6/9/21 - Another day in Savannah

We slept in this morning until about 7am. The free breakfast at this hotel was MUCH better than at the previous one we were at in Darien and actually had eggs, bacon and other good stuff. Renee had reserved for us to go on a 90 minute dog walking history tour of downtown Savannah at 9am so after breakfast we headed that way. We were part of a group of ten people with a total of seven dogs. The tour guide, Eric, did a great job with the tour and had much knowledge of the sites to share wiht the group. Riva and all of the dogs did great together after a 5 minute greet and sniff session. We were not encouraged to sniff the other owners....I just don't understand! Hearing about the history of the architecture, the city layout and the important figures that were memorialized in the town squares was interesting and engaging. We now have a much broader knowledge of the city and the beginnings of Georgia. 

Dogs and their masters on a tour of Savannah

Riva moistening her pallet

Our tour guide, Eric, and his dog Abbey

It was interesting hearing the stories and history behind many of the statues found in the city squares

Riva was thirsty after the end of our 1.5 hour tour

After the tour we grabbed an iced coffee at a shop across the street from the Basilica of St John because we wanted to be able to see the interior of the cathedral.   We could not go in yesterday because mass was in service.   We were sitting enjoying our iced coffee and were going to go into the cathedral one at a time while the other one of us stayed with Riva.   Unfortunately, by the time we were ready for one of us to go in a mass had again started...ugh.   Our parking meter was going to be running out so we decided not to wait to go inside after the mass.   

We headed back to the hotel where we spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing, napping and generally being lazy.   It was a good time for this since thunderstorms had moved into the area.  

Well rested, we left Riva at the hotel and headed out for dinner at the Olive Garden utilizing a gift card that we have had for a while.   We really enjoy dining at local places when traveling but our budget and the gift card dictated otherwise tonight.   Olive Garden is always a win in our books though and we enjoyed the endless soup/salad/breadsticks dinner.   

From Dinner in Savannah we headed out to Tybee Island.   We were guided by a friend of ours to go out there on Wednesday evening for an AA meeting on the beach.   We have been to these in other coastal locations and enjoyed them a lot.   Unfortunately, the rainy day persisted and although the worst of the storms had moved offshore there was still some sprinkles lingering and the AA group decided to meetin inside.   Nonetheless, it was was a small but good meeting with another out of town vacationer and also a guy who showed up for his first ever meeting.   By the time the meeting was over the sun had set and it was getting dark but the rain had completely stopped.  We went down the street to the beach and went for a very short walk on the beach to at least get a bit of ocean feel in our day :-)   Back at the hotel we gave Riva some more excercise by playing with her and worked on this blog before retiring for the night.  

We were a little late getting to the beach for sunset

We are planning to leave this hotel tomorrow morning and head back to Darien to check in at the boat yard with the owner and mehcanics to 'encourage' them to check on the new shaft readiness and hopefully spur along movement toward getting Aquaholic back into the water.    We are thinking of staying aboard tomorrow night in order to a) save some money and b) be a presence at the boatyard to 'encourage' them to get us out of there :-)    It is predicted to be 92 degrees tomorrow, so, we will see how that goes being in the biting fly infested yard in that kind of heat all day.    

6/8/21 - Savannah....Not such as bad place to be 'stuck'

Erik awoke today and walked out of the hotel room to let Riva do her morning business to discover a lawn care company truck had burst into flames and burnt to the ground next door in the Burger King parking lot.  Bummer of a way to start your morning!  

Renee stayed back at the hotel to work on finishing up her homework assignment and to start preparing for her midterm later this week.   Meanwhile Erik set out into town to run some errands.   Immediately upon getting into our 'loaner truck' he noticed that the brake pedal went to the floor and he had to pump it multiple times to get any brakes :-(    Upon investigation he discovered that there was a hole caused by corrosion in one of the four brake lines almost immediately after exiting the brake systems master cylinder right at a bend in the line.   After adding some fluid, that was spraying out badly, he was able to get the truck a few miles down the road to a local tire/repair shop who efficiently and economically repaired the leaking line for us.  He continued with errands at the bank, post office, notary and marina and returned to the hotel about 45 minutes after our technical check out time of 11am.   The hotel was kind enough to extend our check out time an hour at no cost.    

