Since we are here at Two Way Fish Camp at least until tomorrow morning when we hopefully will get pulled out to have the shaft and running gear inspected we have slowed our roll (or in this case cruise). We slept in a bit and relaxed aboard enjoying a big breakfast of omelets, bacon and toast. Having ground transportation at our disposal now we decided that we would go ahead and use the time to drive to Savannah to tour the historic city. Our original travel 'plan' had us staying at a marina very close to Savannah for several nights, however, now that we are significantly behind schedule we decided that touring it by car/foot while the boat awaits repairs made the most sense and we will likely cruise right through (or likely stop for one night) when we get back underway.
At around 11am we headed out from the marina/fish camp marshland to escape the black or yellow flies (depending who you ask) for the downtown river front district. It was a beautiful Sunday and the streets, shops and restaurants were bustling. Fortunately for us, on street parking was free on Sunday :-) We like free!
Renee and Riva at the top of one of the many historic sets steps down to the riverfront
The cobblestone streets and many buildings and walls with cobblestone. We learned that Savannah has so much cobblestone because of all the ships that came into port over the centuries that used them as ballast and unloaded them after the ship was loaded with goods
Renee and Riva found the Praline samples! Ok...maybe Erik did first
Since we are considering moving up to a larger boat we may try and bring this anchor home with us :-)
We have been looking and considering for over a year the possibility of moving up to a 37-41 foot Marinette. About 6 weeks ago Erik had listed Aquaholic for sale in several places one being Jacksonville Craigslist. Over the past several weeks we have had interest from a couple of people who had looked at it while it was still stored on the hard at Green Cove Springs but with no serious interest. Early this morning a lady emailed with interest and while we were just staring our walk through Savannah's historic district Erik decided to call her to inform her that we had now headed north on the ICW and thus the boat was no longer for sale in Fla. It turned out that the lady is VERY interested in the boat and she actually lives in Beaufort SC where she would want the boat. We made arrangements with her that she would drive down to Darien Ga at 4pm that afternoon to see the boat. This shortened our time downtown to allow enough time for us to get back to the marina in time. It did still allow us several hours to tour some of the historic sites including The Cathedral Basilica of St Johns the Baptist, Colonial Park Cemetery and several beautiful streets with many gorgeous homes. It had been since Erik was a child since he had been to Savannah and Renee had never been here; we were both very impressed with the city and look forward to touring it some more over the next several days.
Love reading all of the historical marker signs on all of the structures
Cathedral Basilica of St Johns the Baptist is a gorgeous church with rich history
I see dead people
Headstones and monuments of all varying kinds all VERY old and interesting to try and read
Savannah was must have had some really good engineers and city planners design its infrastructure Love the way the streets are designed and how many boulevards and parks there are throughout
Cooling down from our walk in the shade of the oaks by a fountain
Back at Two Way Fish Camp just before 4pm Jennifer (the lady interested in purchasing the boat) and her two sons were down on the dock waiting for us when we arrived. We spent the next hour or so showing them the boat. She insists that she absolutely wants to purchase it and was eager to put down earnest money for us to hold it for her. For several reasons, the main one being that we are not certain what the issue is with the vibration and/or when it will be repaired, we declined having her put any money down but ensured her that we would not sell the boat to anyone else. We have made arrangements with her that as soon as the boat it repaired we will plan to continue up the ICW to Beaufort SC (about 120 miles) where we will be able to do what is necessary to complete the transaction and deliver the boat to her. She has never operated a larger boat before and would not be comfortable getting it up to where she wants it on her own. So.....IF this sale goes through our cruising plans for this year will change considerably and we could be back to being a one boat family again (only temporarily though!! lol). We do have our eyes on a couple of other boats that we are interested in and will certainly go to look at soon if everything goes through as planned. We will see what happens....one day at a time :-)
We grilled up some burgers for dinner. We are trying to eat up all/most of the food that we have in the fridge/freezer since we are not certain when the boat gets pulled whether we will have power to keep the fridge cooling for long. We relaxed and lazed around the boat all evening before retiring early.
