On Thursday 6/10 We left our hotel in Savannah to head back to Darien to check on the boat progress. No word yet on whether the shaft will be competed today yet. We debated on whether we should attempt to stay on the boat for a night or two but by mid afternoon the heat and bugs got to us enough again and we decided by early afternoon to go ahead and get a hotel room again, this time in Brunswick. Renee had a tutoring session at 2pm for her math class.
It was a very uneventful day; so much so that neither of us took a single picture. We are both anxious and ready to hear some news on getting the boat back in the water. We did go out to dinner at Longhorn and enjoyed splitting a 'Cowboy' steak that was very yummy.
The hotel (Days in Brunswick/St Simon) was nice enough and had a nice pool but there were so many kids and people swimming in it when we got back to the hotel that it just did not look appealing. Hoping tomorrow we get some news and things will be more exciting :-)
On Friday 6/11 Erik awoke early and took Riva to Jekyll Island for a sunrise walk on the beach . It was a very nice way to start the day. Afterwards, he went back to the marina to check again to see if any shaft or props magically appeared. Additionally, while the boat is out of the water he decided to go ahead and replace the anodes on the bottom of the boat. We figured that would be the nice thing to do for Jennifer, the woman purchasing the boat, so that she would not have to worry about that for another year or so. Erik tried to find the correct anodes (aluminum ones must be used on our aluminum boat) at a local hardware and boat supply house in Darien but they only stocked zinc anodes. This forced him to go to West Marine and pay top dollar for what we could have gotten for half as much online :-( When he arrived back at the marina with the anodes the new shaft had arrived...yay! The prop/machine shop had also balanced and tuned both of our props making them look shiny and new. Erik also removed the transducer for the Simrad chart plotter since that was not part of the sale of the boat but needed to be taken off while it is out of the water.
Dawn at Jekyll Island
Starting to get a little more color
Ah...yes....God is good
She's such a good puppy
there she blows!
The mechanics/boat yard guys were both busy putting a final coat of paint on another boat and needed to take advantage of the dry weather to get that completed prior to working on ours. Shortly after lunch they had completed the paint job and came over to install the new shaft and the two newly tuned props on Aquaholic....Yay! This work was completed at about 3pm and the main yard man debated on going ahead and putting us in the water . But, it was decided that since we would not be leaving the marina at that hour, and tide was low, that we would just wait and be launched Saturday morning at 8:30am. We are making progress!! We were both excited and eager. The only issue now is that the weather peeps are calling for a good chance of storms (some strong ones) to start by very early afternoon tomorrow. hmmm....we will have to keep our eyes on it and make a decision whether to go or stay tomorrow after launch.
We had a fairly early dinner at Cracker Barrel (using up our stash of gift cards) and after dinner headed back out to Jekyell Island to end the day with a sunset walk. The beach was much smaller than it had been this morning due to it now being high tide. It was a really nice evening for a beach walk which we took advantage of until after the sky had completely darkened. By the time we made it back to the hotel we were both tired and ready for showers and bed.
Back to Jekyll Island for a sunset/night walk Interesting trees
We probably should have gone the the other side of the Island for sunset but it was still pretty
soft colors in the sky over the ocean even though the sun had set in the west
We slept in this morning until about 7am. The free breakfast at this hotel was MUCH better than at the previous one we were at in Darien and actually had eggs, bacon and other good stuff. Renee had reserved for us to go on a 90 minute dog walking history tour of downtown Savannah at 9am so after breakfast we headed that way. We were part of a group of ten people with a total of seven dogs. The tour guide, Eric, did a great job with the tour and had much knowledge of the sites to share wiht the group. Riva and all of the dogs did great together after a 5 minute greet and sniff session. We were not encouraged to sniff the other owners....I just don't understand!
Hearing about the history of the architecture, the city layout and the important figures that were memorialized in the town squares was interesting and engaging. We now have a much broader knowledge of the city and the beginnings of Georgia.
