Georgia

Beaufort, SC (pronounced bew-fort, while Beaufort, NC is pronounced bow-fort). We had been told by some cruisers that Beaufort hosts a community Thanksgiving every year and all the cruisers are invited. We thought we better check this out. We arrived just outside of the city on Nov. 23^rd in the evening. While trying to anchor, I did not pull in the lines that we use to tow the dinghy, and all the sudden the motor stops… I knew exactly what happened – I fowled the prop with the dinghy tow lines. Annoying! But easy to fix with an outboard motor. We had to cut the line and then lift the motor out of the well and then untangle the line around propeller. We had the motor back in the well and finished anchoring 15 minutes later…. Lesson learned – always make sure lines out of the water when running motor. We went over to Chautuauqua for dinner… we are all running low on food now! Dad managed to cook up a delicious frittata with baked beans. It seems the less food they have the more creative and delicious the meals! The plan was for my parents to stay at a marina the next day so that we would have access to their courtesy car to get groceries. So the next morning we left early and went under the bridge. We both filled up on gas. Sal and I went to the free day dock because we were planning to anchor for the night to save some money. We took a trip to the grocery store – Sal was our driver! It was so busy I guess because everyone was doing their Thanksgiving shopping. We only had 1 hour use of the car so we hurried our way down the isles. It feels good to have fresh fruits and veggies and stocked up with food (and a bit of candy/ junk food J) Sal and I headed out to anchor…but it was almost low tide (almost 9 foot tidal range) and we could not find a spot to anchor under 20 feet!! We don’t have enough anchor rode to anchor securely in anything over 25 feet so we bit the bullet and paid for a slip in the marina. Some very neat stores in Beaufort…could have easily spent a lot of money, but nowhere to put any purchases.

(Beaufort had a beautiful waterfront)

As soon as we were about to fall asleep tied safetly to the dock the karaoke from a nearby bar started……. Ohh man it was bad and sooo loud. We weren’t able to fall asleep! The next day, we realized that we should have been out there at the bar instead of sleeping!! We’ve turned into boring people going to bed around 9 30pm each day and waking up at 630am!

(We didn't see any yet though)

Thanksgiving day. (which was a Thursday – weird!) We got up and cleaned up the boats a bit with the fresh water from the docks…then we headed down to the church in Beaufort at noon where they served Thanksgiving lunch. We were seated and served sweet tea, water, or coffee and a plate with turkey and all the fixings. A delicious meal shared with people from the community. The one lady at our table was very interested in Salomon because she had spent some time in Nicaragua. Everyone was very kind. To finish the meal off we each had a dessert, there was a selection of pies, brownies and cakes to chose from. We got a delicious meal, dad didn’t have to cook a turkey and there were no dishes to clean up!

(Thanksgiving Dinner)

We left Beaufort in the afternoon and anchored just our two boats behind a couple of islands in Skull Creek. The next day we entered Georgia. We crossed the boarder in pouring rain and had a long wet day of motoring. That night a cold front came in and yesterday (Nov 27^th) was one of the coldest days in a long time. Back to our 5 layers, mitts, toques and scarves! It was a sunny day, but didn’t feel warm until well into the afternoon, the north wind kept everything very cool! Today (Nov 28) we are a little bit warmer but we just want to be wearing our shorts again!

(Sal saw some 1 legged birds - well they have 2 but only stand on 1 at a time)