It was another lovely morning at Morningstar marina at St Simon Island. When we had gone to sleep last night the rollers were coming in fairly large again rocking us to sleep. However, over night the winds had died down and the water was now very calm. The usual cup of joe on the deck accompanied another rising of the sun....what will today bring?
Another sunrise from St Simons
We drove in towards downtown to attend the 7am meeting at 'The Tabby House' the local AA clubhouse. It was a fairly small meeting with about a dozen folks but a good way to start the day.
'The Tabby House' token given to out of town guests
Back at the marina, we had reserved their courtesy car for 9am and had planned to have Renee follow Erik to Two Way Fish Camp in Darien (about 18 miles by road) where we would drop off the loaner vehicle from our newfound AGLCA friend. As soon as we returned back to the marina we finished preps for shoving off. We left the dock a few minutes after 10am and started our slow, winding cruise through the intracoastal waterway channels. We cruised on the port engine only, except when leaving the dock and entering into the destination marina. The tide was going out and in this area of the waterways it is a very large variance (6'-8' rise/fall) creating quite a current that we were cruising against. These two things combined had us moving along at a whopping 8 mph most of the trip. Around many bends in the marshy landscape we cruised as the heat and humidity rose and the biting flies started converging on us. ugh!
Folks refer to these as 'flies' Erik prefers to call them 'little bastards'
It was a pretty boring trip with us paying very close attention to a combination of Navionics 'automatic' tracks as well as a new set of tracks that Renee had downloaded last night from a boater (Bob423) that everyone swears by as being the best....Bob did a good job of keeping us from running aground again!
Our Navionics route today based on Bob423 tracks....Thanks Bob!
We arrived at our destination for the day at 12:30pm. This place definitely lives up to its name as a 'fish camp'. Pretty sparse and certainly nothing like the last few marinas we have been at; rough docks, shady electric and some hooptie boats. No free beer either! ;-) They do have a very highly rated restaurant, 'Mudcat Charlies', that we will for sure be trying out at some point while we are here for at least several days. Walking around the grounds of the restaurant, marina and repair yard while letting Riva do her business it became obvious that we were away form the coast and in true low county now...the flies were whispering this in our ears and making us very aware of it. Beneath the outside dining deck of the restaurant we spotted the alligator who is a quasi mascot of the place, actually a couple of them.
Riva faced gator
real gator under restaurant deck Renee decided to NOT take a dip to cool off after seeing this!
After investigating the grounds and having a friendly chat with a family visiting from Pittsburgh we retreated from the heat and insects to the cool A/C of the boat. The remainder of the afternoon was spent relaxing while working on blogs, trying to figure out how to make videos imbedded in the blogs work (errrr) and doing some planning.
An early dinner (for us at least while we are aboard....we always seem to end up eating at 8pm or after) was followed by more work on this blog, more planning and catching up on a few work things. Before the sun sets, we are likely going to take Riva up and also get ourselves showered up so that we do not have to leave the boat and risk getting eaten by the swamp bugs!
Tomorrow we are thinking that we will likely take the loaner vehicle we have and head into Savannah which is about 60 miles away by car. We are looking forward to seeing that historic and beautiful city.
We decided that since the marina in Darien GA (Two Way Fish Camp) cannot pull the boat out until Monday and we enjoyed St Simon so much yesterday that we would stay another night here and not leave for our next stop to HOPEFULLY get service until Saturday.
