Sea-Ya! A blog created by Dan and Katie for friends and family to track us on the Great Loop!

Sunrise was beautiful this morning.  This is what I woke up to.  (Friend in buddy boat sent me the pic).   This is the view from our boat.   Look how flat and reflecting the water is.... People were out working their crab pots this AM again.  Notice the pelicans close behind the boat.   They follow them close behind hoping for thrown over waste... Look how many birds are on these docks.   They have REALLY long docks here in places.  Lots of shallow mud that covers at high tide.  In one of the cuts today the tide was ripping.  For the first time I was moving 7-8mph on boat speedo and getting 12mph thanks to the tide.  It was a little like canoeing.   Just keep it in position and let the water slide you downhill.... We are getting near population and near the weekend.  The combination means more boats.    An...

Today was cold, windy - but not rainy.  An ok day to travel.  We didn't have many 'out in the open' passes today so most of the time we could do a fuel efficient (relatively) slow roll.    We drove in fairly tight quarters most of the day and some of the channels were particularly tight and shallow.   Fortunately we crossed all of them at high tide or just after so that gave us another 5ft of water to clear anything that would be iffy.   You can see the water wasn't smooth - and the wind whipping but the waves were fairly subdued.  The wind, unlike the past week, switched to come from the land side rather than the water side.    And there were sections fairly protected without much for wind or waves.   The tides, however, affect speed drastically.  When the boat says it's going 12mph the actual speed over ground varies from 6.6 to 14.   Often when the tide was giving me 2+...

Today we traveled from Savannah to Beaufort.  We are in South Carolina!    European developments in this area goes back more than 400 years!  It was a community long before the US was a nation.  This armory was used in the Revolutionary War!   The tides here are exceptional.  Like more than eight feet!   We left the boat and took a walk downtown and when we came back the ramp to the docks was no longer a slight downgrade but instead a steep ramp.   No wonder they cover the diamond plate with steel lattice! On the way to Beaufort we passed Hilton Head Island with it's big houses and large boats.    It's been a bit since we saw that.  Georgia was very different as you have to go a long ways inland to get to land higher than the flood plain! But even here there is ample evidence of storm damage.   It'd be hard to use this dock... We've arrived at Safe Harbor ...

I'll start with this, Savannah is a very cool city.  I wish we could spend more than a day here but we had a great time today.   We were anchored last night and it took us more than an hour to get the anchors up.    Between tides running at a good clip and really heavy wind, the anchors were set really well both bow and stern.   We ended up having to power the boat to get the rope a little bit loose on the stern anchor and then take it with the dingy and drive up on it to try and pull it loose from the muck.   Once the stern anchor was in it was much easier to pull the anchor off the bow.   I still had to power to get over the anchor in pull it in with the windlass and then tie it off and use the engines to pry it loose off the bottom.   On the way into Savannah we saw cruise ships and giant freighters hauling cargo from all over the world.  Savannah is a giant seaport.  On the...