Today we took a day off and had fun in Savannah, Georgia. We went to Church which was pretty cool because it was at a big Cathedral. After that we went back to the hotel and waited for the World Cup Final to kick off. That was a good game but i was mad that Germany won. After the game we waited until dinner time and went out to dinner. After dinner we went to the hotel and went to sleep.
Captains Log 7/14/2014
Begin – 32.04N 81.05W – Savannah, GA
End – 30.42N 81.27W – Fernandina Beach Fla
Total fuel: 112.86 gallons
Travel time: 10 hours
Miles traveled: 135 miles
Seas – ICW Calm except the sounds
This was one of our earlier days that we started, we got on the water at 7:30AM, it was a nice morning and the Savannah River was very calm… out first fuel stop was at the Bull River marina.
We passed by a bunch of cool homes along the way and Georgia wasn’t lacking any of them either… Here’s a pic of Matt’s new pad!
We were making a push for Florida today and shooting for Fernandina Beach… so we our second refueling was at Valona GA, a commercial fishing area…
We then headed to St. Simon and had lunch and refueled once again… it was a real nice restaurant, called the Coastal Kitchen and the food was very good.
We pushed onto Fernandina beach and Kelly got immediately stuck at Saint Simons Sound, Matt, jumped in and it took them about 20 minutes to get unstuck… onwards to Fernandina… we arrived at 5:30PM.
Refueled and went out on the town… played some pool and had some really good pizza at Arte Pizza, great staff as well!
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)
Captains Log 7/13/2014
No traveling today… we hung out in Savannah for the day… walked around town for a bit and went to mass at a really cool Cathedral. It’s a small world because the priest that said mass (Monsignor William Oliver O’Neill) was an old friend of Father Patrick Brady, our pasture (now retired) in Northfield. :-)
We just relaxed, watched the final soccer game by the pool and prepared for our next day.
The ships that pass by in the river along with the tugs are very neat… it’s a busy river…
I’ll put some of my favorite photos below… off to sleep and prepare for tomorrows run!
You can see all the pictures from today here
Over & Out
Captain Kelly (SPC)
Captains Log 7/12/2014
Begin – 32.77N 79.84W – Charleston, SC
End – 32.04N 81.05W – Savannah, GA
Total fuel: 91.30 gallons
Travel time: 6.5 hours
Miles traveled: 99 miles
Seas – Ocean Calm ran outside
After Matt completely stuffed us with another fantastic meal, we headed out the door… a little late today… however we knew the weather was fair and the ocean really flat today (great weather report at www.sailflow.com – recommended to me by Matt… it’s really a great resource!) so we ran outside for most of the day. Of course we had to get a couple pics of Fort Sumter and the Charleston Light house as we cruised by…
As we approached Hilton Head Island I noticed some really cool looking trees right at the water line so I decided to detour and check it out…
We met a guy named Stone and he told us to look up his friend Bob Druscol when we arrive… lets see what happens!
After we completed our exploration of Hunting Island we pushed on to Scull Creek fuel dock… we bumped into a few cool guys and started asking us a bunch of questions about our trip and we explained accordingly, one of the guys was named Alan and he later said in a post that he would submit us to his local paper. :-)
Thanks guys for thinking our trip was cool… the best part of this adventure is meeting up with fine folks like yourselves… thank you!
On wards to Savannah, leaving Scull Creek we only had about a 30 mile tripe to the mouth of the Savannah River, we made it in great time, however we ran into a pod of dolphins feeding so we stopped and watched them for about a half hour… that was really cool and we have some video to post as soon as we can.
The Savannah river treated us well and we have a flawless run up the river… that was about another 14 miles or so… we where able to dock right at our hotel, we shut down around 6:30PM… nice way to end the day… Savannah is really a neat town… we went out for dinner and called in a night. The ships they pump through that river are amazing!
I have a bunch more photos in the photo gallery of Savannah if you’d like to take a peek.
