Day 53 - Monday 28 January

Last night, we enjoyed one last sunset at Dataw Island Marina until we return in a couple of months. We didn't wake up or get up as early as we intended to, but then we didn't intend to depart from the marina until the tide turned at noon. When the current stopped running up the river, we cast off our lines and headed Windreka back toward the ICW for the first time since we arrived at this marina on December 5th, last year.

The weather couldn't have been more cooperative with a light wind from the north and sunny, warm temperatures in the 60s. We were conflicted about leaving since we had such a relaxing time at the dock and exploring the local area for the past 12 days. After our cruise to Florida and the Bahamas, we plan to come back here where we will probably leave Windreka for the summer...especially since Sarah's daughter and family have plans to come back to Hilton Head Island for a week in July. It'll be nice to have a boat here and we can extend our week to several weeks with a base of operations before and after the Hilton Head vacation. Also, we'll be ideally located for next winter's cruising season.

After we left the marina, we headed back down the Morgan River to Parrot Creek which connected us to the Coosaw River. Motoring up the Coosaw River toward Beaufort, we entered the Beaufort River and noticed a tugboat pushing a barge about a mile behind us. We wanted to get through the Ladys Island Bridge before it closed for rush hour traffic at 4PM and get south of the bridge to find an anchorage for the night. As we got closer to the bridge, we realized we wouldn't make the 3:00PM opening so we throttled the engine back to delay our arrival at the bridge to make the 3:30PM opening. As we were motoring through the calm waters, we were entertained by a pod of dolphins that were swimming along beside us. We’ve noticed that these animals seem to sense when we take our cameras out and refuse to surface until we put the cameras away. Nevertheless, Joe managed to take a picture of one dolphin swimming beside us before it realized we had a camera out.

As we approached the bridge, we passed a house on the ICW that we understand was made famous in the movie, Big Chill. About the same time we passed the Big Chill house, we overheard the US Coast Guard tugboat, Anvil requesting on opening by the Ladys Island Bridge. Commercial and official vessels, like Anvil don’t have to wait for the scheduled openings of bridges like pleasure craft do, but pleasure craft can tag along behind their privileged counterparts when bridges open at their request. So we asked the tugboat and bridge for permission to follow the tugboat through and with their approval were able to save some time.

Since it was earlier than we expected, we decided to bypass the Beaufort town docks and head further south on the river to anchor near Port Royal. We anchored behind the 11th Street Dockside restaurant where we had dinner with Frank several days earlier. Instead of enjoying the pleasures of the Port Royal waterfront and dinner at a nice restaurant, we settled for leftovers and a quiet evening at anchor aboard our floating home.

One of the benefits of this area is being able to tie up at a dock next to working shrimp and fishing boats and to buy fresh shrimp and fish from the fishermen right off the boat. You can't get seafood any fresher than that! These shrimp boats are tied up at the 11th Street Dockside restaurant right next to the anchorage.

The temperature is in the low 40s and the water is calm as we are watching and listening to the President’s State of the Union address. The generator is running and the heaters are on to take the chill off the boat. Tomorrow, we’ll get up and underway to head for Brunswick, Georgia to rendezvous with our friends, Greg and Judy on My Destiny. We expect to be at the Brunswick Landing Marina on Wednesday or Thursday before heading further south to Florida and the Bahamas. We don’t have a schedule or a detailed plan and will go boldly where and when the weather permits us to go. Life at 10 miles per hour and retirement is relaxing and stress-free. We wish you could all be with us to enjoy this lifestyle.