Is Tippi Hedren anywhere?
Our stay in Morehead City was completed with a very nice dinner out at Picatta’s Fine Dining. This was a new-to-us restaurant that was not at all fancy decor-wise but was absolutely great (and inexpensive) food-wise. We’ll certainly visit again.
From Morehead City, we moved west and south through coastal North Carolina making stops in Hampton and Southport. The tides were favorable the entire way and we didn’t find the bottom at any of the usual places that cause “bumping” in low tides.
Then it was on to South Carolina where we anchored on the Waccamaw River near Georgetown and Dewees Creek near Charleston. The weather kept improving with higher highs and lows most days. The winds occasionally picked up but working through the low country of South Carolina means “small” water for the most part.
From the Charleston area we headed down the various rivers and land cuts and made for the marina at Dataw Island near Beaufort. Again, our timing of the tides worked perfectly and we always seemed to find enough water at the critical spots.
Dataw Island is a self-contained community that is very quiet and pretty. In an effort to attract transient boaters, they have instituted two policies that agree favorably with us. First, electricity is free. At most marinas it is $5-$15 per night in addition to the dockage charge. Second, and most important, if you eat dinner at the on-site restaurant, they’ll treat you to a free bottle of wine. Perfect!
Within a few minutes of checking in, the electricity on the docks went out completely. No wonder it’s free. The restaurant seemed iffy power-wise so we stayed in and drank our own non-free wine.
The next morning, we woke to blustery winds and very dense fog. Nobody was going anywhere. By mid-morning, the electricity was restored and the restaurant was taking reservations. The very nice folks at the marina office said that due to the inconvenience, they wouldn’t charge us for the second day and they would still give us the wine at dinner! What a deal. (Little did they know that with our battery bank and generators, we really weren’t inconvenienced at all.) We highly recommend this great stop a few miles off the waterway.
Then it was the event we had been waiting all year for: a return to Hilton Head and lunch at Fiesta Fresh. We managed two lunches over our two-day stay and were not at all disappointed. The manager and staff always seem to remember us even though we only get there once or twice a year. Of course after probably 35-40 lunches over 9 years of full-time cruising and lots and lots of tacos, enchilladas, and taquitos, it seems likely we have made an impression.
We pushed hard through Georgia to make sure we arrived at the Little Mud River near high tide. This is one of the worst spots on the waterway and can get as shallow as 4′ near low tide. We made it through with plenty of water after a very long day. We set the anchor on the South Altamaha River just as the sun was setting.
The next morning we got an early start for Fernandina Beach and Florida. The winds were fairly light and we transited St. Andrew’s Sound on fairly calm seas – a very welcome state of affairs as this body of water can be as nasty as any between the Chesapeake and the Keys.
Soon we tied up at city marina for a couple of days. We had some great pizza at a place called Arte Pizza. This was recommended by a Doctor in Solomons that Staci had once seen. Apparently he has a house in Fernandina right across the street from Arte’s and makes a point of eating there regularly every time he is in Fernandina. Our other dinner out was at Luigi’s Tratorria. While the ambience was nice (an enclosed front porch), the food was not. Whoever was cooking seemed to think the way to make Italian food involved tossing handfuls of garlic on everything.
We left Fernandina and moved on to Palm Coast. This is a nice facility and we always see familiar faces here. Peter and Sandy on “Bewitched” used to winter in Marathon but for the last few years have stopped here for the season.
Staci made a terrific Thanksgiving dinner and we both laid around stuffed. We tried to walk it off but left the boat without jackets only to discover that what felt warm only a week ago (65 degrees) now felt pretty chilly when the wind was blowing 15-20 knots. We quickly headed back to the boat and watched TV.
Our interest was piqued by one of the items on the news: NASA was going to be launching the MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) in two days. We were just a long day away from the Cape Canaveral area so we decided to make a go for it. Our destination was a familiar anchorage near the Addison Point bridge. After consulting Google Maps and satellite views of the area, we determined that this was about as close as you could get to Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. When the sun set, we were well-positioned for the launch the next morning at 10:02 AM.
We turned on NASA TV on the computer and discovered that the cloud cover in the area reduced the launch probability to about 70%. As the morning went on, the clouds began to dissipate. We went out to the foredeck with our binoculars and quickly found the launch site where we could just see the tip of the rocket. At precisely 10:02, the MSL was headed for Mars. Even in the bright morning sky, the flames from the booster rocket were incredibly bright. The extremely loud noise and vibration of the rocket arrived at the boat some 30-40 seconds after the launch (it’s that speed of sound thing). In very short order, the MSL was miles away. We’ve been in position several times in the past to watch the space shuttle take off, but it was always delayed. It was great to finally see a rocket take off - really spectacular. We weighed anchor and moved on at our comparatively snail-like pace.
The next stop was another bridge anchorage in Palm Shores. The state of Florida has built numerous high-rise bridges across the ICW between Titusville and Stuart. While they are all 65′ in the middle, there are also low causeways on each end of the bridge that were built on man-made landfills in the Indian River. These landfills make for perfect anchorages because you can pick your side (North or South and East or West) and find decent protection from just about any wind condition on the otherwise totally open river. We settled on the southeastern side for a quiet night.
Our slip in Stuart was still occupied so we decided to stop in Ft. Pierce. With a cold front and strong storms and winds in the forecast, we sought out the protection of the Harbour Isle Marina. There are several other Krogens here but the owners were all away on road-trips for the Thanksgiving weekend. So it’s was pretty much just us in the marina.
Today we arrived at Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart, FL which will be our “base” for December. After the first of the year, we’ll head for Marathon. In the meantime, we’ll rent a car and drive to Orlando to pick up our car. The art/craft show season starts on Saturday in Ft. Pierce and before long, we’ll make our way back north to Baltimore and Cincinnati for the holidays. The next update will be in January.
staci/bill these are great pics! I have to fight my partner here to look at them. Keep it up forget about your dayjob. e and m