SUMMER BREEZE: Day 13, March 9 and we are home!

Final travel day, hopefully if we make the high tide coming into Toogoodoo Creek late this afternoon. We weighed anchor at 7:10 AM, pretty much missing the sunrise and "trawled" over to the Downtown Marina for our fuel and got there before it opened, which was the plan, so we could "practice" our docking. And so we got to practice. There wasn't anyone at the dock to help which would've been nice but ok since we did want to practice on our own. We will have to be able to do that at home.

Beaufort

Fuel dock at Beaufort Downtown Marina

And... not only have the gnats given us a SC welcome but the yellow pollen was all over the boat this morning and we could see swirls of it in the water! So we have that plus all the fallen oak leaves to look forward to when we get home. Yeah!

We traveled the ICW at low tide from Beaufort and found lots of shallow areas with less than 2' feet below our hull so we took it slow in those areas and happy to say that we never hit bottom. We entered the Toogoodoo Creek at 2:30, an hour and half after low tide so we hovered.

White Point! Almost to the Toogoodoo Creek!

We practiced docking and backing up and playing with the current. All good practice. We really weren't sure when we could safely make the crossing over the sand bar at the creek fork so we opted to be safe and sure to not run aground (we made it this far so we couldn't let it happen just a few homes away!). So we did it at about 4:45 (high tide at 7 PM) and we actually had 4' at the lowest! So we could've gone a bit earlier but we just weren't sure! So, now we know more of what our parameters will be. We were celebrating not running aground and then we see the real celebration! David Kennedy was out on his dock with a water hose giving us a "fire hose welcome" and Genny, Hugh and Doug were out on their dock as well! Now that was fun to see! Thanks guys!

David with a firehose welcome!

Genny, Hugh and Doug

Genny Smoaks photo of us going by

We did have several offers of help to meet us at the dock for our first time, but we knew that we had to be able to do this ourselves or ... what? If we can't, well then sell the boat! Ha! Really appreciate the offers y'all but guess what? Captain Bruce did a fabulous job and it took only 1 try (unlike this morning at the fuel dock) and Captain Bryan had me ready with all the lines, fenders, etc and really it was a piece of cake! It will be even easier from now on after we have our fixed lines all set and we can grab with a boat hook instead of jumping off. Bryan did the "jumping off" as he is the only one on board that has knees that can still do that. And thanks to Carl Beck at AC Electric for getting our upgraded shore power done in time for the homecoming! The check is in the mail!

Thanks y'all for following along with us and letting us share our story here. I'll keep this blog going after we take some trips etc.. but there won't be any postings for a while. We have some maintenance and redecorating to do that will make her ours. And of course, the official renaming of the boat.

We had some short days and some long days in our travels but the goal was to move her to her new home. We look forward to many trips, long and short in the future. But we are all glad to be home safe and sound and I may have said this before, thanks to Captain Bryan, our official Captain and ex Coastie. We could not have done the trip and learned so much about a boat like this without him. As many of you know us, we are not new to boating but we are new to a boat like this! Bryan has jump started our learning process! Oh and not only were the gnats and pollen and oak leaves here to welcome us but the azaleas are in full bloom! Absolutely beautiful!