Saturday 12/10/11. The marina has a courtesy car (Ford pickup) they let us use today. We toured the Beaufort area starting with breakfast at the Shoofly Kitchen. When I mentioned to a waitress that shoofly is a southern PA term she said “We hear that a lot. People want to know where the Shoofly Pie is. I’ve never seen any”. When Linda described how it was made her eyes lit up and she said “That sounds good.” We thought maybe the owner was from PA but he is a local. Beaufort is a bustling town with southern charm. The water front homes are stately and they have preserved the historic downtown district.
While shopping at the West Marine store one of the salesmen, John, who has a boat at this marina, invited us to join them for the Marina Christmas Party/Soup Cook-Off. Come evening there were about forty people gathered there. Some were marina employees, some customers, and a few folks from the neighborhood. I don’t know if they found my picture on the Most Wanted poster at the post office or what. There were four different people (total strangers) who said they thought they had met me before.
There were eleven different crockpots of soup to taste. The fare included several vegetable beef, several chicken vegetable, sausage vegetable, turkey vegetable, bean with bacon, tortellini and a crab soup. The crab took the highest honors. Then there was the boat decorating contest among about eight boats with Christmas lights. Linda and I spent much of the evening talking with Cheryl and her husband Coy. They live near Charlotte, NC and were commuting to FL to sail. Then they decided to bring the boat closer to home so they sailed their boat from Port St. Lucy, FL to here. Both of them had valuable information to share and we appreciated talking with them. A good time was had by all!
As we cruised down Port Royal Sound we heard a tug on the VHF. “This is tug F.G. Franklin east bound on the Chechessee River. We are pulling a 4,000 foot long floating pipe and will be crossing the ICW at the entrance to Skull River headed for buoy 23 on the Port Royal Sound. Any concerned vessel, contact the F.G. Franklin on channel 16 or 13.” COOL! Skull River is our next turn off the sound. When we saw the tug and pipe it was too far away to get a picture. Tug Franklin was pulling a barge with the pipe trailing behind. About half way back was a second tug keeping the center of the pipe from bowing and at the end was a third small tug pushing a barge that held the tail end. That was really some operation to watch. As we turned into Skull River there was a BIG dredge following about five miles back.
Currents here will keep you on your toes. At one point we were doing our usual 8.5 mph. We passed the entrance to a creek and in just a few seconds we were making good 10.5. Then around a bend and we slowed to 7.5; 6.8; 6.4…Then in a few minutes back to 8.5.
The ICW in lower SC and GA winds around like a basket of snakes. There are some huge fuel storage tanks just north of Savannah that must be visible for 15 miles. First they would be in front of the boat… then off the starboard side… then behind the boat and later on the port side. There are very few no wake areas so we felt like we’re making time even if it was in circles!.
As we left Fields Cut, to cross the Savannah River, the tug “Clean Sweep” was pushing the front of a barge loaded with sand against the shore. There was a crane on the barge loading the sand onto large trucks like you would see working in a quarry. The trucks would drive off the front of the barge go across land and dump the sand. This would have made a great picture but we were busy trying to make sense of all the markers in the area and finding our way into the Elba Island cut. As we crossed the Savannah River the current gave a pretty good push. There was a lot on the plate at the moment.
South of Savannah on the Wilmington River is the town of Thunderbolt. This is a good place to top up the tanks. For the next hundred miles there will be no place on the ICW to buy fuel. There is fuel available if you take a long side trip on a river or creek. Just past Thunderbolt is Herb River. This will be home for tonight.
Hi Linda!
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