Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 18:36:21 -0400 From: Theresa A. Valentine To: Larry and Theresa Valentine Subject: VALENTINE TRAVEL UPDAATE June 3, 2004 One of the fun things we do (well, it's fun for us but I can see that it may not have broad appeal) is try to figure out the story behind the names of other boats. Just this weekend I saw one of my favorites."Blue By You". It works on a lot of levels because the boat that was wearing this name was, you guessed it, blue (and fast). That is exactly what the last month has done, blown by. When we last checked in with you all we were in Palm Coast, FL planning to head north the following day. Our departure was delayed several days due the high winds from a low pressure system that was spinning just off the East coast out in the Atlantic, we decided that it was better to wait out the winds than go out and get pounded. Each evening we listened to the weather and finally on Tuesday night it sounded like Wednesday morning was a "go". By this time there were several boats waiting for the good conditions to arrive and we knew the folks on "Candy Dish" so waiting wasn't too unpleasant. Wednesday morning we awoke to the smell of smoke from the wildfires in Florida, no the fires were not a threat to us but the smoke was awful. We listened one last time for the latest weather/wind forecast and headed out. In some places the visibility was down to ½ mile or a bit less, as measured by our radar which we were using to help us spot the buoys. It makes you think about the poor people who live near the fires and have this to contend with every day. About 11:30(am) we were nearing our planned anchorage for the night and decided to listen to the weather for the latest update and check the wind direction against our visual inspection of this particular anchorage as it was fairly open and we are (perhaps I should say "were") accustomed to anchorages that offer more protection from the winds. Imagine our surprise when the NOAA weather station informs us that at 11:08 am the low pressure system we have been watching became the first named "sub- tropical" storm of the season (Andrea)! How did we get so lucky?! With that bit of news and the forecast of winds from the southeast we decided to run for cover and phoned ahead to a marina at Jacksonville Beach. Yes, they had room for us; yes, they could also accommodate our traveling companions if they wanted to come in. After a quick consultation on the VHF "Candy Dish" and "Stephie's Choice" decided to join us at the marina. The marina had the added advantage of dockside electricity so that we could run the air conditioners and close out the smoke. The next day the wind was even worse, it blew about 28 knots from the east, with gusts to nearly 40 knots, and there were whitecaps in the marina. Good decision. We made the best of our situation when Bill from "Candy Dish" talked the proprietor of the restaurant at the marina into ordering us a ½ bushel of oysters; by then another friend had arrived and our impromptu oyster roast turned the delay into a good time for us all. Friday morning we all started north once again and "Lauren Grace" took us to the shores of beautiful Cumberland Island GA which is a National Seashore Park. We anchored off of the island and took our dinghy ashore and walked the shady, moss draped path across the island and over the dunes to the beach. There may have been 100 people on the beach at the end of the path but after we walked ½ mile we saw only one other couple on this entire spectacular beach. As we headed back to the dinghy we saw a number of the famed wild horses that call this island their home. Further south on the island we explored the ruins of Dungeness, a mansion built by Thomas Carnegie in 1882. Actually the Carnegies were the third owners to call their home Dungeness. James Oglethorpe, a British nobleman who founded the colony of Georgia, was so impressed with the beauty of the island that he established a hunting lodge which he called Dungeness because his "seat" in Kent County England was so named. After the American Revolution the war hero General Nathanial Greene (the George Washington of the South) acquired large land holdings on Cumberland. He personally selected the site for his new home and selected the same name as Oglethorpe had used many years before. At one time General Robert E. Lee's father, "Light-Horse" Harry Lee (a friend of Gen. Greene's) was buried here. During the Civil Way (or as they call it in GA "the war of Northern Aggression"), Union troops destroyed Gen Green's Dungeness and Cumberland was mostly deserted until 1882 when Lucy Carnegie persuaded her husband to buy it and build an enormous mansion on the same site that Gen. Greene's estate had occupied. Thomas Carnegie (like Gen