Pictures: The two sailing couples and dog that brought us Treats on Halloween!; Tom and Beth Coleman on their boat QUIESCENT; an interesting poster in the window of a shop in Georgetown, SC; information about storm surge conditions to look for in Wrightsville Beach NC; a mini loaning-library in a small park in Beaufort SC; a farmer and his grandson at the Farmer'sMarket, St. Simons Island; our pizza party at the end of the free wine party, Brunswick Landing Marina (all the cruisers in the picture are from Massachusetts); Peter Mahoney maneuvers his boat WINDEMERE with ease in Georgia waters; a wild horse that swam across from a marsh to a beach as the tide came in, Cumberland Island GA; John Mackie and Ken in front of the Mackie's Victory Tug in Merritt Island, FL.
At this part of our trip we are covering a lot of ground. We'd like to get to warm temperatures fairly fast, and we've got a few unofficial deadlines. One of the dates we'd like to honor is Thanksgiving. We can join a group celebration and meal in St. Mary's GA or Vero Beach FL. Cruisers plan these group events and, in St. Mary's, the town pitches in with the turkeys and site for the dinner.
We left the Potomac River back on October 24th, and since then we have been in 4 more states. Crossing the state line into North Carolina happened on October 26. We had rejoined Tom and Beth on QUIESCENT that morning, and became one of a group of boats in the lock at the start of the Virginia Cut Route through southeast Virginia and northeast NC. Ahead of us in the lock was a boat from New Zealand! After a quick chat we found out that they are finishing a 2 1/2 year cruise and delivering their boat to Florida to new owners. There is a "famous" restaurant on this route, the Coinjock Restaurant (named after the town it is in) and we had a good meal the night we stayed in the marina there. (We have always gone to NC via the Dismal Swamp Canal and so have never been to Coinjock. This year the Swamp route is closed due to damage from the hurricane a few weeks ago. Continuing all the way south we will be seeing damage from this storm.)
We have passed the Mayo shrimp dock other years, wondering if we should have stopped and bought fresh shrimp. This year we did pull over -- it's right on the waterway -- and we got 4 bags of giant shrimp, freshly caught and packaged. That night we made our own cocktail sauce and served the shrimp with lemon, and had a fresh carrot, a giant one from a farmer's market in Oriental, NC, as a side dish.
On Halloween afternoon, we were in Wrightsville Beach NC at a popular anchorage. A familiar boat was anchored nearby -- TAMURE. We have seen Kitty and Scott numerous times since we met them 8 years ago. They are based in Connecticut but we have seen them boating from Maine to the Bahamas. We got together with them for cocktail hour and then heard a knock on our hull, which turned out to be a dinghy of costumed adults, and one dog, who were going boat-to-boat treating with candy and samples of a delicious cider and bourbon drinks! It was one of those fun surprises that make cruising so pleasant!
Sometimes our route is mostly bordered by marshland and creeks, and the wildlife in these areas can be richer. We have seen an occasional immature eagle, one day a coyote pouncing on a plastic bag, playing with it. and tundra swans amid the more common birds. By November 2 we have entered South Carolina; QUIESCENT is traveling with us. In a quiet anchorage on the Wacamaw River we watched three types of woodpeckers, including a pileated woodpecker and a flicker all on the same tree bothering each other, while we had breakfast in the cockpit. A day later while anchored in a small creek, upper South Edisto, at the end of the day, Heidi startled an alligator while kayaking. The alligator was sunning in some marsh grass and not visible from the low vantage point of the kayak. Luckily the kayak was not going fast and the alligator took off in the opposite direction. Up to this point we had not seen any alligators so one was not expected. Grassy banks will be treated with respect from now on!
The weather has been amazing, warm and sunny each day with no rain for the past 4 weeks, probably not since one drizzly afternoon in Connecticut or New Jersey. We spent 3 days in Beaufort SC, a very nice medium-sized town where lots of cruisers stop and where we have visited a few times. Our first experience this time was finding that the place we picked out for lunch was offering free food if we were ordering drinks from the bar! How friendly is that!?!
In Georgia, which we reached on November 9, we stopped at Kilkenny Creek and had a nice upscale dinner at the only place in town, "Marker 107". We needed to cheer ourselves up after the results of the presidential election...... QUIESCENT has "left us in their wake", having to speed up to deliver Beth to an airport in Florida to go home for a while. In one isolated stretch of the ICW in Georgia we took the line of a grounded-out sailboat from Toronto and tugged them into deeper water. We also came across two small islands that day that had no houses or other buildings (we hadn't seen any houses anywhere for miles) but that had multi-colored goats on the first island, and black (angus?) cows on the second. It would be nice to find out the story about these islands.
Our mail for the past 5 weeks was forwarded to St. Simons Island and we picked it up there. It wasn't in yet on the first try, a bike ride from Ft. Frederica, a National Monument on the island, but it was a nice 8-mile ride, all bike paths. We moved to nearby Brunswick and backtracked the next day to get it. In Brunswick we stayed at Brunswick Landing Marina, a special place that offers free washer and dryer use to patrons, AND free beer on tap every day PLUS three free wine parties a week. We got to one wine party and it was very well attended; I imagine some boaters would find it difficult to move on. We connected with friends from back home, the Mahoneys on WINDEMERE, while at Brunswick. They are traveling to the Bahamas for the winter on a 42' WesMac lobster boat. It's quite entertaining to see the WINDEMERE sweeping through a fleet of sailboats and trawlers, the only long, low powerful working lobsterboat around!
On November 16 we anchored off of Cumberland Island, the last of the Georgia sea islands. WINDEMERE was with us for a few days and they have invited us to breakfast on their boat. We entered Florida waters this day and split up with the Mahoneys for a while, so breakfast was a good time to talk about plans and hear about the Mahoney's past winters in the Abacos. In Florida during the past week we have spent time in St. Augustine, Palm Coast, Kingsley Plantation (another National Monument) and Cocoa. We have seen white pelicans, osprey, eagles, dolphins, manatees and (we think) an immature golden eagle. We got "boomed" several times on our mooring by the cannon demonstration at Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, and we laughed watching kids and toddlers play on the "Green" at the European Village in Palm Coast, while we had Mexican food at an outdoor table. There has been a lot of damage from the hurricane that hit the southern East Coast
in early October: trees down, docks partially destroyed, some boats up on the river banks or sunken. We skipped past Fernandina Beach, the first town in Florida, because their docks and moorings are damaged and closed.
This week a cold front has come through our area in North Florida, but it has been at least 65-70 every mid-day and still sunny (you need a hat and gloves, though, in the mornings). We are heading for Vero Beach and will stay to the end of the week, taking part in the Community Thanksgiving that the cruisers set up there each year. Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers!
