Beaufort SC to Isle of Hope GA, the day in pics and videos

I love being on the water.  It's hard for me to describe it.  I'm not a good enough writer to convey it effectively so I compensate with photos and, lately, videos.  One nice thing about Al Gore's internets and today's technology is multimedia and the speed to use it well.

We had stayed in Beaufort for a little over a week. While we love Beaufort and enjoyed our stay there (it's on our list of places to live one day), it was time to move on and discover new things.  We were starting to nap a little too much.

So we cast off at 8:30 AM on Monday, heading for Hilton Head.  

We know we've reached the south when we start seeing boats headed north.

For a long time on this trip, we never saw any boats at all, and the few we did see were southbound stragglers like us.  Yay!

Monday was cool, but clear and calm.   It was a good day to be on the water...

or walking on the beach with your dog...

or walking the beach with your friends...

or for two groups of birds to meet to discuss and work out their differences.

We passed Cheeseburger in Paradise...

and many McMansions lining the shore.

There were always dolphins.  Dozens and dozens of dolphins...

and redneck barges...

and ferries...

and crab boats being chased by pelicans.

Small crabs have to be tossed back overboard.  The pelicans know this.  Thanks!!

We passed a few lighthouses...

and before we knew it, we hit the Savannah River and Georgia!

As usual, the Navi-Nut (patent pending) was performing flawlessly.

We crossed the Savannah River to Elba Island Cut... and were confused.  There were red buoys ahead of us, and up to this point we left them to starboard (to our right), but this can sometimes change.  Red buoys are left to your starboard when heading up a channel (red-right-returning), but our chart plotter said to leave them to port.  Our two sets of paper charts were no help whatsoever.  I could see cormorants to the right of the red markers and they were standing on rocks.  That's never good.  Pam was at the helm and was going to pass close by the red markers leaving them to port when a boat approaching from the other direction hailed us on the VHF and told us we were on the wrong side of the markers.   Thanks buddy!!   We made an abrupt course change.

You can see our quick turn at the bottom of the pic above.

We were getting close to Isle of Hope, and along the way passed the R/V (research vessel) Savannah.

I'm constantly amazed by the wide variety of boats there are, from R/V Savannah to this beautiful yacht at the Savannah Yacht Club...

to this live aboard Catalina 22 ex-sailboat.

So we're here in Isle of Hope, which is a suburb of Savannah.

'

The dogs were cooped up in the boat all day, and being pit bulls, needed to blow off some steam.

Today will probably be a lazy day, since the forecast is a bit rainy.   I may work on putting the Whaler back together.  Or maybe not.

While watching TV last night, Pam and I heard a loud engine noise.   It was a tug and barge. 

Our marina is on a sharp hairpin turn in the river, and I wondered how a tug and barge would make the turn.  We found out.  There is a large tug pushing the barge in the pic above, and a smaller tug that pushes the barge from the middle, turning it.  Here's a video clip that shows how it's done.