Larry's Musings

Did you know why South Carolina is called the Palmetto State?

This nickname refers to South Carolina's official State Tree, the Sabal Palmetto (Inodes Palmetto), commonly referred to as the Cabbage Palmetto.

The Palmetto is rooted in historical significance dating back to the Revolutionary War. On June 28, 1776, the British fleet's attack on Sullivan's Island, located in Charleston Harbor, was repulsed.  Under Colonel William Moultrie’s command the spongy Palmetto-log fort withstood the barrage of British cannons until the fleet retreated. 

The Sabal Palmetto Palm was added to the National Flag of South Carolina, after it seceded from the union in 1861 due to acts of northern aggression.  

 

One other small item before Lauren Grace crosses into waters of North Carolina. It evidently is a little known fact (even by most locals) that South Carolina was also known as “The Iodine State”.  Perhaps you are wondering why.   Well, I have researched it for you; it was due to the large percentages of iodine found in the vegetation growing in the state.

The chemical element iodine derives its name from the violet color of its gaseous form.  A rare element (sixty-second in global abundance), it occurs naturally as a trace chemical in certain soils, rocks, seawater, plants, and animals.  In humans, it is largely found in the thyroid gland, which secretes iodine-bearing hormones responsible for regulating metabolism.  A deficiency of iodine causes an unsightly swelling of the neck and jaw known as a goiter.  Not a good thing to have.

In the late 1920s, the South Carolina Natural Resources Commission began a public relations campaign to advertise the high iodine levels found in fruits, vegetables and milk products from the Iodine state.

Even low country moonshiners around Hell Hole Swamp jumped on the iodine bandwagon, advertising their brand of corn liquid with the slogan: “Not a Goiter in a Gallon”.  As I said before no one wants a Goiter.  So now you know

 

 

 

To Hilton Head and Beyond

For us one of the advantages to being on this coast was being close enough to just pop by to visit with our friends in Hilton Head.  Many of you reading this will remember Kurt and Ann our dear friends who moved down to South Carolina almost fifteen years ago.  Leaving Savannah we were just a short day's travel from Hilton Head and we were excited to spend some time catching up before moving further north.  There is nothing quite like spending a perfect day with old friends and ending it watching the moonrise over the ocean.

Moonrise over the Atlantic

Sadly the time came to move on and we headed up to Beaufort for the evening.  Beaufort SC is one of our favorite stops, unfortunately this time we were only able to spend a day before moving on again.  What a fun day it was though.  As we pulled up to the dock we were greeted by a voice saying, "Is that Captain Larry driving that boat?" and we saw the smiling faces of Terry & Lola aboard Sunny Days that crossed the Gulf of Mexico with us.  The dockmaster was down on the dock to move a couple of boats to make room for us so of course there was some good natured kidding about if they should take our lines or not since, you know, they don't allow troublemakers here.  They determined that we had been "approved" and we enjoyed a nice evening visiting and learning where each other had been since Dunedin.  Thanks Lola and Terry!

Once again we were saved by the kindness of strangers.  We had walked about half a mile to Publix to get some coffee - which, of course, we had forgotten when we were doing provisioning in Hilton Head.  As we were starting back it started to rain, we weren't totally unprepared because we had the foresight to carry our slickers, but as we were crossing a side street a woman in the intersection rolled down her window and asked if we would like a ride to the marina.  A little surprised I replied, "sure if it isn't too much trouble", and, of course, it wasn't so we got a lift and by the time we were back (which was maybe two minutes) the rain had quit and we didn't even get wet carrying things down to the boat.  We continue to be blessed by meeting the nicest people.

The next day found us moving on again and that night we had our last anchorage in sawgrass country.  Tom Point Creek, about halfway between Beaufort and Charleston, is a favorite spot and it was just as pretty as it was the last time we were there seven years ago.  We like it because we often see a lot of dolphins there.  Back when we were fairly new at cruising a local fellow out for a evening boat ride with his little grandchildren told us that many porpoises come to this creek to give birth and then they raise their babies here and teach them how to feed by herding fish into a corner for them.  We didn't observe any feeding behavior this trip but it is still lovely there.  We didn't see another boat and thought we had the whole place to ourselves until we were leaving the next morning and saw a sailboat anchored a couple of turns closer to the waterway than the spot we like.

We only had a short distance to go after we left Tom Point Creek to get to a marina just outside of Charleston.  We didn't linger in Charleston though because we have friends expecting us in North Carolina and we still wanted a couple of days to anchor and hang out a bit further upstream.  The following morning found us motoring past the Battery as we moved through Charleston Harbor on our way to the ICW to continue north.  Normally we anchor the first night out of Charleston, but thunderstorms were forecast and that is a very open anchorage so we moved along as quickly as we could - with the help of a little 'push' from the tide.  We spent the night safely tied to a dock in Georgetown, SC (waiting for thunderstorms that never came) before we  headed up the beautiful Waccamaw River.   More about that next time.

