Leaving St Augustine. Our first or second favorite coastal city.

We started late (10:30) again at half tide rising and had an easy trip from St Augustine to New Smyrna Beach. Today we saw more hurricane damage. More sailboats blown onto the ICW bank, many piers and dock houses caved in and homes with half their shingles or tiles blown off. A lot of trees were down. I think a number of owners were away from their vacations homes and have not been able to get back to clear things away.

The first grounded trawler we’ve seen. All others are sailboats.

The wind stripped the deck and rails from this pier. We’ve seen many wrecked piers & boathouses

Nearly all the wrecked boats we saw were sailboats. Sailboats can be cheaper to own, smaller engines and less fuel requirements. You do trade a bit of speed and a lot of inside room for this. The other way they save money is by anchoring instead of paying by the foot in a marina.

Hooray. Another drawbridge gone. 2nd removed one we’ve seen in last few days.

When the hurricane hit most of those anchored boats held just fine, but some did not and were blown into the ICW bank. Since the water was much higher than normal they were blown up onto the land in many cases.

Four sailboats on the barge and two towed alongside. We assumed they were all taken off the ICW bank by the crane.

Yesterday morning it was 63° outside at 9:30 which reminded us that we really needed to be south. We couldn’t get moving until the half tide rising at 11:30 because the inlet to our Amelia Island marina had been silted in over the years and then topped off by the hurricane. The dock master went out in a small boat with a sounder and checked the way just before us. He had us keep to the left out at the channel entrance and we squeaked by.

Boat houses along the ICW north of St Augustine. The other side was lined with them too.

Saint Augustine was 60 miles away so we could travel that in six hours from half tide to half tide with full tide in between.  That made for a relaxing trip on the Georgia and North Florida ICW with few worries of running a ground. It did get us into Saint Augustine municipal Marina, known for its strong currents, at half tide which is peak current.

Star Gazer at St Augustine Municipal Marina. That’s not a homeless guy – he’s studying his cell phone.

Saint Augustine got hit pretty hard by the hurricane. We were told that many floating buoys and markers would be gone or out of position. Going past the inlet just before getting here was certainly confusing and I did end up on the wrong side at least one marker, but the half tide got me through that one.

So far we’ve seen some damage but not total mayhem along the ICW. We saw nothing to stop our progress although we have been careful to travel at half tide or greater.

Sue at our table in Columbia. Our 2nd favorite St Augustine restaurant.

We got in just before six, too late to go out on the town. So we just had dinner on the boat and watched a movie. Today we had lunch at the Columbia and shopped around for some art (not the serious kind) to put in our Sarasota condo. Sue claimed St Augustine as her favorite Atlantic coast city. I thought it was Savannah (still mine).

They were working on dock damage at the marina, many docks unusable. Note the sign to the right.

The stern underwater lights gave us a show tonight. About 20 streamlined fish averaging 2’ long with scimitar shaped pectoral fins were swimming off the back. They would stay still for awhile and then move very suddenly to chase smaller fish that must have been attracted by the lights. Sometimes we’d see the smaller fish jump from the water 3 or 4 times in a row to escape the fish moving furiously in the water after them. Other times a smaller fish would dart straight across with the larger fish darting even faster after them. I think they got the smaller fish in most of these encounters, but it happened so fast it was hard to be sure. Must be tough being a small fish.

We left Brunswick Landing Marina around 9:30 in order to reach the ICW between Jekyll Island in the mainland around 10. We need at least half tide to get through that portion. None of the marinas that I called south of us reported position changes in any hazard markers due to the recent hurricane. That coupled with the fact that most of our days trip would be at half or greater tide gave us the confidence to forge ahead.

Today we saw several sailboats blown up onto the bank by Hurricane Matthew

Georgia doesn’t have the most scenic part of the ICW but we did see trees blown down, a number of buildings with the roofs partially blown off and three sailboats blown out of their anchorages and up the bank.

This is Fernandina Harbor Marina with downtown behind. Big signs on the marina saying it is under repair.

Sue really wanted to stop at Fernandina Harbor Marina because it’s just a short block from their old downtown. She wants to return to the restaurant where we first had fried green tomatoes. When I called them to make a reservation I got a recording saying they had extensive damage from the hurricane and we’re completely shut down until further notice. We had to settle for a marina a few miles on and away from everything.

