May 15, 2022
Brunswick Landing Marina, in Brunswick, Georgia
Brunswick is a charming, old town, and we had visited them briefly on a road trip this year. The marina is huge, stretching a full mile along the river! While on the river, we encountered our first annoying insects of the season – horse flies! They started out with one, then two, then a swarm. We are luc to have an enclosed, air conditioned driving station in the pilot house. So, we closed all the doors and windows and retreated!
We arrived on Sunday, and turns out nothing much was open! One restaurant, Reid’s Pharmacy, isn’t a pharmacy anymore, but is a very nice, relaxed, attractive restaurant. On Sundays, they offer a full dinner, with dessert, for $10.95! A real bargain. We had a very nice meal,with wine. The restaurant was busy – no reservations were available, but we went on a standby list for seats at the bar. We went for a walk while waiting, got about one block away, and received the call to come back!
The only other thing that seemed to be happening downtown that evening was a dance recital – cute little girls in tutus with their parents arriving at the theatre.
Next morning, we departed, to continue our journey on the Georgia portion of the waterway – not very long.
May 16, 2022 Anchorage in Duplin River.
Not much to say, except that it was pretty and quiet. Excellent holding for our anchor, so we got a good night’s sleep.
May 17, 2022 Anchored in Wahlburg Creek
Another good anchorage, quiet, good holding for the anchor. We picked this spot because it is close to the Sunbury Crab and Marina, a place highly recommended by a few boaters.
May 18, 2022 Sunbury Crab and Marina
Such beautiful country there. We arrived aroud noon. One young man, dressed in loose clothing and rubber boots, helped us dock. One reason we wanted to come here is that their diesel fuel was reputed to be low at $5.399. We got that information from good sources, Waterway Guide and people who always stopped there. We only needed 100 gallons (We hold a total of 500 gallons!). At these times of rapidly rising costs, we decided to top off at Sunbury.
The pump wasn’t at the dock, but in a
room higher up on the dock. The young
man, Clay, pumped the gas – we both walked over and looked at the pump – the
price on the pump was old. We offered
our credit card, but Clay said we should settle up at dinner that night. With that, he hopped into his crab boat and
took off for parts unknown to us! The
young man was Clay, and he turned out to be the owners’ son. He had been left to run the place while his
folks were out of town for the day.
We had a nice relaxing afternoon. There was a very comfortable porch swing on their covered dock, which I utilized for a while! Another boat came in around 3, another Looper called Trinity. We made arrangements to meet them for dinner at 5.
We had a lovely dinner and conversation with the boaters, CJ and Stick. We were presented for a bill for the dockage and diesel – the diesel price was $6.75!! – yeowch! Dan asked Clay (who, by the way, had not only caught the blue crab served that evening, but was in the kitchen cooking them!) about the diesel price and the Waterway Guide information. He said that Waterway Guide had not contacted them for their fuel price recently. He offered us some coosies and a shirt to compensate for our surprise. We learned something that day – CALL the marina about their fuel price!!
With the exception of the fuel price shock, we really enjoyed our stay.
5/18/2022 Savannah, Georgia – one of our favorite cities!
We read about various marinas in the Savannah area, but we wanted to be IN the city! There were three choices in the downtown Savannah area. (1) was at the Westin Hotel, one on either side of the Savannah River, (2) a commercial marina on Savannah’s River Street, charging $2.50 per foot, with only electricity – no restroom/showers/laundry, or (3) the Savannah City Dock, FREE!, also offering only electricity. We quickly decided that, if there was room (no reservations, only first come, first serve), that was where we wanted to stay! We arrived rather late (6:00, after a long day’s cruise), and there was no other boat on the dock! Yay! In reviews about the dockage on the river, some folks said it was really rolly from tugboats and other commercial craft and small sports craft. We have had plenty of experience with rolly dockages, so had few qualms about staying there. We docked with little problem, put out four fender balls, tied four lines to their docks. Right after we got settled, we saw a tugboat coming, so waited to see the effect from their passage. Yes, we rocked and rolled a bit, but our boat never touched the dock – docking job well done!
We were hot, sweaty, and tired after our long day. Fortunately, there were about 8-10 places to eat right there by our boat! We picked a bar with fresh seafood – I got the Low Country Boil, and Dan ordered something similar. We ate our fill – we actually had enough for two meals! After strolling around a bit, we relaxed for the rest of the evening and turned in early.
After a very quiet night, we got up ready to see what we could see. We had one full day there. We first went to Two Cracked Eggs for a delicious breakfast. Our e-bikes then carried us all over the historical portion of Savannah! We stopped for pictures, or just to check out something closer. But, we made it to almost all of the historical squares (about 16, I think). So beautiful, even though the prime flowering season was earlier in the year. There were still plenty of flowers, though. It’s impressive to me how much land Savannah has dedicated to beautiful wooded, landscaped park lands. We remembered a place from a previous visit, but couldn’t remember the name or location….! After asking around and some Google research, we found it! It’s called the Gryphon Tea Room. It is lovely, with a Tiffany glass dome and lovely old décor – lots of wood and crystal. It used to be a pharmacy, way back in time…I sense a theme – old pharmacys! The inside tables were all reserved for lunch, but we sat outside and had a refreshing drink.
We ended our bike tour in the City Market. We strolled around, got a Pina Colada with moonshine! As we sat for a bit to watch people (one of our favorite sports!), I spoke to a young couple about the pizza they had just eaten. I asked if it was the best they’d ever had or just ok. They looked at each other, and said it was fine but the best pizza is Detroit pizza! Turns out they live near us in Royal Oak! We discussed the best places for pizza in our home area. They just hopped on a plane for a few days’ getaway to Savannah. We meet the nicest people on our journey!
Before going back to the boat, we stopped at an Irish bar – we had hoped it was the same company that we remembered at a different location during our previous visit. We had our taste buds set for a Scotch egg… Nope, this place only served liquor. OK! So, we had a couple of drinks, joked around with the bartender and fellow bar sitters, then returned to the boat.
It was still early evening, so, realizing that we were in a larg-ish city that probably had a TMobile office downtown, we decided to deal with an issue we had with a TMobile device we had purchased. We walked to the office, acquired a different device (at no extra cost?!). After returning to the boat that time, we were really tired. Plus, we had a long cruise for the next day – early to bed!
May 20, 2022 Beaufort, South Carolina
Note: this town’s name is pronounced Bew-fort. The same named town in North Carolina is pronounced BO-fort.
We landed at the Safe Harbor Marina in very high winds. As my very skilled captain edged our boat into the dock, the dockhand motioned to me to lower the fender ball I had hung….lower, he signaled, lower! So, I lowered all the balls until they were touching the water! He was right. The dock was only about 12 inches thick, and with the heavy winds pushing us on to the dock, we would never be able to reposition them! We were impressed with the young dockhands, and they were impressed with us!!
We had arrived around 2:00. Even though we were tired, we wanted to go somewhere for a meal. The woman in the Ship Store recommended Heminways, a local favorite, only about 100 yards from the marina! We absolutely LOVED this place. We had some French onion soup and split a meatloaf sandwich. A couple of beers polished off our lunch. The place was full, and we soon realized why – they had a singer there with a guitar who was terrific! He did everything from Johnny Cash to James Taylor to Prince! We sat there until he quit at 5, retired to our boat for some needed rest. I got a load of wash done, took a shower (in not very warm water), defrosted the fridge, and quit for the night!
Next morning, we filled our water tanks, got a needed pump out of our sanitary tanks, and took off. We were really sorry not to have more time. The town looked very pretty and interesting – we just didn’t have the time this trip – we will be back, either on the water or by road.
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