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)
Captains Log 7/10 (evening) & 7/11/2014
No traveling tonight or tomorrow… however it was much better than that! Matt cooked us a delicious spaghetti and meatball (venison, beef and boar with a little sausage) dinner! Wow was it good… we were all so hungry and it all tasted fantastic.
Let me tell you a little about Matt… Matt is a true outdoors man… he doesn’t waste a thing and eats everything they whack… what a pleasure it was to be with a good old friend! He is also quite the cook… he cooked us breakfast and dinner… all the protean came from their hunts… it was really yummy!
He also married right! Kate, Matt wife, was gracious enough let the Grillo’s invade their home. Thank you Kate for allowing us in and such good care of us… it was really a pleasure to spend some quality time together and get caught up on our lives… thank you.
About 15 years ago we met their children Tori & Hunter… it was a fantastic to see them once again, grown adults now and fine ones at that. A special shout out to Hunter for taking Kelly & Matt under his wing for the evenings, they all got to enjoy a little play time… thanks Hunter!
Matt, took Matthew and I out for a little site seeing, while Kelly was fishing with Hunter, we cruised around, below is Matt & Matt at Fort Moultrie.
Isle of Palms and Shim Creek… coincidentally we had to check out one of the local watering holes… all is good in Charlestown. :-)
the evening of the 11th was adult night, we ventured out for some fine dinning in Charlestown… we had a lovely dinner with Matt’s wife Kate, his partner Brent and some of their colleagues… again thanks guys for including me and I sure hope we can squeeze in a fishing trip this winter… I would love to see you guys again!
I can’t say it enough… thank goodness for Matt, with our brief stay and a early start, Matt knocked out a superb breakfast, scrambled eggs, pepper onions and cheese and you couldn’t beat the venison patties and sausage… I think we should have stayed for a couple weeks! LOL
Thanks again Kate, Matt, Tori and Hunter for allowing us in your home! Hope to see you guys soon if you travel up north, the R&R at your pad was fantastic. :-)
Check out the rest of our pictures for today here
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)
Captains Log 7/10/2014
Begin – 33.86N 78.63W – North Myrtle Beach, SC
End – 32.77N 79.84W – Charleston, SC
Total fuel: 67.90 gallons
Travel time: 7.5 hours
Miles traveled: 114 miles
Seas – Calm ICW
We shoved off late this morning because of intense thunder and lighting storms… luckily Kelly downloaded a very cool app from NOAA Hi-Def Radar App for our IPAD… that works great! We could see clearly that we only needed to wait a couple hours before we could leave and it was spot on… so by 10:00AM we were able to finally shove off and head to my buddy Matt’s slip in Charleston.
The running was smooth in the ICW and our first fuel stop was in Socastee SC, we poured off my spare 10 gallons to lighten up my ride, I’ve been having some porpoising issues and have found that if I burn off my spare fuel first the rest of my day riding is much nicer!
We ran down through the ICW which I believe was the Waccamaw River, the riding was really smooth until we hit the mouth of the river where it meets Georgetown, all at once it went from flat calm to 3′ waves every 3′! The good news is that were able to maintain about 20 miles per hour and stay on the peaks of the waves… this only lasted for about 3 miles.
We ended up having lunch (2:00pm) in Georgetown at the Lands End restaurant, the food was worth coming back for sure. :-) We didn’t play around here… we refueled and shoved off for Charleston… we made Charlestown by 5:30pm and my man Matt was waiting on his boat to help us tie up for the night! We hung on Matts boat for a bit, threw back some coldies and headed for his house.
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)
7/15/2014 – (Kelly)
Hola everyone,
Today was probably our best day overall of riding. We had a pretty flat day throughout the entire ride and we never really got beat up at all. We went out front for about six miles but we ducked in just because we didnt feel like testing the ocean out any longer then we had too. Once we cut it, we accidentally cut into restricted military waters and had the Navy guards in front of us in about 10 seconds. We were told to stay 380 ft or more away from the jetty that enclosed the entire navy base that held all of the new naval ships. We made it to Daytona beach at a relatively good time today but we only covered about 95 miles total. Today was an overall great day and hopefully we can cut outside in the ocean tomorrow for some smooth riding.