One of the two Navy ships we passed between.

As we passed the submarine base we saw two of these Navy boats, one to each side of the channel. They told me to pass between them and later called me and told me “something was coming” down the channel and we had to go 500 yards off to the side (it was deep enough here to do that) and face my bow away from the channel. From previous trips we assumed a nuclear sub was going to come by. Maybe they were worried I might have a deck gun that would rise up out of my bow like in the James Bond movies? It’s not like we could not still watch them from the back. Once they found we were turning off into the ICW instead of going out to sea they said to keep going, we’d be out of the way in time.

The first time we came up the ICW into Georgia, they had a sub showing at the base.

We needed half tide to get into Amelia Island Yacht Basin, our destination Marina, but it will be less then a six hour trip so we had no problem.

Tomorrow will have to wait till 10 o’clock to get out of here, then we’ll be on our way to Saint Augustine.

All put back together, Star Gazer floats at dock 7 at Brunswick Landing Marina.

After more than a week of medical and dental appointments we got up Wednesday morning, got a one-way rental car and drove from Sarasota back to our boat in Brunswick Georgia. We got there early afternoon on a fairly nice day. We set immediately to work putting all the canvas back up. It was really a lot easier than I thought it would be. I don’t think it took much longer than it did when we took it down.

The dinghy had been floating for a week and a half since we had left and I was pretty concerned they would have a lot of hard to remove bottom growth. It took me two days to remove the growth from when I left it in the water for a week during our first trip to Savannah. This time it appears that the bottom paint we had put on it kept it pretty clean.

Most of the job was done before we went to bed Wednesday night. That gave us the next day to finish up, do a grocery resupply trip and do any final prep for Friday’s trip south.

On this side, 2 lines prevent back motion, 1 prevents forward and 2 in the back holds it side to side. 

I’m behind on getting all the text sitting just above this out. Part lazy and part busy, I guess. We are still traveling on the boat and having a good time, but we are seeing many things for the 2^nd or 3^rd time on the ICW, so there is no major news to give you. I do intend to marry photos to the text I already have and get it out soon. When I do it will appear in sequence before this entry since it happened before.

Some of you may be wondering about the hurricane. Yesterday I looked at Weather Underground. It said winds here (at Brunswick Landing Marina) tomorrow (Thursday) would be in the 20’s and nearly 40 mph on Friday. Today it says Friday winds will be 70. We were planning a nice 3 days in Jekyll Island but decided to come over here, considered a “hurricane hole”, after only 1 day. Good thing, because we had a lot of prep with the hurricane possibly hitting here. Winds will get pretty stiff, and may reach even over 100 mph, no one knows for sure. They are evacuating some of the Florida east coast now.

Nearly everything is removed up here. The motorcycle is well strapped down & I don’t have a better place for it.

So we have prepared for the worst and hope for the best. I took all the isinglass and canvas down today for the first time ever. All cushions and anything movable has been taken downstairs and stuffed in the V berth, on the bunks in the middle bedroom and in the front of the salon. The dinghy is down in the water between us and our sailboat next door neighbor. His dinghy is in in the water in front of ours. Looks pretty bare outside.

The docks here are strong, floating and with high pilings. We can tie the boat down tightly because it and the docks move together. The pilings are considerably higher than any predicted storm surge. The greatest worry we have now is that a larger power cat across the main dock from us gets caught by the wind and flipped clear over the dock on top of us. It weighs half what we do. It’s not tied too well. I think its owners are gone. That would take quite a wind, so hopefully it won’t happen.

Here you see the two back lines and another spring line preventing forward motion. At the front two lines prevent side to side motion there. The starboard one goes past the sailboat on the right over to its dock.

We are scheduled for yearly medical & dental appointments in Sarasota anyway, and were planning to leave Friday before any of this craziness started. Now we’ll leave Thursday (tomorrow) because if winds really get to 70 on Friday roads will likely be closed. Emergency services all shut down at 40 mph around here – they say nothing can really be done under those circumstances anyway, and we want to be out of here before any of that. All those living on their boats here (about 100 people) had a meeting today at 11 AM in the marina clubhouse. Many have been boating longer than us and have been through storms before. As far as we can tell they are all leaving for inland.

There’s nothing more we can do for the boat. If another boat does not hit it and there’s no major flying debris it will probably be OK.

