A Day of Gluttony

A Day of Gluttony

Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th May, 2025

On Monday we switched tactics regarding the tides. We figured we needed a few extra feet to get out of the New River anchorage and through Buckhorn Creek, but after that we would have good depth all the way to Beaufort (pronounced “Bewfort”). So we pulled up anchor early in the morning, at about half-tide and falling, and made our way past Hilton Head to the Beaufort River in time to catch the flood tide all the way up to Beaufort. It turned out to be a beautiful day and a relaxing trip. We picked up a mooring south of the city and in the afternoon hiked out to the Food Lion grocery store for some more food. If you think maybe we eat too much - read on!

Monday night was dinner and a movie. We ate steak, savory rice and broccoli and watched a good film. But before all that we showered at the marina. This was the most awesome shower we have had in weeks! Lots and lots of hot water … marvelous.

This morning started with croissants and coffee, then we topped up the diesel and water tanks and refilled jerry cans at the marina. We also had to clean the fridge as we had a beer can break open and consequently the fridge smelled like an old bar-room. A sad loss of a can of Voodoo Ranger IPA, but happily the mess is now resolved. With all our jobs done and a satisfying lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches under our belt, we spent the afternoon wandering round the historic district of Beaufort. It’s really a beautiful area, with fabulous old houses surrounded by giant ‘live oaks’ draped in Spanish moss. We stopped and had an ice coffee late in the afternoon, which was notable because the ice cubes were actually frozen coffee. We each forced down a pastry … a mini pecan pie tart for me and a giant piece of ‘7 deadly sins’ for Gloria! Needless to say we had to take a break back at the boat to recover our appetites before heading back in to town this evening for dinner. We ate at the Breakwater Restaurant and it was really nice - I had southern fried chicken followed by creme brulee, Gloria could only manage a salad and a side order of roasted Brussel sprouts. I guess you could say it was a day of gluttony!

Mike

32 25.705 N, 80 40.870 W

The New River anchorage shorty after dawn - with 'Restless Dragon' in the background

Ditto

Gloria doing the anchor wash-down. We have a radio remote control fob for the windlass which Gloria works with one hand while managing the deck wash-down hose with the other

We left before 'Restless Dragon' but they overtook us as we entered Port Royal Sound

Historic Beaufort - beautiful houses and massive old 'live oaks'

It's lovely to walk around the old part of the city

Beaufort, SC likes to emphasize the role that it played in creating a new America after the Civil War. I liked this bench ... it makes me look forward to a third founding of America when the current bunch of A-word holes have gone.

A brown thrasher takes a bath in a puddle near the marina

Hydrangea

Abstract trunks

The Joy of Greenheads

The Joy of Greenheads

Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th May, 2025

Greenheads are also known as the green horse fly.  The Latin name is Tabanus nigrovittatus.  They are found in coastal marshes and wetlands of the Eastern US.  Now that you know they are a type of horsefly you know why they have been causing us some consternation.  We have spent the last several days navigating the salt marshes of Georgia.  Unfortunately, the green heads have been our constant companions.  Each day before we even get started moving, the little devils are flying around the screen in the companionway.  Once we get moving,  they seek us out from all directions and accumulate on the underside of the dodger and bimini in dozens.  From time to time something disturbs a few and they fly - usually into our faces or onto our heads.  I shudder to remember it.  Left to their own devices, they find their way into the cabin.  Somehow, it is here that the biting begins.  Believe me when I report that these bites are painful.  Yesterday we adopted a new strategy.  Not only do we spray our legs with a DEAT containing repellant, but we now also keep the board and screen lodged in the entrance to the companionway.  This is reasonably successful at keeping the bugs out of the cabin.  It is also a significant pain in the neck when trying to go below, but we reckon it’s worth it.  Initially we were trying to kill all the green heads in the cockpit.  They just kept coming —and we damaged our flyswatter. (A crafty application of duct tape has that back to working!) Now we concentrate on killing the few that get below decks.  As you might imagine, we are not enjoying cocktails in the cockpit, or dining watching the sunset.  These bugs are cramping our style.