Over and Out.
Kelly
7/14/2014 – (Kelly)
Hey all,
Yesterday was pretty uneventful. We left Savannah at 7:40 and continued riding. We had to refuel twice during the day today. I got stuck on a shoal and that would be the first time i actually got stuck by myself. It took us about 15 minutes to get me off the shoal and was one heck of a workout. Matt came over to help me out and i wouldnt have been able to do it without him. Soon thereafter we made it to Fernandina Beach and we stayed at hampton right next to the water. We went out for pizza at a place called Arte’s and it was excellent. Im ready for another day of riding tomorrow.
Over and Out.
Kelly
Captains Log 7/9/2014
Begin – 34.71N 76.71W – Morehead City, NC
End – 33.86N 78.63W – North Myrtle Beach, SC
Total fuel: 73.18 gallons
Travel time: 9.5 hours
Miles traveled: 138 miles
It was time to pack up from our Cousin Vinny’s and push on! The morning started a little rough… wind blowing out of the SSW at 15 knots… the good news is that we where able to run the western side of the Bogue sound so we were in the lea and able to run in some calm water.
After Bogue sound it was all smooth running because of the ICW… while passing Camp Lejeune we got ourselves a real treat… we needed to do a little refueling and unbeknown to us we stopped right in the middle of a live fire exercise… WOW!
The bombs bursting in air and live machine gun fire made for a very quick refuel… I’ll make sure we get some of the video posted… it was loud!
We rounded South Port and stopped to refuel and lunch, we had lunch at the Dead End Saloon and enjoyed their food very much… we really enjoyed the clam soup!
We actually refueled two times this day, once in Hampstead and the second in South Port.
Pushing onward we made way for North Myrtle Beach, we spotted a Marina named Cricket Harbor and had to make a run for it… unfortunately they didn’t have any sleeping accommodations, however as future would have it we bumped into a super guy that was working on one of the head boats and he directed us down the ICW about 1/2 mile, you wouldn’t believe it… once we pulled into this marina Steve actually drove his truck down to help us get squared away… so much so that he called his buddy Tom (which owned a slip at this marina) to see if we could use his slip… which Tom did let us use for the night and that was seriously appreciated! Thank you very much Steve and Tom… it was a sweet pleasure to be helped like that at the end of a hard day!
So we checked into the Holiday Inn Express had are really nice dinner and Clarks restaurant and called it a night.
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)
Captains Log 7/6 – 7/8 2014
No running during these couple of fine days… we got to enjoy ourselves with my Cousin Vincent and his wife Dina and kids, Vinnie, Alex, Angelina and Sophia.
All the kids had a great time and they really enjoyed hanging out and playing together… they don’t see each other very often and they really have had a great time these past few days.
Dina kept us well feed to say the least! She treated all of us like kings and where well nourished each day! Thank you much Dina! It was really nice catching up with my cousin Vinnie, we haven’t spoken together like that in years, so it was great. Vince took good care of us and hooked us up at marina.
We even had some play time and took all the kids out of the skis for the afternoon and ran around the bay in front of Morehead city… the kids had a blast.
We were even able to go to mass together which was another nice treat…
It’s so nice to be able to see your relatives and have an enjoyable time! Thanks Vince and Dina for opening up your house to us all… we had a blast!
I hope we can do the same for you next time you visit up North!
Over & Out
Captain Kelly, SPC
(Self Proclaimed Captain)
Ps: Still trying to catch up… working on it… will keep you posted.
Pss: We’ve decided to run to the Bahamas, however we are going to run to Key West. :-) I’ll fill you all in next post.