Enjoying the Easy Living in the Low Country.

This week has just meandered by!  We have cruised along the ICW following tides and currents, making sure to avoid shallow areas at low tide.  Funds are low for dredging the waterway so over years of storms and tidal changes, some areas in Georgia and South Carolina can be tricky when you need more than 5 feet of water to pass through.  Al's job is to drive carefully and my job is to plan our timing and stopping points each day as well as to read out warnings from our chart plotter so Al knows to stay toward the red or green markers depending on where the sandy bottom has shifted.  All that attention to detail has kept us with very easy going days and nights.

We left the beautiful area near Cumberland Island on Saturday, May 7th and continued cruising Georgian waters to Brunswick which is a town with a long history as a commercial port.  We have been hopping from one port city to the next and each one claims to be the second largest port on the East coast!  Wonder what cities get to claim being the number one?

Just under this grand bridge we turned to Starboard to cruise up along this river full of shrimp boats along the Brunswick port.  Made it into the marina just in time for a farmer's market for fresh tomatoes.  After being on anchor for so many nights, I needed to do a real shopping and proceeded to walk 2 miles to a grocery looking like a tourist and pulling a cart I use to haul bags.  No one mentioned an area of town that is not real safe so I simply took the shortest route and just when I walked past some young men that had likely been drinking all afternoon, who made cat calls as I passed, up drove a white van that pulled over and the couple inside hollered to me "are you a boater?".  Yup I am and thank heaven they were too. They offered to drive me the rest of the way, wait for me to shop and return me to the marina all safe and sound.  More looper magic!!

This navy vessel was in Brunswick for the weekend offering the local folks tours.

The shrimp boats were gathering in Brunswick for the annual "Blessing of the Fleet"

 We passed by beautiful low country homes on the way out of Georgia and into South Carolina.  But before we left Georgia, we made a stop at Isle of Hope which is very close to Savannah and spent a lovely day on a trolley tour of historic (also the second busiest port city) Savannah.

We walked and walked from one beautiful grassy square to the next and treated ourselves to the best ice cream at the well known Leopolds to end our day. Our next port city to visit was Beaufort which is smaller but equally quaint and full of history and lovely old homes.  Don't remember why, but we took no pictures in Beaufort in town but took this picture while walking along an old railroad grade.

And we ended our stay in Lady's Island marina across the bridge from Beaufort with another peaceful sunset on Friday the 13th.

Next stop is Charleston!