We finally left the dock. We were cruising out of the Charleston Harbor around 3:30PM when I says, "it looks pretty smooth here in the harbor, let's run outside to Hilton Head." For those of you with weak stomachs please know that we are safe and tied up at the dock here at the Hyatt in Savannah, GA. Just look at the map on the right, and stop reading. Just tune in again tomorrow.
For those brave souls that have a need for more, continue on reading.
It was such a great plan. Leave, go outside, be at the fuel dock in Hilton Head right around 6:30PM. They are closed, but I called ahead and made arrangements so they would be there at 7:30AM tomorrow morning. Great plan. The seas were around 1-2 with a light chop. They started to get to 2-3's and finally they leveled off at 2-4's. With that in mind, I decided to aim for a point closer to shore so we could get into smoother water and maybe kick it up a notch to try to beat the darkness. It worked. I kicked it up to over 27 knots and we were flying. The next thing I noticed was a bank of really skinny (shallow) water. Then it happened, twice, my depth sounder quit sounding or listening or something because one minute we were in 500+ feet of water (or so it said) then nothing. I saw the bank getting shallower so I started to go out to get more water underneath us. I finally found a path through the bank to the channel so I took it. Meanwhile the sun went behind the horizon and it got really dark. We were heading into the channel when I saw a large blob on the radar (not in the right place because it is not calibrated) and thought it was a freighter in front of me. I should have thought "what is a freighter doing going into Hilton Head" but I didn't so keep reading.
On the VHF radio I heard "Trawler entering the Savannah River by markers 14 and 15, please answer of channel 16." I did not answer because A.) I did not know what the marker numbers were since it was dark; and B.) I was not going into the Savannah River. Then there was a light shining on me. So I noticed the freighter was outgoing and not coming in. I started to move to the extreme right of the channel, still confused about the lights on his ship, and the next thing I knew there were 5 prolonged blasts (which is DANGER in boaters speak). I then looked again and noticed the freighter was on the extreme left (my right) of the channel on a direct collision path with the ol' Executive Sweet. I made a quick turn to port and went to the extreme left of the channel out of his way. After an on-air ass chewing from the captain of the freighter, I thanked him for looking out for us and made an astounding epiphany: There is freighter traffic. I am not going into Hilton Head! I AM going into the Savannah River!
So, here we are at the entrance to the Savanna River. There is not a marina for at least 10 miles. It is pitch black, and freezing. I was not sure what to do as I was trying to find a marina on the electronic charts of the Furuno, which responds incredibly slow since the firmware upgrade that went pretty smooth this morning. I looked back and saw another freighter was coming in behind us. So what to do? I could go back out the channel, hit the open ocean at night and circle south around the island to Tybee Island, however, I have never been to any of those marinas after I return from the open ocean and go up a creek which I did not know if it was marked very well at night. Or, try to anchor in the dark near a shipping channel. Or turn around and follow the inbound freighter up the river and go to Savannah which is at least 10 miles out of our way. The latter won out over all other. We followed the freighter and found our way to the dock here at the Hyatt.
After getting help from some fellow boaters on the dock, we were talking (in the freezing cold) when the woman, Carol said, "I know that name Executive Sweet." I said that we were in the Bahamas a couple of years ago, when the revelation came out that we were about 2 boats away at the Exuma Docks Marina in Georgetown, Bahamas. She said "You're bald!", so I took off my beanie to show it to her. She remembered us by my baldness and BJ's bikinis. They are heading back so we will probably run into them again.
Bj just finished cooking my clam chowder, we are settling in for the night, but I thought the first day should be commemorated with our fist blog entry of the trip.
