Day 219
The morning of Saturday, 04/17/21, Steve went outside the salon and quickly returned, cursing about the clouds of No-seeums he’d encountered. He strongly suggested we both coat ourselves in bug spray, and even dawn our Covid masks to keep the hoards of tiny terrors out of our noses and mouths. UGH!! At 8:45 am, we felt our way through the fog of insects and pulled away from the dock in slightly warmer, humid weather conditions and glass-smooth waters on Blackbeard Creek. The sun worked hard to make an appearance that morning, as we headed back down Blackbeard Creek out into St. Catherine’s Sound toward the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic Ocean, to our east, looked so placid and peaceful this morning, compared to what it looked like yesterday afternoon. Like an entirely different body of water! We turned to port, from east to north, into the Bear River, which separates the mainland from Ossabaw Island and the Ossabaw Island Wildlife Management Area. The sun finally succeeded in coming out about an hour into our trip, and felt amazing shining down on Legacy and her crew. We opened the two front flybridge windows to cool things down and to blow out the rest of the bugs we’d picked up in Sunbury last night. The water continued to be like glass and dolphins were suddenly everywhere around us. Life was GOOD.
As we cruised along, enjoying the sights and scents of the southern Georgia coast, it finally occurred to me that if it’s a coastal river, it’s most likely a WIDE river (often resembling a lake). I felt quite proud of my little epiphany, and mentioned it to Steve, who replied with a DUH… We continued traveling through endless marshes; very sparsely populated and isolated-looking areas. We traversed the entire western side of Ossabaw Island up into the Ogeechee River, going around Raccoon Key on the Little Ogeechee River, heading toward Green Island. Past Green Island, we cruised northward up the Vernon River.
We turned to starboard off the Vernon River onto Moon River (yep, it’s THAT Moon River…😊) to travel on the western side of Skidaway Island, and began to see the outskirts of Savannah, GA, bedroom communities. As we proceeded, we passed more and more coastal Georgia water-front homes. Some are grand and some are humble. The closer we got to Savannah on the Skidaway River, the more stately and palatial the water-front homes are. We cruised past Skidaway Island State Park and passed the Isle of Hope Marina, where Steve had tried to reserve us a space, but they were already full when he called. We’d heard good things about Isle of Hope, but did note that it was a ways out from Savannah, and so would mean a much more expensive Uber or Lyft ride in and back from town. (Yes, that’s something we always have to consider in this new lifestyle. Something that was never an issue when we lived land-based and had our own vehicles at our disposal.) Nevertheless, Isle of Hope Marina appeared very beautiful from our vantage point out on the Skidaway River, and we discussed possibly staying there when we come back down this fall. Speaking of pretty, we both loved the outskirts of Savannah, as the area is beautiful! We passed the impressive Savannah Country Club, we then turned to port and headed westwardly on the Wilmington River.
We arrived at Thunderbolt Marina, in tiny Thunderbolt, GA, just south of Savannah proper, at 2:30 pm. After fueling up (a long, tedious process – since we have three separate tanks – where we dawn our headsets to communicate, and I control the diesel pump handle from above, and Steve goes below into the engine room to watch the gauges and let me know when to stop fueling to prevent overflow. We’ve learned the hard way that we do NOT want diesel overflowing onto the decks), we tied up on the inside of the transient wall to spend several nights. The bugs were more sparse in Thunderbolt than in Sunbury, though still annoyingly present.
After a boat washdown and a good inside boat-vacuuming, we showered and then walked up the street to Tubby’s Tank House Restaurant for dinner. Huge Live Oak trees draped with Spanish Moss continued to abound all around us. We marveled at how so many people seem not to mind the Noseeums that incessantly surround their every outdoor move. People just sit around outside, unconsciously scratching themselves non-stop. In fact, when we got to the restaurant, we realized more people were eating outside rather than inside! (We elected to dine inside, of course.) What was humorous, though, was the cans of Off! bug spray that graced every outdoor table as a kind of centerpiece. 😊 Lovely – the perfect accompaniment to any outdoor dining experience!
Position: N 32° 01.497, W 81° 02.827
Distance traveled: 45 SM
Total distance traveled: 3141 SM
Total marina nights: 196
Total nights at anchor: 22
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27