Craunological II -- 2024 Cruise

We started the day with the 10:30 service at Christ Church in old Savannah -- the so-called "Mother Church of Georgia" because it was founded in 1733 along with the colony. It was Church of England then and is Episcopalian now. The present building is the third at this site and dates to 1838. It was a lovely service, but long, as they had a baptism. We used the marina's courtesy car for this trip.  We didn't have time for brunch in Savannah as we had to have the car back by noon and be at our marina in Beaufort, SC by five. (Maybe we're pushing too hard again?) John Wesley, the Anglican cleric who founded Methodism, served at this church from 1736-37. After lunch aboard we got underway at 12:40 and just made our five o'clock deadline at the Lady Island Marina in Beaufort. The Captain thought it would be fun to run out in the ocean from the mouth of the Savannah River over to Port Royal Sound. This started out looking like a good idea, as the tidal current was ...

The Captain took the dinghy this morning to explore the beach at the north end of St. Catherines Island. He landed after running for about a mile and a half in the dinghy and then walked the beach for 45 minutes. It was clear that the forest lining the beach had burned relatively recently. With no traffic on the beach you could see the patterns left by the receding waves. The only footprints I saw in the sand were from some cloven hoof critter that I suspect was a wild boar because of how the prints regularly led to holes dug in the sand. Maybe it was digging up crabs for breakfast! After about half a mile I made it to the NE corner of the island where the beach widened and turned to the south along the Atlantic. That was the first time I saw signs of civilization, with some tire tracks in the sand.  When I returned to Craunological II the First Mate was waiting to help land the dinghy.  The funny thing about this little adventure is that I had to pass all of these people on t...

This was a special day because we got to anchor out for the night, which is always a treat. We picked a spot in Walburg Creek off the north end of St. Catherines Island, which is a privately owned nature preserve. There is a nice beach around the north end of the island on which the public is allowed, and we figured we would do a beach excursion the next morning.  We'll start off with some sunset pictures, which is one of the best parts of anchoring out.  We set off from the Jekyll Island Marina at noon after taking the shuttle back to the marina from the Jekyll Island Club and then having an early lunch at a nice waterfront place next to the marina. It was another nice day cruising in the low country. Among the interesting sights we saw was this sailboat that appeared to be sailing through the grass about half a mile ahead of us around the next bend on the Mackay River. This picture is similar in that the Sapelo Island Lighthouse is over two miles away with the mile-wide Dobo...

We took our leave of Tom and Cathy's house and were underway at ten, with 64 miles to go to get to the Jekyll Island Marina. We had booked a room at the Jekyll Island Club earlier, and were looking forward to returning after our first visit on our Intracoastal cruise two years ago. We pulled into the marina fuel dock around 2:45 and took on 119 gallons of fuel. (The Captain was very pleased with himself for his fuel management in avoiding the expensive diesel in northern Florida -- about $5/gal -- to load up with less expensive stuff at Jekyll Island at just $4.10/gal.) Once we were squared away at our dock we had the hotel shuttle come pick us up and checked in. The Jekyll Island Club is a lovely old historic hotel -- highly recommended for folks that like such places. We were in a wing of the hotel built in 1901 with ten-foot ceilings and a glassed-in porch (with windows that opened) where we sat and watched the sunset after dinner. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a sunset. H...

After our long run yesterday, we left ourselves a mere 55 miles to get to the Palm Cove Marina on the south side of Jacksonville (just north of the US 90 bridge over the Intracoastal), which we covered in just under four hours. This marina was only 15 minutes from our friends' house, and they picked us up there a bit before 3pm. We had a lovely visit with them, and a nice dinner in a very hip area called "The Beaches" (where Atlantic Blvd hits route A1A). Our thanks to Tom and Cathy for their hospitality, which included free laundry (versus $2 per load at most marinas) and nice snacks and drinks.  Today's travelogue begins with this house, a couple miles south of Matanzas Inlet, which is clearly all ready to go for the next hurricane. The boxy building flying a flag in the photo below is Fort Matanzas (restored) that used to guard its namesake inlet. The fort was built by the Spanish in 1742 to guard Matanzas Inlet after James Oglethorpe (founder of Georgia) used the ...

Despite our comment in the previous blog about our taking it easy this trip, we ran for nine hours today and covered 114 miles. But we had a good reason for this, as the weather was good, with very little traffic AND we wanted to have a short run to Jacksonville the next day so that we could spend more time with our friends Tom and Cathy at their new place in Atlantic Beach. So here follows the travelogue... North of Titusville the Indian River widens considerably and then ends with Cape Kennedy to the east. This picture shows one of the big NASA buildings there. After crossing from the Indian River to the Mosquito Lagoon through a short canal (no locks) we headed north through the Canaveral National Seashore, which is wonderfully desolate. At the north end of the Mosquito Lagoon there is a long stretch of interesting but humble housing (there is something for every budget in Florida real estate). This photo is representative.  The next big town is New Smyrna Beach and just north o...