We all slept like babies with swells coming into the sound and rocking us gently. Late last night before going to sleep Erik had sent emails out to the two AGLCA (American Great Loopers Association) 'Harbor Hosts' in the area, one in Brunswick and one in St. Simon, to inquire whether either could possibly help us with transportation to get a rental car since we know now that we may be laid up in Darien for multiple days. We are thinking maybe we will drive to Savannah and tour it while the boat is out of the water being worked on. Within a few hours, and in the middle of the night, both had already responded with willingness to help out. By 6am Tom, the Harbor Host in St Simon started texting Erik's phone for him to call him. Without any hesitation Tom offered us the use of his Ford Expedition for as long as we needed it! He was out of state in Pennsylvania but made arrangements for his mother to come to the marina to pick us up and get us to the vehicle. WOW! How nice was that?!?! He even stated that if for any reason we cannot stay on the boat while it is being worked on in Darien we were welcome to stay aboard his 44' Chris Craft Constellation if needed. Nice folks. We now have wheels to do whatever we need :-)
After a little early morning dock walking, morning coffee and another nice sunrise we got our stuff ready to head to the beach. On the way to the beach we passed by an AA clubhouse where there were several people outside talking. We stopped in to chat for a few minutes with a few friends of Bills. They had just finished up with the 7am morning meeting. We plan to go back the meeting tomorrow morning.
St Simon East Beach is dog friendly between the hours of 6am-9am and after 6pm. We were excited to see how Riva would react to the beach and all the new sites, sounds and feels. It was a beautiful morning and there were many other doggy pals for her to engage with. The majority of the other dogs are much better mannered than our little pipsqueek; they were allowed off leash to run and roam freely. We had to keep Riva leashed because she does not have the best of manners....nice to all dogs but a little to high strung. She frolicked and played in the sand, in the waves and with the other dogs. We knew she was going to nap hard when we got home!
Riva found many new friends at the beach
this put was maybe even more excited than Riva!
Riva is thinking of becoming a vegetarian and trying out the seaweed diet
After the 2.8 mile ride home from the beach, which once again Riva did perfectly on in her little basket, we had some late breakfast and chilled around the boat for a while. Renee finished up her school work and Erik worked on yesterdays blog that we were behind on. Shortly after the noon hour we left Riva aboard to continue napping and recuperating while we went up and relaxed at the pool for an hour or so. The water in the pool was surprisingly cool and refreshing given the very hot temperatures.
Pool time
After grilling out an early dinner we drove back into St Simon downtown in our newly acquired loaner car to do some people watching and enjoy the sunset from the pier. Downtown was again teaming with people; apparently the week after school gets out of session is a very busy time. It was a fairly cloudy evening, so much so that it made for a pretty unspectacular sunset :-(. We walked the downtown streets for a while after sunset and polished off the night with ice cream cones....I know, hard to believe with us...right? lol.
We awoke our usual early-thirty, had our coffee, ate breakfast, pumped out our holding tank and did a load of laundry (Free laundry facilities at Brunswick Landing Marina were nice) before departing for a short trip to St Simons Island (Morning Star Marina). The trip today was only about 11 miles across the sound which is a good thing given that we ran on just one engine the majority of the time except for while docking. Today's trip went without incident....no engine fluid explosions.....no groundings....just smooth cruising. After about 74 minutes we arrived at Morning Star Marina and were shown to our transient slip which was on the outside wall of the marina at the far end of the gas dock.
Pic from the middle of the bridge riding from our marina over to St Simon downtown
After checking in and acquainting ourselves with the marina facilities we got the bikes off of the boat and headed into the downtown St Simons area which was across a short bridge and a 2.8 mile ride. It was a very nice ride with VERY pedestrian and bike friendly paths (unlike Brunswick....by far the least ped friendly city we've visited!). The ride brought us by a couple of spectacular looking golf courses, through some neighborhoods with what we are sure are extremely high dollar homes, and through several areas of beautiful moss covered trees. We had set our gps for the ride to get us to the St Simon Lighthouse. Upon arriving another couple were taking selfies in front on the lighthouse so we offered to take their picture in exchange for them taking ours....we realized we had not taken many pictures at all thus far with us in them. It was a beautiful lighthouse with a rich history.
Beautiful lighthouse with much history
See....we really are on this trip!
