ICW Bound

We had a good two day sail up from Ft Lauderdale. It blew hard out of the SE, S, W and NW – just for variety – between Ft. Lauderdale and Cape Canaveral. Then things got light and we ended up motoring past Jacksonville into Brunswick, GA.  The irony of this trip was that we needed to be in GA by June 1st for our insurance to stay valid and cover hurricanes. In the past week two out of season tropical depressions had  just hit the area.
We rented a car and drove an hour back south to visit with our sister-in-law Mary in Jacksonville.  She was busy being ah, dare I say, grandma to Dylan Rell (named for, well you know the first name, and Rell Sun, a surfer girl from our generation).  Dylan took us for a nice walk around the St Johns River mansions. And Mary treated us to some real home cooking. It was a short, but good visit.
Then it was back off to the boat. We had hoped to get the 50 hour Yanmar service done in Brunswick, to keep up the warranty on the new engine. After talking to the mechanic there who first said that he was way too busy to get to it in the next few days, and then told me he didn’t didn’t do valve adjustments on Yanmars (!), we just figured it was better to push on to Savannah and go with a Yanmar dealer. W. W. Williams, the dealer in Savannah, sent Kevin to do the work. Nice guys, who were really timely and did solid work.
We wanted to head offshore to make some better time, but a cold front was coming down from the north and we just couldn’t see beating to weather offshore when we could motor up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW)  in relative peace, getting a good nights sleep each night
Getting to just south of Charleston SC was pretty easy. The continual bird parade on the ICW kept Chris busy. She located about 206 houses she’d like to buy once we stop this sailing stuff, all with long docks across grassy marshes to the water. The scenery was pretty cool. The cold front came through today and we had dumping rains and 25kt winds on the nose for most of the  day heading to Charleston and past it. The first time the foul weather gear and boots had come out for more than a year.
Tonight we are anchored in Minim Creek at mile 515 on the ICW. A long day to get here, 6am to 8pm, with no overtime. Calm, way remote, we are the only boat and silence is only broken by the caws of the cranes and herons fighting over their branch to roost on for the night.

Paul