More Adventure!

I don't know how many of you even heard about this but we were shocked last week to learn that several (7, I think) of the waterfront buildings in Georgetown, SC burned - many of which were in pictures on my last blog post!  The pictures we saw on the news were just horrible.  What a sad thing for that great little town.

We've just had all kinds of adventure since I last wrote!  First of all, we had no more than pulled up our anchor and started motoring down the ICW just south of Charleston when we were approached by a police boat with a flashing blue light manned by both police and Coast Guard officials!  They pulled right up alongside our boat and asked for permission to board.  Of course, we've always been aware of these type of boarding inspections but in all our years of sailing we had never experienced it.  Fortunately, everything went just fine and we checked out with no infractions, etc.  Whew, I'm glad that's over!  Actually, I'm kind of glad that it did happen and now we know exactly what it's like - admittedly, a little scary - even though you know that everything should check out and thankfully, it - and we did!

We chose not to spend time around Hilton Head as we've been there on vacations by car several times.  When we got to Beaufort we spent most of our time across the water on Lady's Island.  There's a nice little marina there and we met some of the nicest people.  The first night we were there they did a potluck dinner, which included a big pot of Low Country Boil containing fresh shrimp just caught that morning!  It was awesome and so were the people.  We really enjoyed our stay there.

We enjoyed an extended stay just south of Savannah at Thunderbolt Marina due to a nor'easter that sat just off of the Georgia coast for the better part of a week.  Fortunately, a few other nice couples were there in the same situation and we enjoyed getting to know each other.  Rick and I even learned a new card game.  The shrimping business is big around there and we were able to buy fresh shrimp right off of the shrimp boat, which we steamed in Old Bay and ate with melted butter that night.  Delicious!

Once leaving there the Intercoastal takes you across a lot of sounds in Georgia - St. Catherine's, Sapelo, Doboy, Altamaha and Buttermilk.  Some with some funny names.  It has been interesting to see all the scenery along the ICW and we realize what an opportunity it is that most people never have but we have just about seen enough marsh grass to last us awhile!

We enjoyed visiting with old sailing buddies from Oriental for a couple days in Brunswick, where we sailed under our first suspension bridge - quite impressive!

From Brunswick we went to Jekyll Island, which is just gorgeous!  We rode bicycles all over the island and here is some of the beauty that we saw.

From Jekyll we headed on south to Cumberland Island, which is a well-kept secret.  There are hardly any people there but there is abundant wildlife including deer, horses, alligators, turkeys, snakes and much more!  It's a lush tropical paradise with a beautiful white sandy beach on the ocean side and we were excited about getting to explore it.  We even found out that John Kennedy, Jr. married Carolyn Bessette there in a tiny church in 1996!

Unfortunately, the only way for us to access it was to tie up to the dinghy dock at the Cumberland Island National Park, which was closed due to the federal gov. shutdown.  Oh well, at least we did get to see a few horses from our boat!