Pretty exciting stuff. Might be nice to be here for the great adventure. Maybe next time.

Sunrise in Savannah as we started for the Wassaw Inlet.

On Sunday October 2 the weather was great and predicted wave height 2’. The tide was high in the morning, making it easy to go out through Wassaw inlet. This is about 10 miles south of the major Savannah inlet. At high tide Wassaw is used by large superyachts to come up to Thunderbolt Marina, just a few hundred yards south of where we stayed, so there was no problem with us getting out and saving about 15 miles.

Looking back at our Savannah marina as we left it.

The two foot waves were a relatively short chop, but going in our direction, so the ride was pretty smooth all the way. Once out of the inlet it was 60 miles to where we could enter the St Simon Inlet to Brunswick. Going on the ICW would have required some winding about and would have taken two days, with anchoring at Walberg Creek in the middle. Some of the more shallow and treacherous parts of the ICW are in Georgia and have to be hit during the higher part of the 7 foot tides, so it was nice to avoid this time.

One of the squares, small parks, throughout Savannah

Better than HGTV. The docent tells us about the Andrew Low house in Savannah

We wanted at least two full days on Jekyll Island, near Brunswick, to visit its historic part with the old Jekyll Island Club Hotel and the winter “cottages” of the Rockefellers and other wealthy people of the time. Leaving at high tide meant we came into the Brunswick area at low tide and could not go south down the shallow 3 miles of ICW to Jekyll Harbor marina until the next day (today), so instead we went a mile north and stayed one night at the St Simon Island Morningstar Marina. We left there this morning for Jekyll Harbor, where we are tonight.

The Brunswick bridge as we came in and turned north up the ICW

We did get out in one of their golf carts a little, but got rained out good and proper, so we came back here. Now we are hearing the hurricane is heading our way, so we’re going to leave tomorrow and go to Brunswick Landing Marina instead of spending to more nights here. Brunswick is considered a good “hurricane hole” so we need to be there and get ready for the blow if it comes. Good thing I had it reserved awhile back, because everyone else will be trying to get in there now.

The cable stayed Arthur Ravenel bridge at Charleston from the canal as we near Charleston Bay.

We were awhile moving into our condo in Sarasota. Takes longer than moving out, it seems. We flew back to Charleston, spent an extra day there and then spent the next day on a slow drive to Brookgreen Gardens. We spent the afternoon there, checked into a nearby hotel and spent much of the next day there as well. Then we drove on to the boat at Little River.

Star Gazer (left) on the megadock at Charleston City Marina

A park along the river on the way to Beaufort SC.

We scheduled a bunch of yearly medical & dental appointments in mid October in Sarasota, so we still will have to temporarily return to Sarasota for that. In the meantime we decided to proceed on down the ICW or open ocean, depending on weather, to Brunswick Landing Marina just before the Florida border. Our insurance is considerably cheaper because we agree to keep Star Gazer out of Florida from June 1 through November 1 each year. That is when hurricanes are most likely to strike, and they strike most in Florida and the southern gulf states. So we’ll again leave the boat, take the 5 hour drive from Brunswick to Sarasota for the appointments and be back to Brunswick to go south in the boat on November 1.

Typical ICW home with long pier on the way to Beaufort

On our way to Brunswick we stopped at

• Harborwalk Marina in downtown Georgetown on the 24^th,
• Charleston City Marina on the 25^th,
• Downtown Marina at Beaufort SC on the 28^th, and
• Morningstar Marina at Savannah on the 29^th.

Paris Island as we leave Beaufort. We skirt its southern tip, to left.

With only one night in Georgetown and Beaufort we managed to eat at our favorite restaurants, both Italian and both a short walk from the marina. We had just celebrated Sue’s birthday in downtown Charleston the day after we flew into its airport a few days ago, so this time we had a down day there along with another one downtown.

On the way to Savannah a very long dredging pipeline starts. We should have gone to its left, but we picked right. We barely made it through at other end.

In Savannah we walked River St, took a “trolley” tour toured two museum homes again, the Owen Thomas and Andrew Low houses. We also visited their maritime museum. It rates near the one at Annapolis for well done ship models. It only has models of ships that were closely related to Savannah, but this encompasses a wide variety in both early and recent history. In early times Savannah was a major US seaports and presently it is the 4^th busiest US container port. Of all the southern coastal cities I think Savannah is still our favorite.