Dogs and their masters on a tour of Savannah
Riva moistening her pallet
Our tour guide, Eric, and his dog Abbey
It was interesting hearing the stories and history behind many of the statues found in the city squares
Riva was thirsty after the end of our 1.5 hour tour
After the tour we grabbed an iced coffee at a shop across the street from the Basilica of St John because we wanted to be able to see the interior of the cathedral. We could not go in yesterday because mass was in service. We were sitting enjoying our iced coffee and were going to go into the cathedral one at a time while the other one of us stayed with Riva. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready for one of us to go in a mass had again started...ugh. Our parking meter was going to be running out so we decided not to wait to go inside after the mass.
We headed back to the hotel where we spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing, napping and generally being lazy. It was a good time for this since thunderstorms had moved into the area.
Well rested, we left Riva at the hotel and headed out for dinner at the Olive Garden utilizing a gift card that we have had for a while. We really enjoy dining at local places when traveling but our budget and the gift card dictated otherwise tonight. Olive Garden is always a win in our books though and we enjoyed the endless soup/salad/breadsticks dinner.
From Dinner in Savannah we headed out to Tybee Island. We were guided by a friend of ours to go out there on Wednesday evening for an AA meeting on the beach. We have been to these in other coastal locations and enjoyed them a lot. Unfortunately, the rainy day persisted and although the worst of the storms had moved offshore there was still some sprinkles lingering and the AA group decided to meetin inside. Nonetheless, it was was a small but good meeting with another out of town vacationer and also a guy who showed up for his first ever meeting. By the time the meeting was over the sun had set and it was getting dark but the rain had completely stopped. We went down the street to the beach and went for a very short walk on the beach to at least get a bit of ocean feel in our day :-) Back at the hotel we gave Riva some more excercise by playing with her and worked on this blog before retiring for the night.
We were a little late getting to the beach for sunset
We are planning to leave this hotel tomorrow morning and head back to Darien to check in at the boat yard with the owner and mehcanics to 'encourage' them to check on the new shaft readiness and hopefully spur along movement toward getting Aquaholic back into the water. We are thinking of staying aboard tomorrow night in order to a) save some money and b) be a presence at the boatyard to 'encourage' them to get us out of there :-) It is predicted to be 92 degrees tomorrow, so, we will see how that goes being in the biting fly infested yard in that kind of heat all day.
Erik awoke today and walked out of the hotel room to let Riva do her morning business to discover a lawn care company truck had burst into flames and burnt to the ground next door in the Burger King parking lot. Bummer of a way to start your morning!
Renee stayed back at the hotel to work on finishing up her homework assignment and to start preparing for her midterm later this week. Meanwhile Erik set out into town to run some errands. Immediately upon getting into our 'loaner truck' he noticed that the brake pedal went to the floor and he had to pump it multiple times to get any brakes :-( Upon investigation he discovered that there was a hole caused by corrosion in one of the four brake lines almost immediately after exiting the brake systems master cylinder right at a bend in the line. After adding some fluid, that was spraying out badly, he was able to get the truck a few miles down the road to a local tire/repair shop who efficiently and economically repaired the leaking line for us. He continued with errands at the bank, post office, notary and marina and returned to the hotel about 45 minutes after our technical check out time of 11am. The hotel was kind enough to extend our check out time an hour at no cost.
We set out into Savannah where we had reserved a different hotel room just a few miles from the city center. We figured since it was apparent now that we would be here for several more days we might as well be at a hotel closer to activities we wanted to do and also that had an operational swimming pool. Since it was too early to check into the hotel we had reserved we decided to stop by for a visit to the 'Wormsloe' historical site. It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours, and, it was dog friendly. At the entrance to the site you are greeted with a beautiful gateway arch followed by a 1.2 mile long road flanked by gorgeous moss covered live oaks creating a tunnel back to the historical site. Noble Jones was a carpenter and early English settler who came to Georgia along with James Oglethorpe and built the 'tabby' which is the oldest standing structure in Savannah. To say it is 'standing' is a bit of an overstatement given that it is just ruins at this point. What remains now is just the basic structure of the four fortified walls of the estate. There was a nice museum to learn of the history and a nice walk through the properties trails.
