Southward

 12/4- We spent several days at Lady’s Island. We had our friends from West Bolton, Mark and Jen , stop by for a visit. They took us over to Beaufort for lunch and to walk around the town. We did some provisioning and I gave some love to Mr Perkins. It was a nice place to stop for a while as everything that you could want was right there. There was a hardware store and a Dollar Tree practically across the street. Plus the marina had a courtesy car so we could drive down to the Walmart and the grocery store. It was nice also hanging out with folks on the dock. 

    We left Monday morning around 9 and got out in the river and did the swing bridge dance while we waited for the 10 opening. The bridge went to only opening on the hour starting in December. We usually have to swing around several times especially in the current as it’s hard to make the boat sit still. At least here there was lots of room and not many other boats. 

    It was a nice day with few trouble spots for us to worry about. I did see a whole flock of Northern Gannets. These are large goose sized birds that crash into the water to catch fish. They are mostly white with black feathers on their wings. 

   We went by Parris Island which is the main training base for the Marine Corps. This is where thousands of GI’s went through basic training in WW 2 and where many more have gone through since. 

    As a juxtaposition to that we next went by Hilton Head where millions of people also storm the beaches. Only they are using sun block not camo paint on their faces. They even have a Disney park on the island. 

    We had the current against us almost all day so traveling was slow. We finally pulled into our anchorage at Coopers River around 3:30. This is another anchorage that is in the middle of a large marsh. The wind had piped up to oppose the current so we had to take a while longer to get the anchor to set properly. We can see the lights of Savanna off in the distance but other than that not much else. We have several noted trouble spots to get through tomorrow including Hell Gate which fortunately we hope to hit at high tide. We will also go by Savanna which is a big commercial port with many large freighters we will try to avoid. 

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