In terms of travel, we have been sticking to our plan of traveling from three hours before high tide until sometime after.  Usually, this means we travel for six hours or less.  It’s been pretty successful so far.  There is a slight problem in that high tide moves forward about 1 hour later each day.  At some point we won’t be able to carry on in this fashion.  Now that we have left Georgia (crossing the Savannah River today put us in South Carolina), we were thinking that there would be less “skinny water”.  Sadly this anchorage turns out to be just shy of a very shallow gate that we will have to cross tomorrow.  Tomorrow the high tide is about 5pm, but we really want to get moving earlier in the day.  Our objective is to get to Beaufort, SC.  We would actually like to ride the flood up the river. However, the we don’t think there is enough depth to get out of the anchorage at low tide. Currently our plan is to get going early —a few hours before low—to get through that shallow spot - then carry on carefully through low tide until it starts to rise again.  Fingers crossed.  

As we got started this morning, our knot meter was working.  After traveling a few hundred yards, it stopped functioning and read 0.0 for five hours!  We figure some detritus got stuck in the paddlewheel.  That will need sorting out before we set out again.  It’s always something….

Gloria 

32 06.709 N, 80 54.162 W

Scenes from the coastal marshes of Georgia and South Carolina

Sapello Sound

Motoring down Fields Cut off the Savanah River

Ditto

Fields Cut off the Savannah River

The New River near Daufuskie Island

The Wright River

Survey vessel flying along Elba Island Cut

There are some impressive properties on the banks of the less remote areas - this one on Daufuskie Island

After sunset in the New River anchorage

One other boat followed us in the the New River anchorage

Playing the Tides

Playing the Tides

Thursday 1st - Friday 2nd May, 2025

It’s been a while since we last travelled on the Atlantic Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW). In our 'rose-tinted' memories it was easy, and in part that is true. You mostly don’t have to worry about the sea state and there are plenty of places to stop. But in some areas, South Carolina and Georgia in particular, there are many shallow sections and the navigation is demanding. In our early forays into these areas we had some nail-biting experiences passing through the shoal areas. However, during our Covid trip we learned to play the tides. In the coastal marshes of Georgia there are sections of the ICW, where, because of inadequate dredging, the channels have silted up to less than 4 feet at mean low water. Cotinga has a draft of 6 feet, so obviously that’s a problem. However, the tides in Georgia are about 7 feet, so if you time your travels you can be fairly confident of having enough water.

We left the anchorage off Cumberland island around 9 am, three hours before high tide and travelled 38 statute miles* to an anchorage near St Simons. It took us about six hours and so we never had less than half tide (say + 3.5 feet above mean low water). Similarly today, we departed at 10 am, three hours before high, and travelled 43 miles to an anchorage in the Wahoo River. We passed several notoriously shallow sections, but never saw less than ten feet on our depth sounder. This method makes for fairly relaxing travel, but it does mean that you are limited to a small time window and, of course, it becomes more challenging when the timing of high tide is early in the morning and late in the afternoon. 

The other issue is current. With relatively large tides there are strong currents. As you wind your way through the creeks, rivers and estuaries you can have 2 knots of current at one moment pushing you along at 8 knots, then as you turn a corner it can be 2 knots of adverse current limiting you to 4 knots of boat speed. A creek that runs from one sound (estuary) to another will flow can opposite directions at each end. Despite hours of agonizing, it is almost impossible for me to compute detailed expectations of current for a 6 hour passage. 

The scenery tends to be wide open marshes with patches of wooded islands. It’s sparse but atmospheric, hard to photograph, particularly in teh middle of the day. In contrast to the Bahamas, the water is dark and brown, but we have seen countless dolphins. There are all sorts of birds including terns, gulls, herons and egrets, shorebirds and osprey. We have also seen several bald eagles. Unfortunately, it’s also quite buggy and we have had swarms of horse flies in the cockpit (thankfully, they don’t seem to be biting). Once anchored we put in our insect screens and the bugs aren’t an issue.

