbox and when we arrived we had 498 hours on the clock.  That is close enough hour wise and they had a place to dispose of our used oil so we wouldn’t have to carry it around.  We arrived at 1320 so after we did the walk around “town”, and stopped by the fish store for some crab dip (fresh shrimp will not be in season until early May) we had ample time to accomplish this task after the engine cooled down a bit.

Getting here was half the fun today.  We left Charleston Harbor promptly at 0800 hours, passed a few sailboats waiting for the 0900 hour opening of the Ben Sawyer Bridge (we are under 31 feet and do not require an opening), and went through the Isle of Palms area that has recently been dredged with out an issue.  The Corps dredged it just after we passed through going south last fall and at that time even we needed to play the tides as there was less then three feet in the channel at low.  We never say any less than eleven feet today,  passing an hour after low.  There was a Grand Banks 42 that we heard on the radio that was just ahead of the sailboats.  They were about one half hour behind us when they finally got a bridge opening.  The GB radioed that they found a shallow spot about four to five feet deep somewhere along the route.  My guess is that they must have gotten out of the channel as all the hazard markers on Active Captain have been removed from this area since the dredging.

The forecast for today was North East as 15 to 20.  Actually, 20 to 25 would have been more like it because that is what we had for a good part of the day.  As our course was generally north to north east we had on the nose the entire day.  We also seemed to be fighting the current as we almost never saw our boat speed above 7 knots.  We are still meandering through the grass land marshes for the most part, even though there is nothing much to break the force of the wind, the wave fetch is fairly short so we don’t pitch and roll a significant amount.  For some reason, cruising when it is windy is more tiring than the dead calm days even if there isn’t much boat motion   Maybe it is the sound of the wind and the fact that it is more difficult to spot the crab pots.  We do know we have to hand steer and not rely on the autopilot as much as the channels are narrow and the autopilot can’t seem to cope with the wind and current quick enough.  Generally you can see the edges of the channel because of all the crab pots floats.  Some of these crabbers must have a sense of humor as the will occasionally set a pot out almost in the center of the channel, probably just to keep the boaters on their toes and give them something to dodge.

Prices seem to be rising here as we are now charged $80 ($2/foot) but that includes electric.  I realize they need to pay for these floating docks but their rest room facilities and laundry are not exactly where you want to spend any time.  A sailboat appeared at the docks at 1930 hours this evening.  Fortunately I didn’t have to go out to help them tie up as two local water men were on the dock.   The no-see-ums are out in force and covered me in a few seconds when I went out to wash our pilot house windows as the sun was going down.  The sail boat people are a hearty bunch, being on the water that many hours.  The guy was waving his hands and hat around trying to fend off the bugs, who for some reason weren’t bothering the locals.

Trying to leave Charleston this morning, we found this guy in our way. As we were leaving the marina we were wondering why a tug seemed to be hovering near by.   A few minutes later we figured it out.  There is a lot of big ship traffic in and out of this port.

 

This character is a pirate, or at least has an eye patch like one.

There are not many pictures of the Skipper and Mate on the blog. This one comes from Mary and Dave during our breakfast on Easter Sunday.

Today’s casualty; a broken “window” in the veranda enclosure. OK, so they are 28 years old, what is your point?  This might actually be the thing that convinces me to make an entirely new “improved” set, like I have been threatening to do for the last few years.  We fixed it with some packing tape that we had on board.

At the dock at Leland Oil.

Established 1706 but we are sure the building doesn’t date from then.

The Deerhead Oak is still here, over 1000 years old and counting according the the plaque.

Today:  37 statute miles in 5.7 engine hours.  Total:  3534 miles.

Dave

Charleston Harbor Marina

Last night the wind had faded away to nothing, but by the time we had left the dock at 0745 hours, the breeze had shifted to the North and was starting to build.   Not too long after we left the wind on the Coosaw River was a steady 15, gusting to 20.  The wind was against the current building a short chop which causes our pilot house windows to be splashed.  Actually, in salt water we like it better when a lot of water is coming over the bow onto the windows as it enables us to make constant use of our wipers, keeping the windows clean.  When only a few drops gets on the glass there isn’t enough water to use the wipers with out simply smearing things around meaning that after a period of time the entire window is salt spotted making it difficult to see.  That was certainly the case today depending on the fetch and our course direction as we snaked through the southern part of South Carolina.

Every once in a while, when things settled down we would go out and clean the windows with a spray bottle of fresh water and a squeegee, only to have the windows salted up in short order.  With up to 20 knots true coming over the bow, add to that our boat speed of roughly 7 knots and the apparent wind is approaching 30, not the easiest conditions to be cleaning windows.

