Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Isle of Hope Marina, Savannah Georgia

We left Kilkenney Creek by ourselves without a hitch and sailed off. Just as we were entering the ICW a big barge was coming through. Garth let him go ahead and we followed him all the way through the Florida Passage and then through Hell's Gate. I hate the name of some of these places - Hell's Gate - I imagined it being like the Niagara River with whirlpools and currents flowing in and out. It was a piece of cake.
Two good days in a row!!! YEAH.

The coast guard alerts have simmered down - today there was just floating trees, a shrimp boat sunk at the dock in Jekyll and some navigational lights were out on a bridge we had long passed.
We learned that the bridges have red, yellow and green lights. You have to request that the bridge open then wait for the green light.

We arrived at the Isle of Hope around 11:30, Doug and Judy from "Moonstruck" are just ahead of us on the dock. It is sooooo nice to see a familiar face and have a chat upon arriving. They came right through from Jekyll as they have a speedier boat. Once we got settled I had a sleep, getting up at 6:30 was not part of my retirement plan but it makes sense to get up, get going and land early.  We made arrangements to meet Doug and Judy in Savannah for dinner at 7. Garth rented a car for the week that we are here and off we went. It was just a quick trip in and later in the week we plan to discover more of it. Our friends Sylvia and Dennis from Napanee have given us the heads up on places to go and things to see.




Last night (Tuesday) Doug and Judy came over for dinner and we fired up the BBQ. had a great evening. Today is change the clamp day - Doug heard a beep the other day when he was standing at the back of the boat talking to us and that sent Garth on a hunt. He discovered several rotten clamps on the raw water intake that the surveyor had missed. Although they are not the cause of the beep they were in desperate need of replacing so that is todays job. As soon as that is finished we are off to -- WEST MARINE- to replace them so that we have more spares!!!  We also had "boat cards" made up and hopefully they will be ready today so that we can join the crowd.

We have booked a marina in Norfolk West Virginia for the "Loopers Rendezvous" May 13-18th. They have seminars and information for all of the crazy people doing this. As Garth says " we are all Bozo's in the same boat"

 The barge we followed all the way

Garth at the helm - auto pilot I hope!

ICW markers we followed -RED TO PORT

SAVANNAH

Zekes favorite place! Looking at all that water!