We had planned to spend only 5 nights in Georgetown and celebrate Thanksgiving while there. We made reservations for a brunch buffet at the SoCo Grille. We did a lovely Turkey Trot so that we wouldn’t feel so guilty about stuffing ourselves with the spread of brunch and traditional Thanksgiving treats. But even on a holiday, it’s hard for me to not plan our next stop.
Weather forced us to take a 2 day ICW journey from Southport, NC to Georgetown, SC and it almost looked like we were going to have to do the same to get further south. There were back to back cold fronts coming through with freeze warnings and small craft advisories all along the east coast. I’m like my mother and really don’t like to be cold so I was looking for the temperatures to rise a bit so that we could head out. Unfortunately, the rise in temperatures also brought a south wind which is, of course, the direction we want to go. So, with opportunity to take advantage of warmer temperatures in the 10-day forecast, we chose to do one cold overnight offshore passage to Savannah instead of a cold multiple day trip in the ICW.
Whether we’re going up or down the coast, we typically stop in Charleston, SC. It definitely has a sticky bottom and we tend to spend a lot of time there. But this year, we decided to skip it and head on to Savannah, GA. Charleston, because of all of its charm, has more expensive marinas and it’s difficult to find a slip this time of year due to the southern migration of boaters. We were also looking forward to spending time with our friends, Mark & Sarah. The marinas, with the exception of the very expensive and not so secure dockage along the historic River District, are either along the ICW or up small rivers in the barrier islands. Since we would have to Uber/Lyft into downtown anyway, we chose a marina closer to our friends on Wilmington Island.
To reach the Atlantic from Georgetown, SC, we needed to go about 15nm down the Winyah Bay Inlet. It is reported to be well marked and deep but is prone to strong currents. It’s also wise to try and have the current match the wind direction so that the waves are calmer as we try to go out the narrow channel. So in an effort to catch an outgoing current, we left Harborwalk Marina around 9am, which was a very chilly 36°. Our Predictwind forecast for our trip showed that we could have consistent wind from the north of 20 knots with gusts up to 25 kts. This means that we would have to reef or decrease the size of our sails so that we’re not overpowered in the bigger winds Since the best time to reef your sails is before you need to, we started the trip with 2 reefs in the mainsail and jib reefed to about 50%. Even with our sails reduced, we were surfing down waves making our GPS say that we were going well over our boat speed of 6.7 knots.
We spent a chilly 27 hours on the water to watch a beautiful sunset turn into a wonderful and warming sunrise. We entered the Wassaw Sound Inlet and up the Wilmington River toward the Savannah Marina just off the ICW on Turner Creek. We were able to easily make the entrance to the river as the winds had finally died down to almost nothing and were going with a slight outbound current. We were trying to make it to the marina close to high tide as the entrance to Turner Creek is known to be shallow. As we were making our way, we called the marina to get further guidance so that we could prepare to dock. On the phone, the dockmaster stated that he didn’t have any record of our conversation or reservation that we had made 4 days prior. He did offer a dock that didn’t have water or electricity available. After more than 24 hours awake and in the cold and with the temperatures expected to be in the 30s for the next few nights, we were looking forward to plugging in and getting our heater running. So, we scrambled to find another marina that had space for us. After making a few phone calls, we finally found a spot at Bull River Marina, which would require us making a u-turn and heading up the narrow but deep Bull River. This is definitely more of a budget marina with basic amenities and no laundry facilities but the dockmaster and office staff are very friendly and helpful.
Now that we’re sufficiently rested, we get to visit with friends and explore Savannah which is all decked out for the holidays. We have at least a week reserved in the hopes of finding a window to head further south toward warmer weather.
“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.” ― Ashley Wilkes, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