The wind actually dropped and shifted into the East in the early afternoon, before picking up again just before we got into Charleston Harbor.   The Mate had to scramble, stuffing our anti-rattle towels into the galley cabinets, this after she was tossed out of the saloon settee where she was merrily napping as the boat rolled in the waves.  We went head to wind at idle until we prepared the boat for sea, even though we were almost at the marina.   There wasn’t much traffic on the ICW today, we slowed down (as a faster boat comes up from astern we will take the boat out of gear so that we almost at stop so as to let the over taking boat pass by at a slow speed) to let two boats give us a slow pass.  Actually, these two didn’t slow down one bit but merrily went by towing a good size wake rolling us around.  One of them was a large houseboat type craft with no name so you figure he wouldn’t know any better but the other was a real boat.  Maybe the owner just was clueless.

Yesterday we called here to “reserve” a slip.  They told us to hail them on channel 16 when we got here for our slip assignment.  That we did and the kid at the fuel dock seemed surprised that we were asking for a slip assignment.  He had us come in and tie up to the fuel dock while he tracked down the dock master who then had to figure out where to put us.  Eventually they assigned us a dock (up current/down wind landing) which wasn’t a real issue in the end.  That took about 1/2 hour.  When we went in to register, we had to fill in all the paperwork over again which was strange as we have stayed here three times in the past.  You would think their computer would recognize us by now.

Cousin Jennifer, her husband Jeff and their children, Lauren and Logan came down to the boat for dinner.  The kids are growing rapidly and it is interesting to hear them talk about the education they are getting at school.

The marina is quite near Patriots Point Naval Museum.

It was actually a fairly tight fit into this slip with the big Carver on our starboard side.  I am not sure what is in the Mate’s hand as she stands next to the pilot house.

Jennifer, Lauren, Jeff and Logan at dinner.

Today:  60 statute miles in 8.3 engine hours.  Total:  3497 miles.

Dave

Dataw Island Marina, SC

Dataw is one of those marinas that you generally wouldn’t consider when traveling the ICW as it is about six miles off the beaten path.  The reason we are here is because this is where Bob and Carol were landing today and we could touch base with them.  It turns out this place is wonderful.  It costs us $70 to spend the night, but is quite reasonable considering the facilities.  Dockage is easy with over 500′ of face dock that parallels the Morgan River.  The current flows though here quite swiftly as we are still in the land of big tides, the range being about six feet.  We are the only two boats here tonight.

The marina is one of those places that is on a gated community so prevalent in this area.  It is about three miles from the marina to the “gate” itself.  The showers and rest rooms are opulent, there is an indoor pool a short walk from the docks and a restaurant right at the marina.  We had a great meal at the restaurant with a complimentary bottle of their house wine.  While not expensive I am sure, the wine was quite drinkable, probably helped a bit by the cocktails and hor dourves that we had aboard Liberty before going up to dinner.

Travel up here was quite enjoyable as we had partially cloudy weather (mostly sunny) with cool West winds in the fifteen knot range.  After we got in the winds picked up to twenty knots but have died down to nothing as we write this at 2000 hours.

Leaving Lady’s Island we came across this derelict, By the way it is riding it appears that the engines have been removed.

A nice day on the Coosaw River.

When we checked in at the marina, they gave us this card. Needless to say it got our attention and we decided to the restaurant a try.

Bobbi and Carol at the indoor pool. The skipper was in the water for a few minutes, long enough to say he participated.

Bob and Carol’s boat docked behind Liberty at Dataw.

Tomorrow we are off to Charleston, a long travel day,  forcing us to be up and on the ICW relatively early.

Today:  19 statuette in 2.7 hours.  Total:  3437 miles.

Dave

Lady’s Island Marina, SC

We celebrated  Easter Sunday with breakfast aboard Liberty with our Pilgrim friends Dave and Mary before having to bid them good bye.  One of the benefits of staying at Thunderbolt is they deliver a half dozen Krispy Kreme donuts to the boat in the morning which we added to the menu.

Dave and Mary at breakfast.

Bacon, a vegetable omelet, some Callie’s Hot Little biscuits from Charleston (compliments of Mary), coffee and of course a Krispy Kreme rounded out the menu.  Nobody is starving on this boat.

Our guests were also kind enough to bring this centerpiece for the boat.

There was no sun today, as it rained most of the day.  Fortunately for us, we were on the southern edge of the rain almost the entire time.  Weather radar to the north of us consistently indicated more severe rain that we were receiving.

Our radar does a good job in showing the rain (purple color), but not such a good job of indicating radar targets in the rain zone. We have never really practiced using the radar in the rain, hence we probably don’t have it tuned correctly for these conditions.

At the dock in Lady’s Island Marina.