Sue in a bedroom at Bellingrath

We woke up Sunday the 28^th in Mobile and went early to Bellingrath Home about 30 minutes south to avoid rain and heat which was predicted to start before noon. We were a month or two past the best of the flowers but the gardens were still beautiful. The best we’ve seen since Brookgreen Gardens.

The home was impressive, especially the dining room. Most prominent was porcelain collection. No doubt one of the finest in the world, but seemed like an awful lot of that stuff for one house. They had a simple but nice restaurant in the gift center near the entrance where we ate lunch before returning to the city.

On the stairway at Bellingrath. The home was large, but not as large as some we had seen.

Of the 5 or 6 historic house museums in downtown Mobile only one, the Richardson DAR house, was open on Sunday so there we went. While we’ve heard of them before this is the first time either of us met an actual Daughter of the American Revolution. There were two of them there to show us through the home and explain its history.

Since most other things were closed, we decided to head on toward Florida the next day. We finished at the DAR house by 3 and headed east. After about 3 hours we stopped a few miles short of Tallahassee for overnight.

Some of the dishes at Bellingrath. One of Sue’s favorite things.

The next day the weather was rainy, but is not such a concern as with boat travel, so we started off around 9 and went the rest of the way to Sarasota. We got here around 5, taking slower routes that I hoped would be more scenic than the interstate. That didn’t work as well as it did in Louisiana. Florida isn’t the same as Louisiana. As we hit the central part of the peninsula near the Gulf coast we were on an expressway. I’m sure every year a few more stoplights have been added. We could have avoided the lights by driving the highways more inland. Near the coast didn’t mean on the coast. We did not see the Gulf, just lots of strip malls and businesses. After this in Florida I’ll follow the route the GPS selects.

A bit overcast but no rain as we walked through the gardens.

I’m thinking that maybe main roads are not on the coast in the upper and central peninsula west coast area might be that Gulf is very shallow for many miles out along the eastern panhandle and down the west coast until just above Tampa. There’s no place I would take our boat within miles of the shore in that area. Because of less maritime business at the coast, there was no reason any main roads would have ever been built there.

Laura plantation house. More office and workplace than home.

Today we saw the Laura and Houma plantations. Laura was a Creole plantation. People living in the home spoke French up to 1977. Since we were in the middle of Cajun country we wondered about the difference. Creole was a mix of French, local Indians who the French dispossessed but stayed on and West African slaves. The French were the first settlers in the area which was claimed by France, sold to Spain, then sold back to France and then finally sold to the US in the Louisiana Purchase. Cajuns were French speaking people that came from Canada and settled later.

Houma plantation house

Inside the Houma house

Laura was strictly for the business of raising and processing sugar cane. It was kept in the same family for 4 generations before being sold to a German family (that spoke French when living in this area) for a number of years. It was vacant for about 19 years after 1977 and then underwent considerable restoration and became museum. Fires and other problems caused much of it to be rebuilt. It was originally built by a slave that went into the swamp for 11 months to supervise all its timber cutting. He had all the beams and boards cut, carved, notched, etc. When he returned the house was assembled in about 15 days on a brick foundation that other slaves had built.

So many trees on the Houma grounds

Houma plantation and home was much more elegant. It was a much finer house and has a lot of its furnishings as well as some other period pieces added to fill some gaps. Very nice inside. The grounds around it were extensive and very well kept. We spent a lot of time in its gardens and spectacular oak trees. Laura was more interesting in many ways, but Houma was where we took pictures.

The Shadows on the Teche home.

We traveled on toward Lafayette LA and were surprised to get a room about 5 miles before reaching the city. Good that we did not even try to get one in the city or east of it. I’m sure they would have been full.

No other place has trees like in the South.

Today we visited only the Shadows on the Teche home and plantation. This was kept in the same family for four generations and finally given to the government national trust by the last family member. Much of the furniture and other things were unchanged from the original family, so it was not terribly elegant inside, but pretty decent and functional.

The Teche river is out in the back.

Tonight we just called every hotel within miles of the Burnside – Donaldson LA area and all are booked for the next month due to the flooding that hit Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas. We assumed some staying there were flood victims driven from there homes, but the only thing we heard from some hotels was that they were full of FEMA and government people for the next month. We finally got a reservation at a La Quinta about an hour’s drive to the south of our first stop the next day.