We set out into Savannah where we had reserved a different hotel room just a few miles from the city center.   We figured since it was apparent now that we would be here for several more days we might as well be at a hotel closer to activities we wanted to do and also that had an operational swimming pool.  Since it was too early to check into the hotel we had reserved we decided to stop by for a visit to the 'Wormsloe' historical site.  It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours, and, it was dog friendly.  At the entrance to the site you are greeted with a beautiful gateway arch followed by a 1.2 mile long road flanked by gorgeous moss covered live oaks creating a tunnel back to the historical site.  Noble Jones was a carpenter and early English settler who came to Georgia along with James Oglethorpe and built the 'tabby' which is the oldest standing structure in Savannah.   To say it is 'standing' is a bit of an overstatement given that it is just ruins at this point.   What remains now is just the basic structure of the four fortified walls of the estate.   There was a nice museum to learn of the history and a nice walk through the properties trails.   

Entrance gate to Wormsloe historical site 

Nice drive down the live oak lined Ave 

Pictures of the live oak tunnel along the avenue really don't do it justice

Cool old cypress trees along the edge of the marshes almost looked dead at their trunk but were still alive

We checked into the hotel at 3pm and after settling in Riva napped healthily in the A/C of the room while we chose the swimming pool as our cooling off method.   The hotel is much nicer than the one we had stayed in last night in Darien.   The interior rooms (which is what we had) surrounded a very nice courtyard with nice soft grass, palm trees and a very well kept pool.   

Riva enjoyed being able to run free and play fetch in the courtyard of the hotel

At about 6:30pm we headed back to downtown Savannah where Tom (guy who had let us borrow his truck) had recommended to try the Tybee Crab Chowder at 'The Cotton Exchange'.   Tom's recommendation did not disappoint!    The crab chowder was delicious as was the spinach dip appetizer and Caesar Salad that Renee chose.   We were able to grab an outside table right on the river front so that we could have Riva with us and also enjoy the people watching and activities along the river.  It was a comfortable evening with the breeze lightly blowing after sunset for us to stroll along the river to walk off some of the calories we had taken in.  This was good because, well, you know....ice cream came into play!  We were still pretty full from dinner but how could we resist sharing a single scoop of coffee crunch gelato from the candy company?   

yummy

Nice relaxing views for dining

Riva needed a little nap during dinner

Boat Envy

We thought this was a very cool fountain

Riverfront was pretty after dark 

Renee and Riva resting their feet before heading back down the riverfront toward the car

Back at the hotel we rounded out the night relaxing, watching television and catching up on the blog from the last couple of days before our eyelids became too heavy to hold them open any longer.   

6/7/21 - Hanging in Darien at Two Way Fish Camp to ensure Aquaholic gets the help she needs

Monday morning and we were anxious for the service department staff to come in and hopefully get Aquaholic pulled out of the water to assess what our issues are.    Late yesterday afternoon a 34' sailboat had gotten towed into the marina and was now rafted off of us at the dock next to the bay where the travel lift is located.   We found out during morning coffee and conversations that the sailboats captain, David, has just recently purchased the boat and has started his Great Loop journey.   He unfortunately also found the bottom of the ICW with his rudder.   The impact with the bottom had apparently bent the shaft to the rudder to the point where it would no longer steer.   We enjoyed an hour or so of sharing stories and learning about each other before the 8am hour rolled around and the service dept staff came in. 

