We left Beach Marine on Sunday July 18th headed north to cooler weather (we hoped).   Arrived in Fernandina and had dinner at Bonitos.  Very average and with many good restaraunts there it will probably not be on my future list.  Of course The Palace Saloon was on the way back to the boat, need I say more.  Good music and libations.  Returned to the boat and had a lazy morning as we planned to stop at Jekyl Island next.

Monday we left around 1130 headed up the ditch to Jekyl.  Pretty uneventful trip except for when the captain had to use the head and was startled by the depth alarm.  Returning topside I  found we were out of the channel and if not for a quick turn (Bev really appreciated that one) we would surely have been had aground.  We arrived in the afternoon at Jekyl Harbor Marina.  This marina was a sister marina to OYCM in the 80's.  I'm not sure if it still is but I have stayed here many times as it used to be an annual cruise destination for NFCC.  They have a freindly staff with floating docks, a pool with hot tub, and a restaraunt.  They also have a curtesy car they will let you take to the store.  As well as bicycles to tour the island.  Don't be fooled into staying at the marina on the north side of the bridge (the one with the fancy historic hotel).  It has been and still is in disrepair.

The restaraunt is ok nothing special but not terrible as long as you stick to the menu and don't ask them to get creative!  Their nightly special is a low country boil.  I tend to stay away from nightly buffets as you never know what nights food you are eating.  We had some apps and beverages.  They have entertainment on the weekends.  Service was hit and miss.

Got up Tuesday morning 0600 to catch the tides with enough water for our next leg.  Started the boat and then started the genny to keep the a/c on.  However when I switched the breakers to the genny we had no power.  I turned shore power back on and secued the boat and then went in search for a mechanic.  Ed called me back and came to the boat to troubleshoot the genny.  After much troubleshooting and conversations with my Jax mechanic and NextGen we determined the lower unit that produces the ac current was dead (more on this exciting project later).  Well this took much of the day so we delayed out departure until Wednesday morning.

Same drill wednesday morning except it was going to be a bit warmer down below!  Up at 0600 and off about 0630 to make sure we had enough water.  It was only about an hour after high tide (the locals said "you aren't leaving on a falling tide are you") and we never saw less than 8 feet passing Jekyl.  In fact we had plenty of water through the next sound until we turned up north again into the ditch.  Then was saw depths of 5.5-8 feet for a couple of hours.  We never bumped although I was about 90% sure we were going to be stuck somewhere in the middile of georgia for quite a while.  It was not quite low and we were seeing these depths.  They really need to dredge a coule of areas in Georgia.

After a long day on the water we finnaly had Savannah clearly in our sights.  The first sign was the Skidaway Island Bridge.  We had successfully made up for the lost time at Jekyl (weather permitted).  The crusing guide accurately lists the restricted times of this bridge and I began to call the bridge tender as it was about 1805 and the guide said it was on dempan after 1830.  Well after calling for 15 minutes on every channel possible, radio checks, gestures (use your imagination), a man finally stuck us head out a window in the bridge tenders office and indicated that we needed to call him.  Wow Georgia can't afford a handheld radio?  Wouldn't that be cheaper that a phone?  the bridge did open at 1827 and we were underway again bearing down on Savannah.  We passed Isle of Hope to find safe harbor further up the ditch around Thunderbolt.  Unfortunately when we approaching this area no marinas responded to calls on the VHF.  We motored around looking for s good place to tie up and decided on Thunderbolt.  This turned out to be a fairly nice small marina (they are in the process of adding more floating docks).  No restaraunt on site but the facilities they do have is nice.  And a famous Savannah restaraunt is about a 15 minute walk.  In fact it;s so famous I don't remember the name!

Thursday we waited for the tide as we had a short day ahead going to our destination, Harbortown at Hilton Head Island.  Like last year we had a family thing we couldn't miss and had to leave B&B to return home.  Well wouldn't you know there was no rental cars available until after the 1st Birthday party we couldn't miss.  No worries we did make it home and all was good for the "Abby Cadabby" party.

Picture to come

On July 30th we returned to B&B to enjoy Hilton Head Island for a bit as we wait on Pura Vida to catch up with us.  Great food, lots of entertainment and did I mention HOT.  It's also their peak season on the Island so it's very busy and lots of little ones.  And we are so lucky to have the kids entertainment right next to us nightly from 2000 to 2200.  If we fail to escape before Greg starts to play we hear such classics as "purple people eater" or "there's a booger in the sugar".  If we do manage to escape in time then we are in exile until the kids entertainment is finished as parking anywhere reasonably near is out of the question.