Entrance gate to Wormsloe historical site
Nice drive down the live oak lined Ave
Pictures of the live oak tunnel along the avenue really don't do it justice
Cool old cypress trees along the edge of the marshes almost looked dead at their trunk but were still alive
We checked into the hotel at 3pm and after settling in Riva napped healthily in the A/C of the room while we chose the swimming pool as our cooling off method. The hotel is much nicer than the one we had stayed in last night in Darien. The interior rooms (which is what we had) surrounded a very nice courtyard with nice soft grass, palm trees and a very well kept pool.
Riva enjoyed being able to run free and play fetch in the courtyard of the hotel
At about 6:30pm we headed back to downtown Savannah where Tom (guy who had let us borrow his truck) had recommended to try the Tybee Crab Chowder at 'The Cotton Exchange'. Tom's recommendation did not disappoint! The crab chowder was delicious as was the spinach dip appetizer and Caesar Salad that Renee chose. We were able to grab an outside table right on the river front so that we could have Riva with us and also enjoy the people watching and activities along the river. It was a comfortable evening with the breeze lightly blowing after sunset for us to stroll along the river to walk off some of the calories we had taken in. This was good because, well, you know....ice cream came into play! We were still pretty full from dinner but how could we resist sharing a single scoop of coffee crunch gelato from the candy company?
yummy
Nice relaxing views for dining
Riva needed a little nap during dinner
Boat Envy
We thought this was a very cool fountain
Riverfront was pretty after dark
Renee and Riva resting their feet before heading back down the riverfront toward the car
Back at the hotel we rounded out the night relaxing, watching television and catching up on the blog from the last couple of days before our eyelids became too heavy to hold them open any longer.
Monday morning and we were anxious for the service department staff to come in and hopefully get Aquaholic pulled out of the water to assess what our issues are. Late yesterday afternoon a 34' sailboat had gotten towed into the marina and was now rafted off of us at the dock next to the bay where the travel lift is located. We found out during morning coffee and conversations that the sailboats captain, David, has just recently purchased the boat and has started his Great Loop journey. He unfortunately also found the bottom of the ICW with his rudder. The impact with the bottom had apparently bent the shaft to the rudder to the point where it would no longer steer. We enjoyed an hour or so of sharing stories and learning about each other before the 8am hour rolled around and the service dept staff came in.
Our new neighbor for the night, David, flying his AGLCA flag on the mast of his sailboat It was nice to have a fellow 'Looper' as company to talk to and laugh about our similar misfortunes
The marina may be small and rural but the service staff was punctual and QUICK to get the travel lift fired up and get Aquaholic as well as David's sailboat our of the water. Just as quickly as the boat came out of the water we quickly saw for certain that the issue with the vibration was being caused by a bent shaft on the starboard drive. Fortunately, it appears that the strut was not bent or damaged. It took several hours for the staff to circle back around to us to start getting the prop and shaft removed because after pulling us from the water and placing us on stands they also pulled David's sailboat and while it was still hanging in the slings of the lift were attempting to straighten the rudder shaft (which they were able to get straight enough for it to at least operate). The yard guys got the shaft out by a little before noon and the service manager, Charlie, loaded it and the props into his truck to to transport over to a prop and machine shop in Brunswick to see if it was repairable or if a new one would need to be made. This took most of the afternoon but at about 4pm we received the news that the shaft was not going to be able to be straightened and we would have to wait for a new shaft to be made. The machine shop is giving an eta of Thursday at best and possibly not until Friday to have the new shaft made. We will be crossing our fingers for Thursday or early Friday in order that it can be gotten back to the marina in time to have it re installed before the end of the day on Friday. The service yard guys do NOT work on Saturday or Sunday. So, if it does not get there early enough on Friday we may be held up here in Darien until the first of next week. We are going to hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Aquaholic back on stands...hopefully not for too long
prop off and shaft out
nope...its not supposed to be bent at the end like that :-( oh bother!
We grabbed a hotel room in Darien at an Econolodge so that we would be in A/C and have good internet for Renee to do the school work that she needs to complete. We had a very fancy dinner of leftovers from lunch and peanut butter/jelly sandwiches for dinner before settling in for a good nights rest.
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.