Our new neighbor for the night, David, flying his AGLCA flag on the mast of his sailboat
It was nice to have a fellow 'Looper' as company to talk to and laugh about our similar misfortunes

The marina may be small and rural but the service staff was punctual and QUICK to get the travel lift fired up and get Aquaholic as well as David's sailboat our of the water.  Just as quickly as the boat came out of the water we quickly saw for certain that the issue with the vibration was being caused by a bent shaft on the starboard drive.   Fortunately, it appears that the strut was not bent or damaged.   It took several hours for the staff to circle back around to us to start getting the prop and shaft removed because after pulling us from the water and placing us on stands they also pulled David's sailboat and while it was still hanging in the slings of the lift were attempting to straighten the rudder shaft (which they were able to get straight enough for it to at least operate).   The yard guys got the shaft out by a little before noon and the service manager, Charlie, loaded it and the props into his truck to to transport over to a prop and machine shop in Brunswick to see if it was repairable or if a new one would need to be made.  This took most of the afternoon but at about 4pm we received the news that the shaft was not going to be able to be straightened and we would have to wait for a new shaft to be made.   The machine shop is giving an eta of Thursday at best and possibly not until Friday to have the new shaft made.   We will be crossing our fingers for Thursday or early Friday in order that it can be gotten back to the marina in time to have it re installed before the end of the day on Friday.   The service yard guys do NOT work on Saturday or Sunday.  So, if it does not get there early enough on Friday we may be held up here in Darien until the first of next week.  We are going to hope for the best and plan for the worst.   

Aquaholic back on stands...hopefully not for too long 

prop off and shaft out

nope...its not supposed to be bent at the end like that :-(  
oh bother!

We grabbed a hotel room in Darien at an Econolodge so that we would be in A/C and have good internet for Renee to do the school work that she needs to complete.   We had a very fancy dinner of leftovers from lunch and peanut butter/jelly sandwiches for dinner before settling in for a good nights rest.   

6/6/21 - Touring Savannah and showing Aquaholic

Since we are here at Two Way Fish Camp at least until tomorrow morning when we hopefully will get pulled out to have the shaft and running gear inspected we have slowed our roll (or in this case cruise).  We slept in a bit and relaxed aboard enjoying a big breakfast of omelets, bacon and toast.   Having ground transportation at our disposal now we decided that we would go ahead and use the time to drive to Savannah to tour the historic city.   Our original travel 'plan' had us staying at a marina very close to Savannah for several nights, however, now that we are significantly behind schedule we decided that touring it by car/foot while the boat awaits repairs made the most sense and we will likely cruise right through (or likely stop for one night) when we get back underway.   

At around 11am we headed out from the marina/fish camp marshland to escape the black or yellow flies (depending who you ask) for the downtown river front district.   It was a beautiful Sunday and the streets, shops and restaurants were bustling.   Fortunately for us, on street parking was free on Sunday :-)   We like free!   

Renee and Riva at the top of one of the many historic sets steps down to the riverfront

The cobblestone streets and many buildings and walls with cobblestone.
We learned that Savannah has so much cobblestone because of all the ships that came into port over the centuries that used them as ballast and unloaded them after the ship was loaded with goods

Renee and Riva found the Praline samples!   Ok...maybe Erik did first

Since we are considering moving up to a larger boat we may try and bring this anchor home with us :-)

We have been looking and considering for over a year the possibility of moving up to a 37-41 foot Marinette.   About 6 weeks ago Erik had listed Aquaholic for sale in several places one being Jacksonville Craigslist.    Over the past several weeks we have had interest from a couple of people who had looked at it while it was still stored on the hard at Green Cove Springs but with no serious interest.   Early this morning a lady emailed with interest and while we were just staring our walk through Savannah's historic district Erik decided to call her to inform her that we had now headed north on the ICW and thus the boat was no longer for sale in Fla.   It turned out that the lady is VERY interested in the boat and she actually lives in Beaufort SC where she would want the boat.    We made arrangements with her that she would drive down to Darien Ga at 4pm that afternoon to see the boat.   This shortened our time downtown to allow enough time for us to get back to the marina in time.   It did still allow us several hours to tour some of the historic sites including The Cathedral Basilica of St Johns the Baptist, Colonial Park Cemetery and several beautiful streets with many gorgeous homes.  It had been since Erik was a child since he had been to Savannah and Renee had never been here; we were both very impressed with the city and look forward to touring it some more over the next several days.  