View from another angle
We found a job for Barb, our neighbor, who says St Simon is one of her favorite places We just need to teach her to swim now....lol
Flowers...just because they are pretty :-)
We left our bicycles by the lighthouse and walked along the Atlantic boardwalk enjoying more of the scenery of the beautiful trees, a city water park and to the city pier. Out on the pier many people were trying their luck at fishing and crabbing. We saw a couple of small fish get reeled in. Just offshore of St Simon Island, and very visible from the pier area, was the site of the 2019 ship wreck of the 'Golden Ray'. The salvage and cleanup operation is still going strong and according to a workboat captain I had spoke with earlier in the morning before departing from Brunswick Landing will likely be active for at least another year. I did a little more internet research on the wreck to learn more about how it happened and also what the losses/costs were. it was a 620 foot long, 17 story, car carrying ship that was loaded with 4200 new automobiles. The cause had to do with improper loading that made the 17 story tall ship list and eventually tip completely over.....oops! The estimated losses were 80 million for the ship itself, 80 million for the lost automobiles and 240 million for the cleanup and salvage operation. I wonder if the captain of that ship and/or the engineers who were in charge of the loading still have jobs? We sure hope that our grounding the other day doesn't end up having that many 0's on the end of the price tag...lol. We did a little shop walking and Renee bought a pair of earrings and a hat/shirt combo. We finished out our walk downtown with some a Reesees/toffee/caramel gelato.
St Simons Pier with the salvage operation of the 'Golden Ray' in the background
Selfie time
Lighthouse from the pier
Anyone in the market for a new car?
The trunk of this tree downtown was interesting
After a late afternoon break in the AC back at the boat we took Riva on a short bike ride back across the bridge and to a nice little park where we played fetch and walked around for a bit. There were many other dogs in the park who apparently were MUCH better trained than Riva who had to remain on her leash most of the time. Riva has quickly learned to love riding in the front basket of the bike....she's just adorable!
Riva the Diva riding in our basket like a champ
Small park across the bridge from our marina where we took Riva for a walk
Back at the boat we prepared and grilled shish kabobs for a late dinner. The wind direction and speed made for significant rolling waves coming into the area of the marina and since we were on the outside wall the boat was rocking and rolling pretty good. We were unsure whether this would affect our sleep but the more we sat and relaxed in our recliners after dinner it became apparent by the fact that neither of us could manage to keep our eyes open that it was likely not going to hinder sleep for us too badly.
View from the clubhouse of the marina at night looking down on the walkway out to the boat
This guy was guarding our boat while we were showering
Today we wait....we were on the schedule for a marine diver in the early afternoon and also to be lifted out of the water on the travel lift at 3pm, if necessary, depending on what the divers discover and can do.
Renee worked on a good amount of her assignment for her masters class. Erik wandered around impatiently but kept himself busy with several small projects such as a new kickstand on one of the bikes which still works crappy :-(, took a ride up to the dollar store for bread and took a little nap.
Riva the Diva on the aft deck generator box
At about 12:30 pm the divers finished up on their first job of the day (cleaning the bottom of a 65' yacht) and made their way down to us. On their initial inspection they stated that nothing looked to be significantly wrong, but that each prop appeared to have a small amount of cupping towards the ends. It was decided that we would have them change out both props to the spare set that we have. the starboard one (the one with the nasty vibration) came off VERY easily and almost appeared to be loose. This was encouraging and we thought this was likely the cause of the issue. The port side prop did not want to come off and they did not have the proper prop puller to get it off. So, we decided to just leave that one on and not switch it out since that side was not creating bad vibes. Unfortunately, after the prop switch out and a very brief trial run the vibration was still there :-(.
One of the divers
Mike, the main diver
We hoped they would come up with good news and were optimistic with what they found....but....
We walked up to the boat service yard to check in with those guys since it was now about 2:30pm and we were then hoping that pulling it out to get a closer look would unveil our issue. At this point we think the most likely cause is a slightly bent shaft. The folks over at the boat/service yard had a the manager leave unexpectedly and they are short staffed and NOT very organized. When we got over there to confirm our 3pm pull out appointment they were surprised and did not have us on their schedule or even set up in their system....errr. On top of that, they were out of appropriate boat stands to even get us up on blocks/stands even if they did pull us out. We were NOT very happy or impressed with them. We made some calls around to other boat service yards within reasonable distance and located one in Darien Ga (Two-Way Fish Camp) which is only about 20 miles away up a feeder into the ICW. Erik spoke with the yard man/mechanic and was told that if we come there he can get us out on Monday/Tuesday of next week. He was also confident, even without looking at it, that a bent shaft is highly likely our issue.
