Like a Peach

What an adventure indeed.
I finally got out of South Carolina, after approximately 10 months in the state.  Five jobs and three marinas later I have crossed into Georgia, and I have to admit in the roughly 18 hours that I've been here with the boat I get the very strong feeling I'm going to like it.

The voyage here from Beaufort SC was not short on stress, worry, mistakes, or any of the other measurement hallmarks that make it a real adventure.
Just getting out of Beaufort turned into a four day struggle waking each morning thinking: "This is the day I move" or "this is the last time I walk the dog here" or "this is the last time I buy my coffee at the circle-k"

In the week leading up to my attempt(s) to leave I discovered a mouse has moved onto the boat.  Not the worst thing, but became a problem when I discovered he/she/it had chewed through some of the electrical wiring deep in the bowels of the boat.  It had cut power to my bilge pump (that keep s the boat from sinking) the fridge (which keeps milk for my coffee), and the VHF radio (which allows me to call the bridges that I have to open).  The fridge I can live without, the bilge pump and the radio are essential.

So I got some wire and did a quick and dirty rewiring of the bilge pump so that I wouldn't have to bale water by hand, I borrowed a hand held VHF radio from one of my old coworkers at the yacht club where I taught swim lessons this past summer and I stopped putting milk in my coffee.
I still had a full spare tank of fuel from my travels in 2012, and I remembered I had gassed up the boat back then too.  Add some oil and I was ready to go, I thought.

On day three of trying to leave Beaufort I discovered that the growth on the bottom of the boat I was hoping was still light enough to get me to Georgia was actually thick enough I couldn't even get the boat out of the slip...
$60 for a cheap cleaning by diver and that problem was out of the way.  Finally on the fourth day I got the boat out of the slip and away from the marina.  But only after nearly crashing it into my friend and neighbor's boat...
Adequately shaken up from my violent departure from the marina my very first task was to open the Ladies Island Swing Bridge.  In the winter these bridges operate on a restricted schedule, so you have to have the boat in the right place at the right time, and your radio has to work in order to call the bridge operators.  Already late in leaving and only a few thousand feet from where I was docked I waited the fifteen minutes (and ran aground while waiting) I needed to until 10 o'clock and made it through the bridge...

The Ladies Island Swing Bridge upon departing Beaufort

Finally on my way, with the distantly familiar fear deep in my chest I made my way out of Beaufort, away from my uncle's town, away from the starvation and disappointment of having few things go my way.  I jotted down a note so I would remember:

About an hour into the journey I decided to break and top off the gas tank.  I couldn't remember exactly how long it had been since I put in fuel, how far I had driven the boat, or how quickly the fuel gets used up.  I don't have a fuel gauge (or any other instruments) and so even though these inboard diesels sip fuel I figured I wouldn't have enough for a whole day under motor power (my sails are in various states of disintegration rendering them essentially useless).  Easy enough problem, just pop the gas cap and pour in diesel from the spare container I keep on the boat, just top her off for good measure.

Well the last time I had pulled the gas cap off was in summer, and I didn't bother checking (I know, I know...) the levels because I knew I had plenty of fuel on board.  My mistake number two of the day. The cap uses a specially shaped key to open, and I cranked that key as hard as I could.  I stopped the engine and drifted for fifteen minutes trying to pry off the cap:

I was down on hands and knees cheek to the paint grunting violently drifting in the silent river.  Thank goodness no one but the dog was around to witness embarrassing moment of my own irresponsible making... and then I hear a blowhole.  Funny enough, even with the motor banging away I most often hear dolphin before I see them.  They are essentially silent.  But the periodic sound of their blowholes is a distinctive one.  I stand up and indeed there was a dolphin, its dorsal fin jaggedly cut into at the base, cut several inches into such that the entire fin was crooked.  So he popped up, looking right at me basically curious what this large deep finned creature was doing grunting away drifting quietly.