Love reading all of the historical marker signs on all of the structures 

Cathedral Basilica of St Johns the Baptist is a gorgeous church with rich history

I see dead people

Headstones and monuments of all varying kinds all VERY old and interesting to try and read

Savannah was must have had some really good engineers and city planners design its infrastructure
Love the way the streets are designed and how many boulevards and parks there are throughout

Cooling down from our walk in the shade of the oaks by a fountain

Back at Two Way Fish Camp just before 4pm Jennifer (the lady interested in purchasing the boat) and her two sons were down on the dock waiting for us when we arrived.   We spent the next hour or so showing them the boat.   She insists that she absolutely wants to purchase it and was eager to put down earnest money for us to hold it for her.  For several reasons, the main one being that we are not certain what the issue is with the vibration and/or when it will be repaired, we declined having her put any money down but ensured her that we would not sell the boat to anyone else.   We have made arrangements with her that as soon as the boat it repaired we will plan to continue up the ICW to Beaufort SC (about 120 miles) where we will be able to do what is necessary to complete the transaction and deliver the boat to her.   She has never operated a larger boat before and would not be comfortable getting it up to where she wants it on her own.   So.....IF this sale goes through our cruising plans for this year will change considerably and we could be back to being a one boat family again (only temporarily though!! lol).   We do have our eyes on a couple of other boats that we are interested in and will certainly go to look at soon if everything goes through as planned.  We will see what happens....one day at a time :-) 

We grilled up some burgers for dinner.  We are trying to eat up all/most of the food that we have in the fridge/freezer since we are not certain when the boat gets pulled whether we will have power to keep the fridge cooling for long.   We relaxed and lazed around the boat all evening before retiring early.   

6/5/21 - St Simon Island to Darien GA (Two Way Fish Camp)

It was another lovely morning at Morningstar marina at St Simon Island.   When we had gone to sleep last night the rollers were coming in fairly large again rocking us to sleep.   However, over night the winds had died down and the water was now very calm.  The usual cup of joe on the deck accompanied another rising of the sun....what will today bring?  

Another sunrise from St Simons

We drove in towards downtown to attend the 7am meeting at 'The Tabby House' the local AA clubhouse.  It was a fairly small meeting with about a dozen folks but a good way to start the day.  

'The Tabby House' token given to out of town guests

Back at the marina, we had reserved their courtesy car for 9am and had planned to have Renee follow Erik to Two Way Fish Camp in Darien (about 18 miles by road) where we would drop off the loaner vehicle from our newfound AGLCA friend.   As soon as we returned back to the marina we finished preps for shoving off.  We left the dock a few minutes after 10am and started our slow, winding cruise through the intracoastal waterway channels.   We cruised on the port engine only, except when leaving the dock and entering into the destination marina.   The tide was going out and in this area of the waterways it is a very large variance (6'-8' rise/fall) creating quite a current that we were cruising against.   These two things combined had us moving along at a whopping 8 mph most of the trip.  Around many bends in the marshy landscape we cruised as the heat and humidity rose and the biting flies started converging on us.  ugh!  

Folks refer to these as 'flies'
Erik prefers to call them 'little bastards'

It was a pretty boring trip with us paying very close attention to a combination of Navionics 'automatic' tracks as well as a new set of tracks that Renee had downloaded last night from a boater (Bob423) that everyone swears by as being the best....Bob did a good job of keeping us from running aground again!  

Our Navionics route today based on Bob423 tracks....Thanks Bob!

We arrived at our destination for the day at 12:30pm.  This place definitely lives up to its name as a 'fish camp'.  Pretty sparse and certainly nothing like the last few marinas we have been at; rough docks, shady electric and some hooptie boats.  No free beer either!  ;-)  They do have a very highly rated restaurant, 'Mudcat Charlies', that we will for sure be trying out at some point while we are here for at least several days.   Walking around the grounds of the restaurant, marina and repair yard while letting Riva do her business it became obvious that we were away form the coast and in true low county now...the flies were whispering this in our ears and making us very aware of it.  Beneath the outside dining deck of the restaurant we spotted the alligator who is a quasi mascot of the place, actually a couple of them.  

Riva faced gator 

real gator under restaurant deck
Renee decided to NOT take a dip to cool off after seeing this! 