Our original plan was to stay overnight at the Port Royal Marina, about six miles south of here.  It turns out they had no room at the inn (marina), and as a matter of fact we couldn’t have stayed another day at Thunderbolt as they were booked up for today also. While vacillating  on taking a mooring or anchoring near Beaufort we finally decided on trying a dock at Lady’s Island.  The dock master needed to call us back after he checked on availability and said they had a dock that was suitable.  Lady’s Island Marina is located just north of the Lady’s Island Swing bridge.  The Downtown Marina of Beaufort  is on the south side of the bridge.

Well, who did we see as we passed by Beaufort but our friends Bob and Carol’s boat Sunnylands sitting on the outer dock.  We had anchored off their house overnight and had dinner with them on our way south last fall.  We had been sporadically keeping in touch via e-mail as they had made their way part way down the east coast of Florida.  They exited the St. Johns River two days before we entered, stayed at Brunswick when we were at Jekyll (7 miles away) and anchored at St. Catherine’s the night that we were at anchored at Buckhead (about 15 miles north of them).  While we were at Delegal, they were at the Isle of Hope (about 10 miles distant).   After seeing their boat we half thought of calling and canceling our reservation at Lady’s Island to stay at Beaufort but didn’t as the dock master here was so nice to us on the phone.  It actually worked out well as it turns out Bob and Carol are spending the night ashore with friends and we wouldn’t have been able to see them for more than a few minutes this evening.  We do plan on staying at the same place tomorrow evening so we should finally meet up, maybe :).

Easter Dinner on the boat.

Today:  48 statute miles in 6.5 engine hours.  Total:  3481 miles.

Dave

Thunderbolt Marina, GA

We took our time leaving Delegal this morning as we didn’t have far to go.  Today’s destination was Thunderbolt Marina, just a few miles from Savannah.  We were to meet Dave and Mary here, owners of the Pilgrim 40 Gatsby out of the Annapolis area who were cruising the south east by car.

The Easter Bunny and helper showed up on Liberty early this afternoon, or was that Dave and Mary?

Thunderbolt Marine (next door) works on some pretty big boats.

The scaffolding under the shrink wrap is pretty impressive.

This sign at the marina seems to indicate that you cannot be a live aboard in Georgia. I wonder if it is actually enforced.

We spent the afternoon with our guests catching up of things in our lives as we sipped some of the wine they thoughtfully brought aboard.  How did they know we liked wine?  After a walk we had a nice salmon dinner aboard Liberty and before we knew it it was 2200 hours, time to call it a day.  We turned the saloon into our temporary guest room for our friends, and as Pilgrim owners they felt quite at home.   The days rains happened in the early morning and late afternoon so it didn’t impact travel, our walk or dinner.  The rain brought the temperature down from 79 to the upper 60’s and that was greatly appreciated.

Today:  18 stauate miles in 2.6 engine hours.  Total:  3370 miles

Dave

Delegal Marina, Day 3

As any retired person knows, you don’t go to the bank and post office on the same day.  So, today we boarded the golf cart one more time to go back to Publix on a re-provisioning mission.  They seemed to have a number of buy-one-get-one-free items that we use so into the shopping cart they went even though we don’t exactly need them immediately.  We took our time coming back to the boat, taking in the views and checking out the houses along the way.

It was then time to do a little boat cleaning, scrub the decks (the birds have been having a good time on our boat deck).  While it was windy and poured rain last evening, it wasn’t enough to clean the decks without a scrub brush.  The rain did wash off a lot of the yellow pollen accumulation that was building up.

Months ago we almost finished a puzzle, all but three pieces that somehow got lost.  As the puzzle was supposed to turn into a wall hanging we purchased another one so as to finish it off.  Today we sorted through one thousand pieces to find the missing three but learned a lesson in the process.  It turns out they don’t necessary use the same die when cutting new puzzles, even of the same picture.

Here is an example of a corner piece. Note the different shape, the pieces are not interchangeable.

Our “fix” is to put together a few pieces from the new puzzle that will encompass the missing piece on the old, glue them together and use an Exacto knife to make a new piece to fit the old puzzle.  Nothing is ever easy; it would have been simpler to have not lost the pieces.

We haven’t seen any gators, but evidently they must be here.

Liberty at the dock. The current runs fast through here, 2.4 ft/sec or roughly 1.7 mph. It looks faster than that when you see the boats wake while tied to the dock.

We spent a good part of the afternoon sorting out how our updated navigation instruments will be configured.  While the install won’t be done until this summer we need to purchase the nav computer soon as Raymarine has a $300 rebate that expires at the end of April.  Before we spend any money we have to make sure that we understand how all the new components will interface with each other so there is no surprises, either function or dollar wise since upgrading is never a cheap date.  Our main components are over ten years old which is a lifetime when it comes to computer hardware.  While traveling we spend more time using the chart plotter than just about any other piece of equipment on the boat; there is no use torturing ourselves if it isn’t necessary.   That’s our story and we are sticking too it.