A side note about dolphin: usually they are seen fishing.  You'll see them thousands of yards away, their fins popping up and disappearing in the same place, often in groups of two or more, sometimes seeming like a dozen are fishing the same place, but how do you keep track?  It's all similar looking fins disappearing under murky water.  They pause their fishing as you pass by, having watched that spot intensely for the whole approach, and then continue as before.
The other way I usually see dolphin are when they are being curious, and in exactly the opposite fashion as the fishing behavior, they follow the boat popping up frequently inches away from the hull and they look at me in the cockpit, frantically trying to snap the phone camera at the right moment (which rarely happens).  They clearly know that the interesting part of the boat is where the person/dog is.
The encounters go something like this, I'm lost in thought or referencing the map and the notes I wrote about which signposts to follow or checking the GPS on my phone when suddenly about two feet from me (usually on the starboard side strangely enough) a big, sleek, dark smooth and so strangely different from myself creature slides up and shocks the hell out of me with a whoosh of air like a tire suddenly just went flat.  They are like, "HEY" back under

"Whatsup?" back under
Whatcha doin?" back under
"Nice fin on the bottom there" back...
"Where ya goin?" back down
"Nice phone" back under
"Any good shots yet?" disappears
"Wanna play?" under

Usually at this point I frustratingly put the phone down having yet again failed.

"Wanna?" down
"Play?" down

I'm like, "Yeah, ok."  If a dolphin has stuck around this long without getting bored I figure they deserve a little play time.

So I gun the engine and start steering back and forth like I'm drunk, getting the mast really swinging.  I might whistle, the simplest human equivalent to dolphin noise without going totally basketcase alone on a boat.  I vary the throttle in response to whatever the dolphin does and we cruise along together like as if we're playing tag, or some aquatic version of skipping down the hall together whistling away


Back to the key and cap problem.  I distractedly obliged the curious dolphin by grabbing my phone in usual touristy fare, but put it down again quickly.  "Sorry buddy, I just discovered I can't refuel because I'm an idiot and can't get the gas cap off... I don't feel like playing right now"  And the gash in his fin only made it worse because even though the dolphin was clearly fine you couldn't help but think about the various ways a dorsal fin gets mutilated like that... think: propeller most likely.

I turn the engine back on, and swiftly decided which direction to go.  Back a short way to Beaufort where I can figure out this gas cap thing?  Or South to my destination, and the distinct possibility of running out of fuel like a noob and surely a tow the rest of the way?

Obviously I went South.  Now I was really worried.  I could run out of gas at any time, and if it happened in the wrong place (like in the middle of any of the really broad rivers with faster currents and winds) then I could really be in trouble.  Literally washed out to sea without a motor or sails... and I had now willingly put myself in this spot.

But the motor was still running and even though I felt like the hammer could drop at any time... well it's no way to live.  So I thought to myself, I'm a resourceful guy.  I can figure this out.  It's a gas cap after all... I just needed more leverage.

This is what I came up with while driving and navigating:

The key is sandwiched between two winch handles, the blue key is not the key

And it didn't work because I didn't really try to use it.  I never ran out of gas.  I made it, and still haven't pried open the cap...
But I didn't know I was gonna make it, so just keep in mind that's what I had going on in my head the rest of the way.

It felt like ropes were trying to pull me back to Beaufort, but I was used to that feeling, those ropes had done a good job of keeping me there long enough and more.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful besides more fishing dolphin (which sort of, ya know, gets old after a while).  But South Carolina is far more powerful than people give it credit.  At just the right moment, it threw me one more obstacle before I could cross the state line.

The very last fork in the road before making it to Georgia is a combination man made trench and a natural drainage river.  It looks like this from space:

And yes, the blue line is my path and yes, I took the wrong direction.

I was following the map, and my notes, and I missed it.  Not from space, everything looks the same on the water.  The same marsh, the same trees.  The path to take just didn't seem like it, and somehow without even noticing, I just. Didn't, See. It.  What waited upriver, were places where it would eventually get too shallow for my boat and inevitably stick me there, possibly forever.

Just for some scale, I went more than a mile out of my way, got lucky, checked my phone GPS to my horror, and turned back before a bad grounding would occur.  More Scale: the grey line in the bottom left corner of the map is the SC/GA border...

I made it through the last bridge that had to open to get me through at exactly 5:30, and then sunset was in full swing and I was running out of light with a few more miles to go, and a shoal to navigate around in the dark as I docked at the new marina (some boat people told me about the shoal when I drove down to check out the marina the week before).  I docked in the dark "Anywhere you can find an open spot" based on the instructions of the dockmaster over the phone.  End of story (for now).

Pictures!

On the road again

The bridge to Hilton Head

On crappy phone-zoom, you can make out the Bridge that hangs over Downtown Savannah. it is still very far away.  They don't call it the Lowcountry for nothin'

A break in the mostly overcast sky, in my face

Bird chillin

Waiting for the bridge, waiting for 5:30

The Causton Bluff Bascule Bridge

Other side, made it!

Looking back as the sun finally set and I was about two miles from my destination. Time to turn on the Nav lights and get out my flashlight to finish navigating