As we came into drop anchor this afternoon the ebbing tide and southerly winds were in opposition. We wondered how that would play out. The answer - the boat lay sideways to the current and the wind, with the anchor chain going back underneath the keel. Go figure!

What I have described is great way of cruising the marshes, but as I mentioned it isn’t fast. One of the challenges we are grappling with is that we are now quite keen to get home and consequently would like to be moving a bit faster. We need to learn to enjoy the moment and not be in such a rush! 

* Distances within the ICW are measured in statute rather than nautical miles (about 10% smaller)

Mike

31 35.564 N, 81 12.267 W

A typical view in the Georgia lowlands ... grassy marshes, a distant island with trees and vast sky

Shrimping is big business and shrimp boats are common

Crossing St Simons Sound we encountered this huge cargo ship on its bay to Brunswick

A close up of the bow as it passed by

We also saw this beautiful schooner from Nantucket

At anchor in the Wahoo River

Ditto

After Effects

After Effects

Monday 28th - Wednesday 30th April, 2025

After a night’s sleep, we were quite buoyant.  We went ashore, walked to the Winn Dixie supermarket.  There we fell into the trap of buying too much stuff, mostly because we had not seen such abundance in quite a while.  We got an Uber back to the marina and spent quite a while putting everything away!  Overall we felt happy to be in Florida and pleased to have got some food onboard.  Having spent so many days watching the weather and worrying about the Gulf Stream passage, we were quite relieved and pleased with ourselves. By Tuesday, we were tired and achy and slightly out of sorts.  The glow of accomplishing the passage had worn off. 

We had looked at the mainsail seam on Monday. Mike re-aligned the two pieces using one row of hand stitches.  We had searched our sail repair kit but didn’t find any double sided tape,  We thought this would be useful for holding the seam together.  It seemed unlikely that we would be able to hand stitch three zig-zag seams by hand (the section that had pulled apart was about five feet long).  We identified a canvas shop nearby.  They were willing to sell us a roll of double sided tape, so we decided to take the five mile round trip to the shop.  The fact that the route would take us past the Winn Dixie for another shopping spree seemed like a bonus.  Off we went.  By the time we arrived at the canvas shop we were sweaty, tired and doubting our sanity. After purchasing the double-sided tape, we walked to the Winn Dixie.  This time we managed to be more restrained in our shopping.  However, the walk back to the marina seemed long and tiring.  

After closing the seam with the double-sided tape, stitching resumed on the mainsail.  Then we applied sail repair tape on both sides over the hand stitched section.  It’s a real fingers crossed job. We only need it to last until we get back to Rhode Island! That’s still a lot of miles…

Today, Wednesday, we dropped our mooring and went into the fuel dock of the marina.  We filled both tanks and one jerry can with diesel.  A couple of water jerries were topped up before we set off.  We motored north along the ICW and after all of about 8 miles, anchored off Cumberland Island.  We went ashore and did a sizable loop walk. It was as beautiful as we remembered it, but we didn’t get back to the boat until after six pm.  I can’t speak for Mike, however, I feel distinctly tired.  We plan to move on tomorrow, making a start on the next leg of our journey up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to Charleston, SC.

Gloria

30 45.397 N, 81 28.575 W

One of the two large industrial plants visible from our mooring in Fernandina Beach. We aren't sure if they are paper mills, wood processing (to make pellets) or what ...

Two images overlaid - the first a daytime shot in B&W, the second a long exposure night time shot with variable focal length.