Larry's Musings

​ I was recently asked why Isle of Hope was called Isle of Hope, and since I was there here's what I found

 Isle of Hope (L' Isle Desperance)

It is stated people have found refuge at L' Isle Desperance (Isle of Hope), which was an island at high tide and easily defended due to swamps, gators, snakes, bugs and other crawly, biting, stinging things.  Prior to1720’s the French are credited with some of the first colonization of this Isle. French Hugenauts who came here to escape religious persecution in predominately Catholic nations/states, mainly Europe at the time (the version I found).  

Supposedly many pirates buried their loot here, as well as took refuge from the Navies of the time. Whose Navy is your choice, as the Colonials and British early on referred to them as Privateers, but not the Spanish?  Must be lots of loot still out there as I can find no reference to it ever being found.

The English Occupation - In 1733, when General James Edward Ogelthorpe founded the Georgia colony a surveyor named Noble Jones was granted a tract on the island that was eventually named Wormsloe.  This was possibly after an English estate but more probably due to the mulberry trees that were grown there, the worms of which, it was hoped, would form the basis for a silk industry.  The Isle was defended from Indians, Pirates, Spanish, and I guess all other comers, up through the revolutionary war period. 

I never could find out what became of French Hugenauts escaping religious persecution.

So now you know all about early founding of Isle of Hope.  For us it was a nice laid back restful stop although it still has some crawly biting things.

Larry

Moving Through Georgia

 

 So when the “big storm” finally arrived with a whimper we left our safe little dock behind and continued north through the Georgia sawgrass.  What, you ask, is sawgrass.  Actually it is not a grass at all it is a sedge of the genus Cladium, which grows in profusion in wet and infertile soils.  In coastal Georgia (and much of South Carolina) there are very few trees along the rivers and salt marshes.  The marsh (or swamp, or wetlands, depending on your persuasion) supports the growth of the this grass-like plant.  The undergrowth of newer grass is green, but the top portion of the grass has a golden hue.  Through the sawgrass run ribbons of water, some of it’s navigable and some ribbons are just dead end creeks that may, or may not, be deep enough to anchor in.


Miles and miles of grass

 

 

The first trip we made up this way I did not enjoy it at all, I must admit ,however, that it has grown on me.  I will never like it as much as the wooded banks of the Tennessee River but it does have its own appeal.  The other thing about Georgia is that the many small rivers connect with the large sounds which provide access to the Atlantic.  It is not generally reliable or "good" ocean access due to the extremely strong currents and large tidal swings contributing to the shifting sands where the river meets the sea.  The ICW leads a boater through these sounds to the next river or creek to continue the journey north or south.  In the wrong kind of winds these generally shallow sounds can whip up significant waves fairly quickly - which is not, as you might guess, all that much fun.  In addition, at a couple of locations the route through the sound leads us nearly out to sea before we turn up the river.  If the tide and the wind are opposing each other this can lead to an “interesting” ride.  In some weather conditions a fog can roll in off of the sea and generally obscure our vision as we search for the navigation marks.  Generally we try to avoid moving in “ugly” conditions;  but even in good weather this is an area that commands our full respect and attention.

 

Beautiful golden hue in the afternoon sun

 

This time though the weather was nearly perfect, the tides were giving us a nice “push” for much of the way (as opposed to running against us and slowing us down).  We were happy to run 62 miles and anchor in a favorite creek that we found on our first trip through back in 2007.

 

 

 

Sawgrass as far as you can see from our anchorage

Only one other boat in our anchorage

We were treated to a beautiful sunset and a peaceful night.  In anchorages like this, away from the lights of most civilization, we see the most beautiful skies with so many stars it is unbelievable.

 



Sunset in sawgrass country

The following day we had an easy run into Isle of Hope Marina in the charming old community of Isle of Hope, just south of Savannah.  Our friends, Bill and Annie Griffin, were there and we were invited to celebrate Bill’s birthday with them at a baseball game.  We had box seats for the Savannah Sand Gnats against the Rome Braves.  We enjoyed some really good baseball – and the home team won!  Sandy even came to give the birthday boy a high-five.  Other friends arrived and we had a good time catching up with each other and on mutual friends that we each had seen recently.  The boating community is small enough that we share many friends and although we aren’t necessarily in the same ports at the same time it is easy to stay connected.

Sandy helping the birthday boy celebrate

 



The Sawgrass Country

After leaving Jacksonville we passed through a low marshy area of the waterway to Fernandina Beach – the last miles of Florida.  North of Fernandina, which is the northern point of Amelia Island, we entered Georgia.