After investigating the grounds and having a friendly chat with a family visiting from Pittsburgh we retreated from the heat and insects to the cool A/C of the boat.   The remainder of the afternoon was spent relaxing while working on blogs, trying to figure out how to make videos imbedded in the blogs work (errrr) and doing some planning.  

An early dinner (for us at least while we are aboard....we always seem to end up eating at 8pm or after) was followed by more work on this blog, more planning and catching up on a few work things.  Before the sun sets, we are likely going to take Riva up and also get ourselves showered up so that we do not have to leave the boat and risk getting eaten by the swamp bugs!     

Tomorrow we are thinking that we will likely take the loaner vehicle we have and head into Savannah which is about 60 miles away by car.  We are looking forward to seeing that historic and beautiful city.  

    

6/4/21 - St Simon GA, Morningstar Marina / Our kinda town

Sunrise at Morning Star marina, St Simon Island

We decided that since the marina in Darien GA (Two Way Fish Camp) cannot pull the boat out until Monday and we enjoyed St Simon so much yesterday that we would stay another night here and not leave for our next stop to HOPEFULLY get service until Saturday.  

We all slept like babies with swells coming into the sound and rocking us gently.   Late last night before going to sleep Erik had sent emails out to the two AGLCA (American Great Loopers Association) 'Harbor Hosts' in the area, one in Brunswick and one in St. Simon, to inquire whether either could possibly help us with transportation to get a rental car since we know now that we may be laid up in Darien for multiple days.  We are thinking maybe we will drive to Savannah and tour it while the boat is out of the water being worked on.   Within a few hours, and in the middle of the night, both had already responded with willingness to help out.   By 6am Tom, the Harbor Host in St Simon started texting Erik's phone for him to call him.   Without any hesitation Tom offered us the use of his Ford Expedition for as long as we needed it!   He was out of state in Pennsylvania but made arrangements for his mother to come to the marina to pick us up and get us to the vehicle.  WOW!  How nice was that?!?!  He even stated that if for any reason we cannot stay on the boat while it is being worked on in Darien we were welcome to stay aboard his 44' Chris Craft Constellation if needed.   Nice folks.   We now have wheels to do whatever we need :-)   

After a little early morning dock walking, morning coffee and another nice sunrise we got our stuff ready to head to the beach.  On the way to the beach we passed by an AA clubhouse where there were several people outside talking.   We stopped in to chat for a few minutes with a few friends of Bills.  They had just finished up with the 7am morning meeting.   We plan to go back the meeting tomorrow morning.  

St Simon East Beach is dog friendly between the hours of 6am-9am and after 6pm.   We were excited to see how Riva would react to the beach and all the new sites, sounds and feels.   It was a beautiful morning and there were many other doggy pals for her to engage with.   The majority of the other dogs are much better mannered than our little pipsqueek; they were allowed off leash to run and roam freely.  We had to keep Riva leashed because she does not have the best of manners....nice to all dogs but a little to high strung.   She frolicked and played in the sand, in the waves and with the other dogs.   We knew she was going to nap hard when we got home!

  

Riva found many new friends at the beach

this put was maybe even more excited than Riva! 

Riva is thinking of becoming a vegetarian and trying out the seaweed diet

After the 2.8 mile ride home from the beach, which once again Riva did perfectly on in her little basket, we had some late breakfast and chilled around the boat for a while.   Renee finished up her school work and Erik worked on yesterdays blog that we were behind on.   Shortly after the noon hour we left Riva aboard to continue napping and recuperating while we went up and relaxed at the pool for an hour or so.   The water in the pool was surprisingly cool and refreshing given the very hot temperatures.

Pool time

After grilling out an early dinner we drove back into St Simon downtown in our newly acquired loaner car to do some people watching and enjoy the sunset from the pier.   Downtown was again teaming with people; apparently the week after school gets out of session is a very busy time.   It was a fairly cloudy evening, so much so that it made for a pretty unspectacular sunset :-(.   We walked the downtown streets for a while after sunset and polished off the night with ice cream cones....I know, hard to believe with us...right?   lol.   