Working on the 5ft ripped seam near the top of our mainsail. We have now had two seems rip out, which suggests the thread is degrading and we need to have the sail serviced / re-stitched (Gloria's iPhone)

Gloria looking out over the marshy section at the south end of Cumberland Island National Seashore

Lilly

The Atlantic beach on Cumberland Island

Patterns in the sand (B&W)

Maritime forest in teh interior of Cumberland Island

Sanderling

Royal Terns

Armadillo

Riding the Conveyor Belt

Riding the Conveyor Belt

Saturday 26th  Sunday 27th April, 2025

Well we made it back across the Gulf Steam in one piece and are now on a mooring in Fernandina Beach. Since leaving the Exumas, we have been following a plan that was based on using the Old Bahama Bay marina, at the west end of Grand Bahama, as a jumping off point. It looked like there should be a reasonable weather window and we monitored that closely. Using PredictWind we were able to determine the best departure time and route, and slotted in a couple of rest days, one at Bullock’s Harbor in the Berry islands, and one at Old Bahama Bay prior to the Gulf Stream crossing.

The Gulf Stream is an astonishing phenomena. A wall of water, several miles wide and a mile deep, flows northwards from the Caribbean up the west coast of the USA at speeds of up to 3.5 knots. It influences local and global weather, and is renowned for nasty, steep waves if the wind has any northerly component (wind against current / tide effect). Our weather window was based on the persistent NE winds and seas of the previous week settling down, and completing our crossing before the next weather front rolls off the east coast of the USA, once again generating northerly component winds. On the whole, the promising weather forecast held up and on Saturday morning we were up at 5.30 am, off the dock and on our way by 6 am.

The down side of our chosen weather window was light winds. From the outset we had the main sail up and motor sailed westwards to join the Gulf Stream as soon as possible. Within a couple of hours we were already picking up beneficial current, and as we turned northwards we also deployed our Genoa and were able to use the light winds to help boost our speed. I should add that the mainsail also helps to dampen rolling in these conditions. We were flying along quite comfortably, riding the awesome conveyor belt of water at speeds of 9-10 knots until noon. At this point Gloria noticed that we had blown out a seam at the top of our mainsail. We quickly dropped the sail and spent a little time considering our options. 

Repairing the sail underway was certainly possible, but would require dropping it completely onto the deck and then taping and hand stitching, whilst being bounced around. This did not seem like an attractive proposition and I was concerned that I would get seasick and find it difficult to recover. We talked about cutting out to Fort Pierce, the closest navigable inlet, but didn't really want to lose the opportunity to ride the Gulf Stream. So in the end decided to continue as we were, and repair the main sail once we had arrived back in the USA and were safely anchored.

The conditions in the Gulf Stream were about as good as they get, with about 4 foot swells (7 seconds period) and a light, wind driven chop on top of that. It still felt pretty bouncy and the night was pitch black with no moon. We did some fishing and hooked a small mahi-mahi, but he threw the hook before we could get him on board. This was perhaps the best outcome because he really didn’t look big enough to keep. We had prepared food in advance and enjoyed a Mediterranean style pork casserole for dinner. Mostly, we just lazed around the cockpit doing a lot of nothing! Whilst there were periods when we might have been able to make adequate speed sailing with the main and genoa, but without the former it would have just been too slow. So for the remainder of the passage we motor sailing with the genoa and the engine running at ~ 2000 rpm. In the end, our timings worked out really well. We covered 295 nautical miles in 36 hours (with an average speed of 8.2 knots) and arrived at Fernandina Beach on a rising tide with favorable current. The only issue we had at the end was getting to the last available mooring ball. We saw depths of 6.5 feet, which was unnerving to say the least, but around the mooring itself there appears to be more water. For now, we are safe and comfortable and will spend the next couple of days resting and preparing for the next leg of our journey.

Mike

30 40.113 N, 81 28.251 W

Sunrise off West End, Grand Bahama

A couple of hours later and you can see how being in the Gulf Stream has bumpier conditions

Sunset Saturday night - Gloria said it was another 'green flash' event, but i must have looked away at the critical moment

Sunrise on Sunday morning in the Gulf Stream

We had a brief visit from a migrating Yellow Rumped Warbler. He looked exhausted and still had ~ 40 miles to go before reaching land