This preliminary sketch details how different items will be interfaced. A picture is worth a thousand words (if you understand the picture).

Another 8.4 golf cart miles today.

Dave

Delegal Marina, Day 2

Ah, the joys of cooling our heels.  Wake up when we want, catch a little of the Today Show before starting on the days activities.  That consisted of defrosting the refrigerator, then a golf cart ride into “town” for lunch, followed by a hike on the nature trail.  Afterwards a little reading and a quick nap before copying our bread crumb trails off the tablet PC we use while traveling.  We do this occasionally for safe keeping, putting a copy on a USB thumb drive and uploading a copy to our other version of Coastal Explorer running on our laptop.

A before dinner drink, dinner (scallops/spaghetti dish) and then some light reading on the computer, e-mails and tonight’s blog installment.  Life is good.

All the splashes in the water were the other turtles diving in. These two were a little slow. There was over a half dozen sunning themselves when we came by.

Even the nature paths are pretty classy in this up-scale community. Little do they know there are homeless people (us) in their midst.

Today:  8.4 miles (by golf cart), 0 miles by boat.

Dave

Delegal Marina, GA

We left our anchorage at 0900 this morning so as to cross Hells Gate around 1000 hours, just after high tide (about +7-1/2 feet).  As we passed through we paid close attention to the depth finder.  The least we saw was about 4-1/2 feet under our keel, this means that at low water there is only 1-1/2 feet of water in this ditch.  Since the controlling depth is supposed to be 12 feet at mean low water it appears the Corps of Engineers has some work to do.  It would be interesting to have a small boat and check the area out at low.

Billy, the dock master here is always glad to see you and he makes you feel right at home which is one of the reasons we like coming here.  He mentioned that we were here exactly one year ago today, although two hours later.   The dockage prices have gone up, it now costs us $53/night.  We used the loaner golf cart to head into the Publix grocery store on the island for some necessities.   It is 4.2 miles one way making for an enjoyable golf cart ride as the day was sunny with temperatures in the mid 70’s.   The deal of the day was a box of Cabernet wine for $20.  The box holds 5 liters, the equivalent of 6-2/3 bottles of wine.  While not particularly great wine, it isn’t bad wine either.

Some scenery along the golf cart path.

Sunset at high tide.

Part of the afternoon was spent documenting our fuel system, something we have been meaning to do for quite some time.  Another Pilgrim owner asked for the information which was our incentive to get off top-dead-center on the project.  When I misplace the paper copies, I can always refer to the information in this blog 🙂

Tank Selection

Filter Layout

Transfer system

Today:  10 statute miles in 1.5 hours.  Total:  3352 miles.

Buckhead Creek Anchorage

Today was supposed to be a good day for traveling, and it was.  We left Jekyll at 0800 on almost a full tide allowing us to pretty much breeze through the shallows just north of the marina.  Light winds were forecast for a good part of the day, with the winds remaining in the five knot range until early afternoon.  It wasn’t until 1345 that we saw winds of 10 knots and the winds peaked at a bit less than 15 knots from the south east later in the afternoon.

This allowed us to make tracks, crossing the St. Simons, Altamaha, Doboy, Sapelo and St. Catherines Sounds, all without rolling around or covering the boat in salt spray and for that we are thankful.

We almost had a first class breakfast. Points were lost using a paper plate.  We needed to use up the vegetables from yesterday and the eggs.

Heading up Little Mud River

The original plan was to anchor south of St. Catherines Sound in the vicinity of the North Newport River around Mile Marker 623.  We got there early so we decided to get north of the Sound as the wind is forecast to shift to the South East overnight.  This might make the crossing a bit rougher than it was today and there were more anchorages that were protected from the southerly winds near Mile Marker 608, which is where we are now.

The ICW shown by the black line on the left of the chart that then heads north in the white channel. We are anchored to the right.  No other boats, only a few widely spaced crab trap floats: heaven.

Our boat speed at a constant engine RPM jumps around like a jack-in-the-box as we pass by numerous creeks feeding the ICW and the Sounds. Actually, we averaged 6.8 knots over this time.

 

While we are only eight miles from Delegal Marina on Skidway Island were we will be spending a few days, we weren’t able to make it there today.  We need to wait for Hell Gate to fill with water before passing; high tide is just before 1000 hours tomorrow.  This will get us there quite early in day, a good way to get your monies worth for dockage.  When you come in late and leave early there isn’t any opportunity to check out your surroundings.

Today:  75 statute miles in 9.1 engine hours.  Total:  3342 miles.