Generally the first stop we make in Georgia is Cumberland Island formerly property of the Thomas Carnegie family which built an incredible mansion there in 1882.  The island separates the Atlantic Ocean from the ICW and is a wonderful stop because it provides a safe anchorage, and sightseeing on the island, which is now a National Seashore, is spectacular.  But this time we didn’t stop for a number of reasons, the most important of which was that a friend of ours from our sailing days in St. Louis was up the coast about twenty-five miles at Jekyll Island and was only going to be there one night.  We hadn’t seen Barry in a few years and wanted to hurry along to say hello before he had to return home, and so we pressed on to Jekyll Harbor Marina.

Just beyond Cumberland we motored past the U.S. Navy’s Kings Bay Submarine base and were treated to the sight of two boats lying at the quay.  It is always a thrill for us to pass by a military installation and see our flag flying proudly.   We didn’t have much time to gawk however because the navigation marks change in this area and it requires our attention to make sure we remain on course.

In Georgia it is VERY important to remain on course because the waterway is often quite shallow and the tidal swing is significant, as much as 6-8’ in most locations.  We arrived at Jekyll at the max ebb tide which means that the current is running very fast; because we had to dock perpendicular to the current it was challenging but Larry handled it with his usual skill and even received compliments from the marina staff on his docking.  The plus benefit was that we got the last slip and it right next to our friend.  We had a great evening catching up on old times.

The second reason we felt compelled to hurry along was because bad weather was in the forecast.  After spending the night at Jekyll, also a stop worth a longer look, the forecast looked good for the first half of the day and we decided to move up another 20 miles or so.  Now normally we like to put in 50-60 miles a day, well to be honest I like to put in about that much – Larry will go for much more.  In Georgia, depending on the tide cycle, this becomes really important because the tidal swings are among the highest in the country, and certainly the most extreme for where we travel.  Add to that the fact that the ICW if very poorly maintained in this area and we often need the help of the high tide in order to have adequate depth in some areas.  Thus those twenty miles put us in a good position to get a run at a very shallow section and position ourselves to traverse it near high tide.

Anyway after a couple of hours we put in at another marina.  This is a first for us because on our past trips we have generally anchored in Georgia rather than paying marina fees for a one night stop.  This trip however, the weather has been in one of those cycles where it can’t decide.  After devastating Alabama and Arkansas the big storm that was forecast to hit us sort of stalled out and flooded the Gulf Coast before it moved on over to this coast.  Thus our stop at Hidden Harbor Club was for three days and not just one night.  Still, given the punch that this storm was packing we didn’t want to challenge it. 

View from the deck of Hidden Harbor Marina

 

Hidden Harbor is just north of Brunswick, GA and proved to be a delightful rural stop, just the kind of marina we like.  The floating docks were close to the clubhouse which had comfy rockers and overstuffed sofas as well as a television and fast Wi-Fi, so we were able to catch up on all of the video and you-tube of the storm damage in locations that we are oh so familiar with.  Including Lucy’s Branch Marina up on the Tennessee River, which was destroyed in a tornado, and the flooding in Fairhope, and Pensacola where we have friends.  Luckily, with the exception of the devastation at Lucy’s Branch, all of our friends fared OK - although some were without power.

By the time it finally got Brunswick the storm had pretty much wore itself out and rather than thunderstorms and north winds at 20-25 mph all we got was cooler air and a little drizzle.  But you never know and we try to err on the side of caution.  Part of what makes our lifestyle so much fun is that we don’t travel with much of a schedule and so it is easy to be flexible.  It is often when we do something we hadn’t anticipated that we meet the most interesting people and have the most fun.

 

This and That Before The Sawgrass

  When we left Palm Coast we moved on up the Waterway to the Jacksonville Area.  The City of Jacksonville maintains a free dock on Sister's Creek just north of the ICW's intersection with the St. John's River and we stopped there for the night.  I mean it is free, right.  We worried that there might not be room for us, we needn't have.  We arrived a little after 3:00 in the afternoon and the dock was empty.  Good and bad - good because there was room, bad because there was no one on the dock to take a line.  It was a floating dock, also good and bad - good because there is considerable tidal swing in this area, bad because there were no pilings to lasso and  the cleats were way down on the water.  The tide was falling, and falling fast which was pushing us away from the dock and the wind was also working to push us off.  In a situation like this Larry brings the boat to the dock and I have to sort of flip the rope (we boater's call it a line) around the cleat and hang on; actually when the current is very strong - and it was- I have to secure the line around a cleat on Lauren Grace so that he can use the power of the engines to move the boat closer to the dock.  I'm not going to give a play by play of the whole ugly scene but let's just say that it took all of the skill we have both developed in the past 8 years to get us close enough to get three lines on so that Larry could manage to jump to the dock and grab the final line and secure the first three.  Maybe it was free for a reason!  Still, it was a nearly new facility, in the perfect spot, with trash cans, and potable city water and it didn't cost a dime.

