Adventures of Luck of a Fool: July 5-6, 2018 Road trip to Brunswick, GA then moving north

Thursday, July 5
We had enough points with Enterprise to get a free rental for one day. Part way though checking out 2 of cars, the lady realized they were being sold and couldn’t be rented. We were given a nice upgrade for the inconvenience.

I returned with the car, we loaded it up and took off for GA. Seemed crazy, but that’s how we fly. On the way there, we started dreaming about the great GA shrimp. We turned off before Brunswick and went to Darien, which is known for it’s fleet of shrimp boats. We went to Skipper’s Fish Camp and thoroughly enjoyed our shrimp dinners.

We hit the storage unit and got out of Dodge. We didn’t even make a stop at the Marina. Back at St John’s, we made one more grocery store stop and also picked up a couple Asian appetizers at the restaurant next door. Fun dinner with lobster bisque from Harris Teeters, spring rolls and fried dumplings/pot stickers.

Friday, July 6
On my way to return the rental car, I started 2 loads of laundry at the marina laundromat. Multitasking.

these are the laundry bags Dave made for me

Dave woke up this morning thinking he should clean the prop before we leave. The boat has been sitting here for almost 2 weeks. We have to be able to motor through a cut when we leave here. And growth on the prop can slow us down. He didn’t want to take the time to get out our hookah system, so he used a snorkel and cleaned it one breath at a time. He forgot to take a light with him, so it was all done by touch. He could feel that the zincs were bad, too, but chose to do those at another time, with air and light.

When I returned, I finished the laundry and settled our bill. Everyone here was very nice. We would recommend this marina, St John’s Yacht Harbor. And we may return on our trip south.

St Johns Yacht Harbor from a magazine

We wanted to wait until about 1:00 or 1:30 to leave to take advantage of the tide going through Elliot Cut. We wanted it to be close to “slack tide” when the flow is the slowest. The water is changing directions from going in or out. So the rest of the morning was spent wrapping things up. Dave decided to flip over the dinghy on the deck. It will be easier to see over it. He flushed the air conditioner again and topped off our water tanks with their water. Before you leave a marina, you have to wrap up the garden hose that is used for that. And you have to store the power cords. It was back to southern humidity and heat. At least the bugs aren’t bad here.

Dave also decided to add 10 more gallons of diesel to the bladder on deck. So it now is holding 30 gallons. He also has a long enough hose to be able to fill our tank from the bladder. We’re looking forward to doing that. It will probably be easier than lighting 5 gallon jerry cans while you are at sea.

We made our salon table into a bed again. We will be traveling at night, so the v berth can be rough to sleep in. It’s more stable closer to the mast. Plus, even at anchor, it will be harder to lift the dinghy to open our hatch for air. We plan to be moving for a few weeks, so we will just get comfy in the salon area. The only draw back is one of us has to climb over the other to get in and out. Guess who!!

We left the marina about 1:00. Going though Elliot Cut went fine. Then we had to wait about 20 minutes for a draw bridge to open at 2:30. That went well, too.

We crossed through the Charleston Harbor and headed out to the open sea. It sure felt good to be back on the water. We entered Winyah Bay and anchored at the Georgetown Light off the ICW at 2:30am. Luckily there weren’t many crab pots for Dave to look for with a spot light. Long day!!