Nov 15 - Jekyll Island

Lots of anchorages and not much internet - finally a place to post this!

Nov 6 – Thoroughfare Creek to Georgetown – Mile 403
We left a little after 7:00 so we would be in Georgetown early and hopefully get a place to anchor. It was a beautiful morning. The scenery is wonderful, and the early morning light and a little mist on the water made a beautiful start to the day. We were able to find a little spot to anchor of the town of Georgetown and we dropped the hook a little after 9:00. We went for a walk through town. Then Dave took Rudder and Kristen back to the boat and Annie and I looked in some of the little shops until lunch time. Later in the afternoon we walked to the grocery store and got them to give us a ride back to the boat when we were done. The girls made Peanut Chicken stir-fry for supper with Key Lime Pie for dessert.
Nov 7 – Georgetown
We decided to spend another day in Georgetown. The girls got their schoolwork done in the morning. We went in the dinghy to see if we could find any alligators but we couldn’t find any. We did see family from PEI with a girl on it so we went to go visit. The girl was Annie’s age. They left PEI in October in a van and had bought just bought their boat and were heading to the Carribean.
After lunch we went back to wander around Georgetown and later in the day we went to sit in one of the little restaurants over looking the river to have some nachos. On our way back to the boat we picked up Sheena (the girl) so she could come over for a visit. She stayed until suppertime and then we took her back to her boat. Kristen made Shrimp Creole for supper.

Nov 8 – Georgetown to Graham Creek – Mile 439
We left around 7:00 and had current with us most of the day so we were anchored in Graham Creek by 12:30. It was a warm and sunny day. It is a beautiful anchorage with marsh grass all around. There is a little oyster shell beach near the entrance to the creek were we could take Rudder to shore. We had arranged to meet Gotta Life here. We had been emailing back and forth with them since we were in the Dismal Swamp because they are also travelling with two girls. Sure enough, they arrived and were anchored a little after 1:00. It was great to meet them – Brian, Sheryl, Erin and Geneva. They are travelling with another boat, Sandpiper, with Brian’s parents and two of Brian’s nephews. The girls got a long great and were invited back after supper for a sleep over.

Nov 9 – Graham Creek to Tom Point Creek – Mile 495.7
We left a little after sunrise this morning. It was a beautiful morning and the sunrise over the marsh was spectacular. We had current against us most the day, and had to wait quite a while at two different bridges that only opened on the hour so we didn’t arrive at our anchorage until a few minutes after sunset. We had lots of dolphins swimming around us today so it helped to make the day go faster. Dave and Annie took Rudder to shore and found a huge horseshoe crab shell that measured 2’ from tip to tail. We were invited over to Gotta Life for potluck supper along with Sandpiper. It was a full boat with 8 adults and 4 kids. The adults ate in the enclosure in the cockpit and the kids ate below. It was a fun time.

Nov 10/11 – Tom Point Creek to Beaufort – Mile 536
We had another beautiful sunrise this morning and were underway a little before 7:00. We arrived at Beaufort a little after 1:00. Beaufort SC is pronounced Bew-fort while Beaufort NC is pronounced Bow-fort – it is a little confusing! We decided to go and stay at the marina, while Gotta Life and Sandpiper anchored off. We got tied up and were able to get diesel and water at our dock. We had a busy afternoon getting tidied up. I had ordered a math book for Kristen and had it sent to the marina -- when we arrived it hadn’t which was a bit of a pain. Fortunately it arrive on UPS about 30 minutes later so we had it in the afternoon. After we got organized and cleaned up, Gotta Life came in and met us and we all walked up to the post office. We were able to pick up the stove burner that Dave ordered and put a couple of parcels in the mail. After that we went for a long, long one mile walk to a grocery store. It was such a long walk we didn’t want to carry much back to the boat, and besides it had gotten dark. We picked up enough stuff for dinner and went back to the boat. Geneva and Erin stayed for supper. We got the laundry done in the evening.
We all planned to spend another day in Beaufort and planned to meet again in the morning in time for the Veteran’s Day parade.
In the morning I took Rudder for a nice walk along the waterfront in Beaufort. Beaufort has the most beautiful and gracious antebellum style homes along the waterfront. There are lots of beautiful trees that are covered with spanish moss and there are lots of palm trees too. We watched the parade and tried to borrow the courtesy car from the marina to go and get some groceries. The girls stayed in the waterfront park with the Sandridges and learned to ride on Rip-Stiks – they are like skateboards except they swivel in the middle and only have one wheel front and back. You can wiggle them back and forth to move them along a flat sidewalk. Kristen took a bit of a tumble and hurt her wrist so switch back to riding her scooter. We moved the boat out to the anchorage and then went back to town to walk around and look in some of the stores. We were back to the boat by supper time and we had a simple supper of hamburgers. Everyone went to bed early.

