Heading South!
Our push off from Beaufort had to be timed so that we reached an area called Fields Cut at high tide or close to high tide. A troller Easy Living followed us on rising tides. It was cloudy and a bit chilly. We are chasing 80 degrees! We saw our first “River Boat”.
We arrived at Thunderbolt Marina with no issues. A second boat (Easy Living) pulled in behind us. We met Scott and Connie who are also doing the loop. They are traveling south before they head north in the spring. They said they were glad they followed us through the Fields Cut area. Connie was a bit worried about the passage. Scott was a navy ship pilot and we picked up some good nav tips if we ever get a chance to pilot a 1000 footer or run a landing craft aground!
The next morning HELL’S GATE, we again had to time our departure. Hell’s Gate is where we got stuck last year because we did not pay attention to the tides. This passage is only a 100 yards long. We made a scary 5 mile detour outside to the Atlantic only to arrive on the other side of the pass, a distance a NFL punter could make. This time we wanted to arrive at Hell’s Gate at high tide. We traveled with Easy Living and pushed off at 9:10 AM. It was cloudy and some fog was present but you could see about ¼ mile. High tide was at 11:25 AM. We arrived at Hell’s Gate at 11:20AM. We followed Easy Living and had no issues. Amazing how easy it is to do when you pay attention to tide tables! We arrived at a marina called Killkenny and it was nice and quiet. In our stays, this is the second worse docks. There was a tree that had several white birds in it. Pretty cools since it was right near our boat.
Both Easy Living and we headed out about 8 AM. It was rainy and foggy the whole way to Brunswick, GA. Not much to see during this day trip. We arrived at Brunswick and found out at check in that they have free beer in the club house! It was Pabst on draft but we had to try it out. It was 2:00 AM before we decided it was time to hit the hay!
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