Finishing the Loop #3 - South Carolina

Friday 26^th April - Beaufort SC

The engines started at 3am, so I figured we were going down the ICW and I wanted to see that.

Sure enough, shortly after departing Savannah, we turned into the ICW and followed it all the way to Beaufort SC (pronounced Bewfit) - to distinguish from Beaufort NC (pronounced Bowfort). The wind was a gusty NE around 20kts, so it wouldn’t have been pleasant out in the open sea. We went slow through the first canal in the ICW, known as Fields Cut, because that’s where the worst shoaling was, but it was high tide so no issue. Daybreak was at 6.30 as we were approaching Port Royal Sound, after which it was windy up river to Beaufort  

We were docked at the Downtown marina and took the Horse and Buggy tour around the historic part of town. Lots of old “Antebellum” houses and references made about the movie “Forrest Gump”, most of which was filmed there.

At one time properties were taxed on the number of chimneys, so they built chimneys
with more than one flue to get around the tax. This one has 6 flues on 2 chimneys

Then they put a tax on the size of the front porch as defined by the main entry front stairs....

So they built huge porches, but had the stairs to smaller ones as the main entry

These stair go nowhere. TRhe house burned down and the owners were so gutted
they never rebuilt and put a caveat on the property that said the stairs must remain
there in perpetuity...so they did

Back at the ship, it was the “welcome aboard party”, free cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (scallops wrapped in bacon, prawns etc) then the movie “Midnight in the garden of good and evil” – which turned out to be a bit boring and I went to sleep before the end – Frankly I would rather have watched Forrest Gump! (but I had been up since 3am!)

BTW, Beaufort was where we stayed for 2 nights after we had put Loopy Kiwi on the ship in Savannah  and before travelling home back in 2013

Saturday 27^th  - Charleston SC

We departed Beaufort at midnight as a repeat of yesterday, ie via the ICW at high tide, but I decided to forego the spectacle and didn’t get up to see it until 6am. By this time we had wended our way along the ICW and were entering the Wappoo Creek, just short of the Ashley river, on which the Charleston Downtown marina is located. Lots of very posh boats in here

In the morning, we took a cab ride downtown to the city markets, while others took the all day tour of the city (we had visited Charleston back in 2013 and been to some of the places that they were going to). We then found a free shuttle bus that toured round the downtown on three different routes, including one that took us back to the marina, so we used that and were back at the ship in time for lunch with the other 3 people who hadn’t gone on the tour. In the afternoon we watched  the comings and goings of the myriad of boats up and down the river full of youngsters on funning about – but it was Saturday, after all, and quite a good one at that.

Over the river were a couple of yachts that seemed to be parked as victims of the last hurricane surge that came this way

We had a lecture on “the battle of Charleston” from our historian, John, and then an early night as we are going “outside” overnight to get to Georgetown and the Atlantic is expected to be a little rolly for a time.

Sunday 28^th  - Georgetown SC

Which is what it was, until we got out into deeper water and turned North to run with a following sea. Again, we departed at midnight and again, I didn’t get up to watch. At daybreak, we were just entering the channel to Winyah Bay, which is the largest estuary in Sth Carolina and the 3^rd largest in the USA (The Chesapeake being the largest). There were a few Shrimp boats about, one of which trawled across directly in front of us and across the navigation channel, so our skipper had to go round behind him to avoid a collision.

We continued on to Georgetown, 10NM further up the Waccamaw river (these are real names – I am not making them up!). This is a small harbour, barely wide enough to turn around, so that’s what we did on arrival so the captain didn’t have to do it tonight , in the dark, when we leave. Several boats moored nearby made this an interesting exercise.

I said the  harbour was small …..well…so is the town. And, being Sunday, it was also closed! I took a walk up the main street and back down the boardwalk, and was back at the boat within ½ an hour.

We pulled out of Georgetown at 8pm and headed back down the Waccamaw and out to sea again for the overnight run up to the next Port of call, Wilmington, NC.

Finishing the Loop #2 - Arrival

Monday 22^nd April (Easter Monday) - Houston, Texas

We had received notification last week that we had not got our upgrades to Business class for which we had applied, so it suggested that the plane was going to be full. To rub salt into the wound, on Saturday we got an email telling us that “due to heavier than normal traffic,” access to the Air NZ lounge would be restricted and we would therefore have to go to the Strata lounge, operated by Auckland Airport Ltd. As it transpired, the AIAL lounge was much quieter than Air NZ’s (and still had the free food and grog) and since it was the old Air NZ lounge anyway, it was a bit like coming home again. It also turned out that the plane had been changed from a 787 Dreamliner to a 777-300, which carries a lot more passengers but, as feared, it was completely full and included lots of rugrats heading for Disneyland , or other US fun destinations, for the school holidays..