Nov 12 – Beaufort to Herb Creek GA – Mile 584
We’ve made it to Georgia! We had a challenging time pulling up our anchors this morning – in these waters there is a lot of current so you set two – about 180° apart. Normally we are able to pull up the little anchor first in the dinghy, but this morning it was the little anchor that was holding us so things were a little different. There were also quite a few sailboats around us and every one is moving into different places as they pull up their anchors. Anyway, we got away a little after 7:00. It was a little chilly but a nice sunny day. We were able to pull out the head sail and do some motor sailing. Shortly after we left Beaufort the engine started acting up and Dave figured out that there was a problem with fuel. He was able to turn the motor off and change the fuel filter while we were under sail. Unfortunately it is our last fuel filter and it looks like there is probably a problem with the fuel in the tank. We arrived in Herb Creek around 4:00. It is another little creek that winds off the ICW through the marsh and we couldn’t find anywhere to take Rudder to shore. I did try though and I found a little muddy patch in the reeds. He got all covered in mud but I’m sorry to report the mud patch apparently did not meet his high standards and we returned to the boat with lots of mud and some unfinished business.
The boys off Sandpiper met up with some friends in Savannah so there was extra room around the supper table on Gotta Life so we went over for supper. The next day we learned about the big adventure that Mark and Brendan had trying to get back to the boat at 1:30. They had arranged to leave their dinghy at a private dock and had the name, address and phone number of the owner of the dock. They didn’t realize that the gated community had a guard and when they arrived there on foot in the middle of the night the guard didn’t want to let them in. After leaving photocopies of their id at the gatehouse they were let in to walk the 1.5 miles to the dock. After about 20 minutes they were approached by 3 police cars! The guard had called the police to have them escorted to the dock! Anyway one of the police cars took them to the correct address and walked them all the way out across the dock to make sure they got into their dinghy and left the subdivision.

Nov 13 – Herb Creek to St Catherine’s Island – mile 619
It was really foggy in the morning so we stayed put in Herb Creek and didn’t leave until 10:00. I tried again to find some shore for Rudder and went quite away in the fog in the dinghy and didn’t see anything so finally I went back to the boat before I got lost. The fuel continued to give us problems today, but when we ran the fuel pump it seemed to keep the engine going. When Dave tried to clean out the old one it wouldn’t work at all. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep it going until we reach Jekyll Island. We got to Walberg Creek around 4:00 and the girls and I quickly got the dinghy down and set off to go the beach we’d seen a mile or so back. We have made our way back down to the Atlantic Ocean and we could see the ocean as we crossed a Sound before the anchorage. We didn’t have time to go all the way up the beach to the Atlantic, but it was great to see sand again – Rudder was impressed. The shoreline was really neat too as the sand had eroded away about 2 feet from underneath all the trees. There were lots of dead trees that had fallen down, and some were still standing with a couple of feet of roots showing about the sand. The beach was really flat and the tide was coming in so we weren’t there very long before the dinghy started to float off the beach so we had to cut our adventure short to rescue the dinghy.
We made pizza for supper and the girls from Gotta Life came over too.

Nov 14 – St. Catherine’s Island to Dalphin River – mile 649
We knew we had a short day today as we couldn’t go through the shallow Little Mud River at low tide, and low tide was mid afternoon so we knew we’d have to anchor before we got there. Gotta Life took Annie and Kristen for another adventure to shore and then we left around 10:30. We continued to struggle with fuel problems, as well as high winds and nasty currents but finally arrived at the Dalpin River and Sapello Island around 4:00. We wanted to take Rudder for a walk so we quickly dropped the dinghy and headed towards the ferry dock. On the way we picked up Geneva and Erin from Gotta Life. When we got to the ferry dock there were signs saying that there was to be no unauthorized use of the dock, but we decided to risk it and tie up anyway. We went for a bit of a walk, but dark was fast approaching and we didn’t want to be getting back to the boat after dark. Sapello Island has an interesting history and apparently has a really nice house that was built in the 1900’s and renovated in 1925 but we didn’t get a chance to see it.

Nov 15 – Dalphin River to Jekyll Island – Mile 685
We got an early start this morning and were heading down the river before 7:00. Little Mud River was no problem with the high tide but we were glad we hadn’t tried to do it at low tide. We finally had to take out the primary fuel filter and run with only the secondary filter. We spent the day hoping and praying we’d be able to get more fuel filters when we got to Jekyll. We got to Jekyll around 12:30, and we tied up at the Jekyll Harbour Marina. Shortly after we arrived the wind piped up and the rain started and we were glad to be here. The transient dock filled up really quickly as about 10 other boats all decided to come in here as well. We were so glad to hear that they do have our fuel filters here! Dave bought 4 and some fuel conditioner so hopefully we’ll be able to resolve the fuel problem. We were also glad to find that our WiFi antenna had arrived here safely so now we should be able to get internet below on the boat and not have to do all the computer stuff in the cockpit (and sure enough it works!)
After lunch we walked over the historic district and looked at all the mansions that were built by the American elite in the late 1800’s. There are a whole series of cottages with names like JP Morgan, Vanderbuilt, Crane, and Carnegie. There is a beautiful old building that was called the Millionaire’s Club where all these folks at their meals. Amazing to think of the business deals that would have been conducted here. There was talk that the Germans were going to bomb Jekyll Island during WWII as it would have had such an impact on the US economy.
While it is wonderful to be here in Jekyll we hope this storm front will pass through tonight so we can be on our way tomorrow.