Even non spectacular sunsets make us smile 

 

   

6/3/21 - Brunswick GA to St Simons Island GA

We awoke our usual early-thirty, had our coffee, ate breakfast, pumped out our holding tank and did a load of laundry (Free laundry facilities at Brunswick Landing Marina were nice) before departing for a short trip to St Simons Island (Morning Star Marina).   The trip today was only about 11 miles across the sound which is a good thing given that we ran on just one engine the majority of the time except for while docking.   Today's trip went without incident....no engine fluid explosions.....no groundings....just smooth cruising.   After about 74 minutes we arrived at Morning Star Marina and were shown to our transient slip which was on the outside wall of the marina at the far end of the gas dock.   

Pic from the middle of the bridge riding from our marina over to St Simon downtown

After checking in and acquainting ourselves with the marina facilities we got the bikes off of the boat and headed into the downtown St Simons area which was across a short bridge and a 2.8 mile ride.   It was a very nice ride with VERY pedestrian and bike friendly paths (unlike Brunswick....by far the least ped friendly city we've visited!).   The ride brought us by a couple of spectacular looking golf courses, through some neighborhoods with what we are sure are extremely high dollar homes, and through several areas of beautiful moss covered trees.   We had set our gps for the ride to get us to the St Simon Lighthouse.   Upon arriving another couple were taking selfies in front on the lighthouse so we offered to take their picture in exchange for them taking ours....we realized we had not taken many pictures at all thus far with us in them.   It was a beautiful lighthouse with a rich history.   

Beautiful lighthouse with much history

See....we really are on this trip! 

View from another angle

We found a job for Barb, our neighbor, who says St Simon is one of her favorite places
We just need to teach her to swim now....lol

Flowers...just because they are pretty :-) 

We left our bicycles by the lighthouse and walked along the Atlantic boardwalk enjoying more of the scenery of the beautiful trees, a city water park and to the city pier.   Out on the pier many people were trying their luck at fishing and crabbing.   We saw a couple of small fish get reeled in.  Just offshore of St Simon Island, and very visible from the pier area, was the site of the 2019 ship wreck of the 'Golden Ray'.   The salvage and cleanup operation is still going strong and according to a workboat captain I had spoke with earlier in the morning before departing from Brunswick Landing will likely be active for at least another year.   I did a little more internet research on the wreck to learn more about how it happened and also what the losses/costs were.    it was a 620 foot long, 17 story, car carrying ship that was loaded with 4200 new automobiles.  The cause had to do with improper loading that made the 17 story tall ship list and eventually tip completely over.....oops!   The estimated losses were 80 million for the ship itself, 80 million for the lost automobiles and 240 million for the cleanup and salvage operation.   I wonder if the captain of that ship and/or the engineers who were in charge of the loading still have jobs?   We sure hope that our grounding the other day doesn't end up having that many 0's on the end of the price tag...lol.  We did a little shop walking and Renee bought a pair of earrings and a hat/shirt combo.   We finished out our walk downtown with some a Reesees/toffee/caramel gelato.  

St Simons Pier with the salvage operation of the 'Golden Ray' in the background

Selfie time

Lighthouse from the pier 

Anyone in the market for a new car? 

The trunk of this tree downtown was interesting

After a late afternoon break in the AC back at the boat we took Riva on a short bike ride back across the bridge and to a nice little park where we played fetch and walked around for a bit.   There were many other dogs in the park who apparently were MUCH better trained than Riva who had to remain on her leash most of the time.   Riva has quickly learned to love riding in the front basket of the bike....she's just adorable!  

Riva the Diva riding in our basket like a champ

Small park across the bridge from our marina where we took Riva for a walk

Back at the boat we prepared and grilled shish kabobs for a late dinner.   The wind direction and speed made for significant rolling waves coming into the area of the marina and since we were on the outside wall the boat was rocking and rolling pretty good.   We were unsure whether this would affect our sleep but the more we sat and relaxed in our recliners after dinner it became apparent by the fact that neither of us could manage to keep our eyes open that it was likely not going to hinder sleep for us too badly.  

View from the clubhouse of the marina at night looking down on the walkway out to the boat

 

This guy was guarding our boat while we were showering