BellaGatto Cruising: Week 3 Log - Savannah GA to Georgetown, SC

Our stops this week were in Beaufort, SC (marina at Lady Island, 2 nights), Green Pond, SC (free dock), Charleston (marina, 2 nights) and thence to Georgetown. We have been staying at marinas a lot more than we planned to…but we really wanted to see and walk around Beaufort and Charleston. Both are beautiful towns with well preserved historical districts, and the people in South Carolina are so nice it’s almost scary!

One nice thing about chugging along at 8 knots all day is that it gives plenty of time to see the sights along the way. This week on our way to Beaufort, NC, we passed by Parris Island, which will give nightmares to many a former Marine. We decided to stay at the Lady Island marina just across the causeway from the Beaufort historic district. The marina had excellent laundry facilities, loaner bikes, and a loaner vehicle which is always a plus.

Our loaner car provided us with a great opportunity to provision in style

A public garden in Beaufort

Turns out our loaner bike had a slow leak but this helpful gent got us back up and running in no time.

Tomato pie is a southern tradition and so when I saw one on the menujat the Lowcountry Produce Market & Cafe I knew I had to give it a try. Yum!

Many of the sidewalks throughout Beaufort are made up of Tabby, which is a concrete made from lime, sand and oyster shells.

Our next stop would be an almost free dock at B&B Seafood in Green Pond South Carolina. This is a working shrimp boat dock on a small creek and not only did they have room for us but we had 15 amp service for a few creature comforts.

Tied up at the B&B Seafood dock

The shrimp boat all lit up at night

They were closed the day we were there so we gave Tadpole a call

Our slip was on the megadock at the Charleston City marina

One of the many historic mansions on the waterfront

Enjoying some adult beverages at one of the rooftop restaurants

Battery Park in Charleston

When leaving Charleston Harbor we went right past Fort Sumter where the most tragic and destructive war in our nation’s history began. We then passed through Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge on the ICW, and saw some bald eagles, as well as so many dolphins it drove our dog Bella out of her mind (she is convinced dolphins are evil and she needs to protect us from them).

The attack on Fort Sumpter marked the official beginning of the American Civil War (photo credit: https://www.wheretraveler.com)

Wildlife along the waterway

Dolphin escort while underway

Bella is constantly on the lookout for dolphins

We had a good 65 mile run up from Charleston yesterday (the longest day of our trip so far).The end of our third week on the great loop finds us in Georgetown, South Carolina where we are waiting out some nasty weather. It’s already raining pretty hard this morning with 15-20 knot winds and they are expecting strong thunderstorms, hail, and 40+ knot gusts this afternoon. We are in a reasonably well protected slip, and we have all the lines doubled up and extra fenders out. We also took on fuel for the first time this trip while staying at the Georgetown Landing Marina. They had a very good diesel price of $2.65 per gallon, so we filled up. Our total trip mileage so far is just a little above 600 miles, and we took on 203 gallons to fill up, so we are getting about 3 MPG overall, not too bad.