This all now falls into the category of "Planning is everything; The plan is nothing". We decided that we would make our way over to St Simons Island (about 11 miles away across the sound) because we had heard really good things about it and it is also on our way up to Darien. We prepared the boat and pulled up to the fuel docks to top off the tanks since we had now traveled about 120 miles since departing and the gas at Brunswick Landing was considerably cheaper than what we were seeing at our next several stops north. Did I mention yet that the plan is nothing?!? After fueling up we were set to depart to St Simon. But wait.....now the port (good) engine would not start. UGH! After messing around with a few things to try and determine what was happening it appeared that we had a battery issue to Erik. We decided to call off any plans to attempt travel today. We pulled into a different transient slip right up by the gas docks and offices. Erik brought a spare battery that we had stowed in the bow compartment up to AutoZone to have it tested/charged since it had been stored up there for several years. Fortunately, the battery tested well and was brought up to full charge. The new battery did the trick and we should be set to go tomorrow morning (depending on weather....its supposed to be a rainy/stormy day tomorrow).
Our new friend at our new transient slip for the night
We utilized the marina grill to cook up some brat patties and baked beans for dinner. We showered up from the hot and humid day and headed out on our bikes for a short 1 mile ride to an AA meeting nearby. It was a really small but good meeting with a topic of "asking for help" lol.....can someone please HELP us get this damn boat running right?!?! Tired from the day of activities we retired to our beds early.
Not a very exciting day to write about. We did a lot of relaxing. Renee did a lot of school work and we did several small boat projects.
We did speak with the staff in the service yard here and they have us in the schedule to pull the boat tomorrow at 3pm. We also did meet with and talk to a diver, Mike, who says for $75 he can dive tomm early afternoon and determine the extend of the damage. If it is only prop damage he can replace the prop/s with our spare set for $200 per prop. Until tomorrow we will wait and hope for the best outcome!
Aside from that we also did get two milk crates securely fastened to then rear racks of our bicycles so that we can carry more goods when necessary.
We also did go out to eat for dinner at ‘Fat & Fine Crab Shack’ which was only a few blocks from the marina and got VERY good reviews online. The reviews proved to be accurate. Both the low country boil that Erik got and the dry rub/lemon pepper wings that Renee got were delicious and the portions were HUGE. We have plenty of leftovers for lunch tomm.
Only a couple obligatory sunset picture to include today.
Memorial Day 2021....We are blessed and happy to be able to travel on these great American waterways freely and without fear of attack because of the many that have fought and given everything for this great nation! Their sacrifices will never be forgotten.
Our plan for today was for an approximately 45 mile cruise that would have us exiting the state of Florida and entering into the marshy low country of southern Georgia to St Simons Island. As much as we have truly enjoyed Florida we are both ready to be in a new state and moving northward on our journey.
After a nice pre dawn walk with Riva through the nice streets of Fernandina we sat around on the deck for a while finishing up yesterday’s blog, eating breakfast and then preparing the boat for today’s trip. As we were preparing for our departure the Bella Villa pulled out of their slip to also head north on the ICW. Pretty impressive yacht! Maybe they are just commuting by water to their jobs as managers at the local Taco Bell...lol.
We are pretty sure this boat would have the walk around bed and full shower that we want :-)
We untied the lines and shoved off at about 8am and fortunately the boat and transmission that we had drained of fluid yesterday afternoon seemed to be performing just fine. Yay! It was a cool but sunny morning with a nice breeze blowing. As we continue northward on the ICW it is now a very remote landscape with few towns or even homes along the winding pathway of marshy waterway.