Greene before him) did not live long after he moved to Dungeness but Lucy, like Catherine Green before her, stayed on and continued to raise her children on the island. Lucy Carnegie died there in 1916 and the house was seldom used after her death. It was destroyed by a fire in 1959 not too long after most of the land on the island was given to the government to preserve undeveloped for the future. Now, if I haven't lost you with the boring details I want to tell you the best thing about this stop. That evening, as we were sitting out enjoying the stars, we could hear the surf pounding on the island from our spot on the deck in our quiet anchorage. It was one of those magical moments that make cruising so much fun. The truth is that we felt as though we were in some remote and far away place but at the same time we could see the red lights marking the towers at the Navy's King's Bay Nuclear Submarine Installation. The next day we passed right by this important facility that helps to safeguard our Country. We passed right by Jekyll Island without stopping because we were running with a fair current, but we did see the famous towers of "Millionaires Club". At St. Simon's we passed up the marina in favor of anchoring off of the old Fort Frederica on the river of the same name. It is strange to be in a river with nothing but the marsh grasses forming the banks and the land between which the serpentine channel flows. The anchorage is very open with no trees to protect us from the wind; fortunately there is not much wind either. Lest you think we spent all of our time in the Golden Isles hob-knobbing with the ghosts of the industrial revolution let me tell you about the flies. Big, mean flies and they bite! We have heard them called "black flies" and "deer flies"; whatever they are I won't be sorry to leave them behind. We first noticed them about Cumberland and we still have them (although fewer of them) at Myrtle Beach. Some days we had to use insect repellant just to be able to drive the boat, Larry drives with the fly swatter in his hand. We recently encountered our first no-see-ums just as we were leaving South Carolina; they make a common mosquito look like a nice guy. The waterway in Georgia is interesting; those marsh banked rivers I mentioned lead us to large deep-water sounds that lead boats out to the open sea. We just follow the sound to the next small river. We were quite lucky with our travel and found all of the big bodies of water (Ossabaw, St. Catherine's Sapelo, Doboy, Altamaha, St. Simons, St. Andrews, & Cumberland Sounds) on their best behavior. We did not encounter any large waves nor take any spray over the bow. I'm sure it was because I worried it all flat as I had been really anxious about traversing this area. We did watch the weather carefully and I suppose that calm seas were our payoff for those delays that we endured as we were trying to leave Florida. All in all we found Georgia has a beautiful and interesting coastline, now if they can just do something about those flies. As we were just about to cross the Savannah River we had to slow down to allow two freighters (one inbound and one outbound) to pass one another in the river in order for us to have space to enter the channel there. We did not actually traverse the Savannah river; we crossed it and continued on up to South Carolina to visit with our old friends Ann & Kurt Grindstaff on Hilton Head Island. We spent a lovely week there enjoying their fine company and the beauty of their island home. While we were there we finally bought bicycles, which we have been dithering about for a couple of months and now thoroughly enjoy. When we departed HHI the Sea Gods got even for all that flat water in Georgia and they really kicked up a fuss on Port Royal Sound. We pushed up to 2000 RPMs and ran across it in 30 minutes, that was one day I didn't miss being in a sailboat. We passed several sailboats and they were going to have a much longer and wetter trek across that ugly stretch. Our destination that day was Beaufort SC, and due to the winds we decided to stay in the marina rather than at anchor. Good thing because we needed the fresh water at the dock to wash the salt off of our decks! Beaufort is a very historic little town and their historic antebellum architecture was largely left intact during the Civil War because it fell to the Union troops early and they used it for their own purposes, thus it was spared during Sherman's March to the Sea. Movie buffs might be interested to know that "The Big Chill" and "Prince of Tides" were filmed there. We put our new bikes to good use and biked all over the town, stopping to get a free chocolate sand dollar at The Chocolate Tree where Forrest Gump bought his box of chocolates. We visited beautiful St. Helena's Episcopal