Last time I shared about the kindness of others but we just had kindness taken to a whole new level.  A couple of hours after we arrived at the free dock a local gentleman came by and paid a visit.  Capt. Browne Altman's business card describes him as "Self appointed, unofficial, Greeter".  He is in the business of "paying forward the kindness of others".  What a kind man he is, not only did he stop by to introduce himself and see if we needed a ride to anyplace or any advice about repair technicians in the local area he even brought gifts to all of the boats on the dock (by now three more had arrived).  He moved down the line of boats chatting with each one in turn, and he was just delightful.  An old sailor himself, he has lived in the area for many years and appears to enjoy meeting the boater's that come by, he is a great ambassador for his city.We were the fartherest boat from the parking

lot and by the time he got to us he realized that the last coaster set he had with him (he weaves them from colored nylon cordage) was missing two coasters.  He asked when we were leaving and promised to return with the missing coasters, of course we thanked him and said he needn't go to any trouble.  But sure enough, just after dark when we had gone inside and closed the doors to keep out the noseeums, we heard a "Hello" and Browne was back with the coasters!  What a special memento of our brief visit with this exceptional human being.

I always look for interesting boat names.  Along the way today I saw a boat docked in front of a house on the waterway bearing the name "Knot Enough" - do you suppose there may be another boat in their future?  Another good name today was a boat that came into the dock shortly after we did, named "Mach Turtle", that one amused me as the perfect name for a slow boat.

And, as always, I looked at the homes.  I snapped a few of the more interesting examples

 

This one is quite modest but the umbrella is a nice touch.





Understated - on a "corner lot"



This one looks as though they just couldn't settle on a style.



Or a color, or an exterior finish material, or any landscaping... 



          And Finally a shot of a dry dock along the St. John's

 

 

The Kindness of Friends

Before I get to the topic of this post I have to respond to a couple of e-mail queries and report on the Iguana Oil insect repellent.  In a word it was the proverbial "snake oil".  Both of us have used it and applied it liberally before going out; both of us have about a million noseeum bites.  So no, it didn't work as advertised....perhaps if our body chemistry was different it might, but then they might not bite us anyway!

After we left Cocoa we stayed the night in the most delightful anchorage that gave us a fabulous view of the Ponce inlet just below Daytona.  We had read about this spot the last time we were on this coast and didn't stop, this time we asked a cruiser we met in Cocoa about it and after hearing first hand what a nice spot it  it was we decided to drop our hook for the night.  What a great anchorage!  We were the first boat to arrive that evening and so we had our pick of spots, and we picked poorly.  We like to anchor in 8-10 feet of water so that we don't need to lay as much chain as in deeper water (don't ask, it's just more boaty stuff and the explanation would bore you non-boaters out there).  So we picked a spot and settled in, I had my sunglasses off and was squinting when we dropped the hook.  Then after we were settled and Larry came back to the bridge I had put my glasses back on and could see a patch of paler colored water just ahead of us (aah yes,  the benefits of polarized sunglasses).  About the same time I realized that we were at high tide and it had not yet begun to ebb.   Our spot wasn't as good as we thought. The short explanation is that when the tide changed our boat would swing into that patch of shallow water and the water would drop about three feet.  We reevaluated and decided to haul up the anchor and move fifty feet the other direction, it was a pain but an hour later when the tide turned we were so glad we had.  We were especially glad when we watched a little fishing boat ground on the sand and pole themselves off!

We are now in Palm Coast, it was a stop we enjoyed a few years back and we found it just as delightful this trip.  The marina here is small and friendly, just our cup of tea.  And they remembered us and even asked after Lauren, who was a toddler the last time we were here. Naturally that places them on the "A-List". 

I have mentioned before that we belong to several boating organizations, one of those is MTOA (Marine Trawler Owners Assn.), and we knew they have a number of members in this area.  Since we were in need of a big grocery shopping trip we called the local Port Captain, Phil Lowe and his wife Sarah.  They could not have been more gracious in bringing us a car to use, inviting us to join them for dinner at the Elk's Club, and taking me to get a haircut.  By the time we had all of our chores done it was Friday, when Phil offered to find us a free dock if we wanted to avoid the weekend on the water and save a couple of days of marina fees we quickly accepted.  Once again it is the people we meet along the way that make our lifestyle so enjoyable and so special.  

Tomorrow we will leave for Fernandina Beach, then Georgia.  Much of our next week will be determined by the weather, even more so than usual.  Georgia boating is a story that deserves a posting or two so stay tuned for more on that subject.

Shots of our weekend view as seen from our sundeck

In addition to lovely homes we were treated to dolphins feeding



This is where the dolphins were feeding