We were about 20 miles into the trip and cruising along nicely at about 15 mph. Erik was looking for our handheld VHF radio in the cabinets below the Flybridge helm while Renee momentarily took the wheel from him to ensure we stayed in the channel so that he could look closer when when suddenly the bottom of the boat abruptly and noisily found the bottom of the marked channel...ugh! Fortunately, the channel bottom in these areas are not usually rock or very hard and the impact was short and we went right through without getting stuck. However, unfortunately we were traveling at a fast enough clip that the grounding stalled the starboard engine. Upon startup it was immediately apparent that we had damaged the starboard running gear (prop?/shaft?/strut?....hard to say for certain). There was a nasty vibration throughout the boat. It is said by many Loopers and cruisers that there are 3 kinds of boaters; those that have run aground, those that will run aground and those that are liars! We now officially fit into the first category :-(
We shut down the damaged side and decided to continue north. This would AGAIN alter our plans for the day and very likely for the next several days depending on what the damage is and when we can get the boat pulled out for inspection and necessary repair. We were about 26 miles from Brunswick GA where there is one of only a couple large marina and boat yards in the area (Brunswick Landing) that has the necessary travel lift to get the boat out. We continued north at a much slower 6-8 mph which was less than ideal as we came to a section where we had to exit the fairly smooth and protected area of the marshy low lands and into a large wide turn at an opening to the Atlantic for a couple of miles. In this short stretch the swells of 2-3’ coming at our starboard side beam made for continuous steering and maneuvering to keep the boat on course while at a slow speed with only one engine. As we got through this area open to the Atlantic and rounded a bend back behind an island the swells decreased to almost nothing and we saw a nice beach area on the back of the island that had several boats pulled up anchored or beached and people enjoying the beautiful day. We motored over there and ran the boat gently up onto the sand where the rear of the boat and props were now only in about 3-4’ of water. Erik dawned his suit and goggles to dive under the boat and see if he could determine the extend of the damage we had done. It was hard to see, but by feeling around it does not appear that anything has distinct bends or damage. Good news....we hope! We are hopeful that it only bent something on the prop and not the shaft or strut. This would be a MUCH cheaper and quicker repair since we do have a spare set of props aboard.
sandbar at the end of Cumberland Island
Most of the ICW was smooth cruising but occasionally we would come to a spot where we had to pass through an opening out to the Atlantic and things would get a bit rougher
Being Memorial Day today the marina was hosting a shindig so after getting settled in on our way up to the office to check in we stopped in at the clubhouse and had a late lunch of potluck goodies. We may be having lots of issues with the boat but we do seem to be on a roll of obtaining free food! We are also wondering if someone is trying to tell us something because Brunswick Landing has free beer and wine as well every Monday/Wednesday/Friday....lol. We again chose to abstain.
Riva sunning herself on the aft deck she has a rufff life!
After lunch and a nap (yep....it’s another one of those kinda days) we sprayed down the boat and bikes to get rid of the salty grime. Afterwards we brought Riva up to the nice dog park that the marina also has :-) For the first 30 mins we were the only ones at the park but that was fine and Riva enjoyed playing fetch with her ball and frisbee. Just as we were preparing to leave and head into town to get a couple of things at the dollar store two other dogs showed up so we decided to stay a while and let Riva play with her new, large friends. She and the other dogs had a blast running and romping. Riva is so fast and playful as were the other two dogs 🐕. It is hilarious watching her run and play with large dogs; their size does not intimidate her one bit!
Brunswick Landing Dog Park is large and very nice Riva can run!
or she can just play in the balls
We enjoyed yet another spectacular sunset from the dog park while visiting and chatting with the other dogs owners. One guy gave us the information for a marine diver locally that he has used to perform work on his boat. Depending on whether the folks here at the service yard can get us pulled and looked at quickly this may be another option.
Sun behind the palms while at the dog park
we love sunsets!
We rounded out the day with a short bike ride into town and our usual coffee before retiring to bed exhausted.
Veterans Memorial Park just outside of Brunswick Landing marina
A huge THANK YOU to all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our country!