The plane bounced all the way to Houston, so not a lot of sleep was got – but I managed to watch 3 movies and 4 episodes of the Les Miserables TV series. We arrived at 3.30pm (45 minutes early) at Houston but found there were only 4 Customs officers on duty to handle the 300 plus passengers off our flight. The agents sorting us out were sending all the US citizens to them first, so it took over an hour for us to get through onto US soil, by which time our bags were sitting beside the carousel at the luggage claim. However the Ramada was only a short shuttle ride away and it arrived promptly and we were soon in our hotel where Carolyn went to the pool and I went to happy hour in the Dolphin Bar. The meals were just as good and cheap as last year – as was the beer.

Tuesday 23^rd – Atlanta/Savannah, Georgia

We were up again early (5am) for the 8.10 flight to Atlanta, but were whisked through check-in and security (unlike yesterday) and had time for breakfast before boarding. Another packed flight to Atlanta, but only for 2 hours, and collecting our luggage and getting to Hertz on the “Skytrain” was a breeze, although there was a lot of walking involved – Atlanta is a HUGE airport. The Hertz people couldn’t have been nicer and there wasn’t a single issue over card payment, unlike last year. We had a choice of vehicles and one was a Dodge minibus with everything that opened and shut electrically, and lots of storage room. It was a 3 ½ hour drive to Savannah, extended by a stop at a Tanger Outlet Mall so Carolyn could buy (yet more) Skechers shoes. The temperature was 87 degrees F (30C), but the pool was under repair, so that disappointed Carolyn somewhat. There was a restaurant/Bar on the site, but it was one of the few where smoking was allowed and the air was thick with it, because everyone in the place was smoking – eating there was just not an option. It’s funny how you get so used to not having smokers in restaurants and how critical you get towards those that do. Anyway, just down the road was a “Southern style” buffet, called the “Frog and the peach”, which changes its menu every day, and only cost $9 each, including  tax! They also had a Tee shirt that Carolyn wanted to buy me but the sales girl had left for the day, so we decided to go back the next day which happened to be pork chop night.

We dropped in to a Walmart and I bought a 32GB Mini SD memory card for the handicam  - 7.48 US dollars there versus  $47.99 in New Zealand!

Wednesday 24^th  - Savannah

We discovered this morning that the Sirius satellite radio in the van was also a Garmin GPS, so we decided to use it instead of Carmen (or own GPS). Well, it got us lost trying to find the Isle of Hope and then Thunderbolt marinas (ones we’d berthed Loopy Kiwi at during the Great Loop) and we finished up downtown Savannah instead. However, due to its mixup between River St and River Drive, we actually finished up where we would be embarking for the cruise the next day. This was just as well as we found a lot of one way streets that made access difficult, so it was good to have a dry run. Going back to using Carmen, we finally located Thunderbolt marina and a Walmart near Isle of Hope  where we bought top-up cards for our US phones and lunch, which we had at the Isle of Hope marina.

On the way back to the motel, we dropped by the Savannah Port Authority, where Loopy Kiwi was lifted onto the ship for transport to NZ. (see the posting on 19^th April 2013 for details and pix on that). BTW, when I input the details of the motel into Carmen, I abbreviated “Days Inn Savannah” to “Days Inn Sav”. Carmen speaks that as “Days in Savings”, which sounds quirky, but cute! Of course, we found that the phones wouldn’t work as we tried to add the airtime and had to return to Walmart to remedy. It seems that if you don’t use a prepay phone in the USA for 6 months, your numbers will be allocated to someone else, so it took us an hour or so to get new numbers from Tracfone and get them working again – I don’t think we would bother in future.

Of course we dined on pork chops (done 2 different ways) at the Frog and the Peach and (yes, Mary), we bought the Tee shirt.

Thursday 25^{th  -} Savannah

Timing was critical today to get Carolyn and our luggage to the cruise, and the rental car back to the airport in time to catch the return bus to the river to arrive in time for lunch. Yesterday’s dry run had given us good insight into what was necessary to achieve this so we headed down to River St, arriving at 9am. Oops…….no ship!!! It was supposed to have arrived last night but had apparently been delayed, so we were quite relieved when it showed up round the river bend and docked at 9.30. Carolyn and the luggage embarked 10, while I returned the car and bused back – in plenty of time for lunch. Surprisingly, there are.only 25 passengers for this cruise (the ship can hold up to 80, and did on the cruise last year). To make matters worse (or better, depending on your viewpoint), because the ship is returning from its Caribbean winter season,  there are 20 crew members aboard (including 2 Captains) plus a photographer and a lecturer, so the crew/ passenger ratio is almost 1:1. After lunch we did a trolley tour of “Historic Savannah” – lots of old houses and references to the movie “midnight in the garden of good and evil” which was filmed there, as well as to “Forrest Gump”, where the famous park bench scene was shot (the park bench is actually in the Savannah museum!)

  

At the safety briefing after dinner, we were told that tide times were wrong for travelling the Carolina’s Intracoastal Waterway during the day – the ship draws 7ft and the US Army Corps of Engineers who maintain the ICW haven’t been dredging recently (no money). So the choices were; leave at 3am and use the ICW at high tide, or go out to sea at 5am to reach the next Port, which would be dependent on weather.