Back to Virginia

An unexpected offer of help and some favorable weather prematurely landed me back in Virginia in April. Here's that story of a great trip. You may remember Tim Cote from my very first post, he's The Man, and was game to sail around Hatteras in January. Well, Tim once again had free time and was ready for another adventure. He agreed to meet me in Savannah Georgia for a trip north around Hatteras. But here I am getting ahead of myself again. We last left off in St. Augustine, how did I get to Savannah? 

I had some help. Marcia once again agreed to sail with me, this time from Jacksonville to Savannah. I made the day sail from St. Augustine to Sisters Creek, near Jacksonville, with time to spare which allowed me to meet up with Bobby, from the Receta delivery, for a nice visit. Bobby is planning to retire by the end of the year and is looking forward to more sailing; I'm very happy for him!

On April 14th Marcia landed in Jacksonville and got a ride to Sisters Creek where I was able to get a space on the free public dock, awesome. The next day we set off for Cumberland Island in Georgia. Everyone says it is one of the best stops on the ICW, beautiful beaches, incredible forests of living oaks covered with Spanish moss, armadillos rooting around and wild horses. What's not to like?

 

I think we saw this guy two days in a row, but there's no way to tell, but he was kind of cute.

Wild horses, lots of them, a couple dozen at least just by the Carnegie Mansion ruins alone. 

After we had enough natural beauty we decided to explore Fernandina Beach, just a few miles south in Florida, since I liked it so much the first time. I was determined to get to the Palace Saloon this time.

I have the Pirate's Punch cup to prove I was there, and this picture as backup. Palace Saloon, the oldest bar in Florida, check, done!

 This trip would include some new stops, the above sunrise is from Jekyll Island in Georgia. There isn't much else to report from here other than we had a quite night on anchor and in the morning we continued north to an old favorite, Ossabaw Island where we also enjoyed a quite night and very nice beach walk in the morning, we had the island to ourselves, fantastic!

19 April, the real work begins. We needed to reach Savannah today to avoid the northerly blow expected on the 20th because Marcia was flying out of Savannah on the 21st. This was the only deadline and easy enough to work around, plus we were both excited to spend some time in Savannah. We arrived at the city dock at 6:30pm on a chilly Sunday, which luckily chased some boaters away from the water allowing us to get a space at the city dock which has reasonable rates. Above is the view from near there and as you can see the cargo terminal past the bridge meant there was big ship traffic, the most I have seen anywhere in fact! There are a lot of railroads out of Savannah and as we saw on the trip to the airport, lots of warehouses where goods are sorted and shipped across the country. Savannah is booming!

As proof, here is the view from the window of Kismet one morning featuring a 600 plus foot ship going by about 100 feet away with the help of two tug boats. An impressive sight and a bit unnerving. 

We took a couple of tours of the city and saw the sights. This was the nicest house we saw, I was thinking of buying it but the bathrooms were not up to my standards, I'll keep looking. 
 

Marcia and I had a wonderful time in Savannah, I think we saw the whole, old, downtown, had good food, several nice happy hours, plenty of steps and I enjoyed the best company I could ever hope for. Marcia's week on the boat went by in a flash and on Tuesday afternoon we took an Uber to the airport and said our goodbyes. 

There was no time to feel melancholy, there were logistics to handle. Tim was to arrive in Savanna in less than 12 hours! He was literally on the midnight train to Georgia, which I heard on my music feed that evening no less, LOL!!! Yes, I listen to the oldies, stop laughing!

At about 1am Tim arrived at Kismet, I showed him to his state room and informed him that we would be leaving at first light, about 6:15am, sorry. I wasn't in a big hurry to get to Virginia but I was in a huge hurry to beat the flood tide. It took Marcia and I five hours to go 15 miles up river on the way in. I wasn't going to do that again! I shoved off the city dock at 6:25am and in just over two hours we were in the Atlantic, clear of the Savannah river's nine foot flood tide. 

Just a few days before I gave Tim an update on what I was doing and he said he could be to Savanna on Wednesday morning. I checked the weather forecast and it showed that it would probably blow from the south for four days and then switch abruptly to the north. I told him if he wanted to do a 500 mile non-stop trip to Yorktown we could probably do it. 

Including the couple of hours motoring out of the Savannah river, the diesel was on for the first 13 hours and then the wind filled in and the motor went off for the next 45 hours, glorious! We covered 261 miles at an average of about 6 knots and we spent half of it going well over six and at least an hour or two above seven! Towards then end of that run, we approached Cape Hatteras and got a nice current push from the Gulf-stream, which also made the water a beautiful blue and apparently made the dolphins act like lunatics!

Of course they swam at the bow.

But they were also jumping, everywhere!

And slapping the water with their tails. 

And surfing down waves and then turning and jumping straight out of the top of the swells, amazing!

Things eventually calmed down and as we rounded the non existent buoy, not marking Diamond Sholes off Cape Hatteras, boat speed was down to 4.4 knots; we turned 50 degrees to port, started the motor and made way for the Virginia coast. There were rain clouds which we cleverly dodged while traveling in a straight line, always good to keep dry! Our evening and night shifts went by quickly but with the drone of the diesel propelling us homeward. 

Saturday morning came with more calm air and we motored into the Chesapeake bay, just as Tim and I had left the bay four months earlier. There was promise of wind coming but by the time it showed up we were on the final stretch of the trip, entering the York River and no longer interested in fiddling with sails or slowing the boat down. We were content with engine sounds if it meant we would be eating dinner at dinner time in a dining room that wasn't moving. 

At 6pm, we turned into Sarah Creek and at 6:20 we were tied up at York River Yacht Haven. Exactly three and a half days from our start in Savannah Georgia, amazing! At 7:20 we were eating dinner and watching it begin to rain. Timing does not get any better than that, what an amazing trip! We had the motor off for 51% of the time and we certainly had an even greater majority of miles under sail given our pace in the Gulf-stream.  

Now it's time for boat maintenance, some relaxation, socializing with old friends and making some new ones. That's what cruising is all about.

Now that I am back in Virginia where I started this journey, I have to ask myself what has it been all about? Between my trip and the Receta delivery I've sailed over 4000 miles already this year, been to five states and two other countries, run aground here and there, did an unscheduled haul out, made a bunch of new friends, met a wonderful woman and overall have enjoyed living this new lifestyle. What's next? Well, I need to see if I can satisfy the requirements of the Coast Guard to get my license, otherwise I have a lot more sailing to do, but I planned to do that anyway. I'm sticking with the plan and heading further north in a few weeks and come fall, a little more boat work and then hopefully a trip to the Caribbean; I can't wait!

Until next time dear readers,