Church, one of the oldest churches in continuous service in the Country. The church was established by the Colonial Assembly in 1712 and received her charter from the King. The present building was built in 1724 and it has been enlarged twice since that time. It is constructed from brick, much of which came from England as ballast in ships. The brick fence around the original property was constructed of the same brick. During the Civil War St. Helena's was used as a hospital by the Union Army and some of the slab gravestones from her cemetery were used as operating tables by placing them across the tops of the pews. Today one small marble baptismal font is all that remains of the original furniture. The present altar was hand carved by the sailors aboard the USS New Hampshire which was stationed in Beaufort after the war ended and presented to the Church as a gift. The National Cemetery in Beaufort is one of the first US National Cemeteries. President Lincoln personally authorized its establishment on February 10, 1863. On March 18, 1863 the Commanding General of the federal occupation troops purchased a 29 acre tract of land for $75.00 at a tax sale. This property became the final resting place for soldiers from both sides who gave their lives during the Civil War. Today there are over 15,000 veterans of all the Services interred here. To commemorate Memorial Day the local school students decorate the graves with flags. There is one Congressional Medal of Honor recipient buried here; PFC Ralph Johnson was awarded the" Medal" for his heroic actions during "Operation Rock "near Quan Duc Valley in Vietnam on March 5, 1968. This was especially meaningful to us because this occurred during Larry's tour in Vietnam. In case you didn't know the Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. A new Congressional Medal of Honor Museum has just opened in Charleston and we were excited to arrive 2 days after it opened to the public. It was very moving to spend part of the Memorial Day weekend learning about the brave men & women who have been awarded this high honor. We splurged on a marina that was within walking distance to Patriots Point and toured the attractions there. Our timing was perfect and we got a tour of the "Yorktown" from a WWII veteran who served on the same class of Carrier in the Pacific. He provided details and "color commentary" that you never get on the self-guided tours that are normally all they offer. Some of you might remember that the "Yorktown" was the ship that recovered the Apollo 8 astronauts after their trip to the Moon in 1968. We also took a quick spin through the submarine "Clagmore". On this boat (submarines are the only boats in the navy; all other vessels are ships) there is a memorial honoring all of the submariners that have been lost in service to the Country. Theresa knew that her uncle had perished in the War aboard a submarine in the Pacific and here we found that he was aboard the Argonaut and that she was lost January 10, 1943. From Charleston we once again pointed our bow towards the north and soon entered the beautiful Waccamaw River. This small but mostly deep river is just beautiful and we found ourselves wishing we had more time to spend here. We spend one night anchored along her shores and then we moved on to the Little River area which is right on the border between South & North Carolina to spend a night before heading up to Southport NC area and a visit with our friends from St. Louis, Bill & Pat Steele. Bill & Larry worked together at PET Incorporated and he & Pat have just moved to this quickly developing area which is south of Wilmington. They gave us the grand tour; we were so busy that we hardly had time to sleep. We enjoyed their hospitality and their spacious new home in Winding River Plantation, their community has a beach house on Holden Beach and we managed to find a few hours to spend just relaxing and listening to the surf. One evening Pat pulled out her finest linins and best china and we enjoyed a yummy feast of fresh crabs and steak, this is the life! Our visit with the Steeles ended and we had a chance to squeeze in a quick visit with our friend Patsy Conrad who is visiting her grandchildren in this area. We were excited to meet Chloe and Andrew for the first time and they enjoyed being aboard even though we didn't go out for a boat ride. All too soon it was bedtime and they said goodbye as Patsy took them home to bed. We had planned to get underway again today but late yesterday afternoon the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry caught up with us and we decided to sit today out rather than challenge the mighty Cape Fear river in strong winds. It looks like tomorrow will be a fair travel day and we are eager to explore the rest of North Carolina.