After leaving Savannah on Thursday and anchoring out Thursday night, we arrived in Beaufort (Bew-fort), SC on Friday afternoon. Beaufort is a neat little town with a really nice waterfront park and many old historical homes that were built by the plantation owners. They built these waterfront homes for the cool summer breezes. Most are built with the first floor up off the ground and are usually two stories with the warp around porches on both floors. Very elegant and stylist, although I would think not very cost efficient in today's world. They are, however, beautiful homes.

It seems that we arrived at the end of the two week Water Festival here in Beaufort. In addition to the craft fair going on there were several other events left on the schedule. We went into town on Friday evening to attend the River Dance, with a band from Knoxville, TN playing. Usually, I enjoy music of bands from TN but, unfortunately this band, The Dirty Guv'nahs, played for a much younger crowd and the music was impossible for our type of dancing.

On Saturday, there was an air show scheduled and we were advised our boat could remain at anchor but we couldn't be on it during the show since we were in the flight path of the aerobatic planes. Made sense to me so we went ashore and enjoyed the show.

We were able to have a short tour on a docked shrimp boat while there, similar to the one Forrest Gump had, which by the way Forrest Gump along with many other movies including the Great Santini, Prince of Tides and Bagger Vance, were partially filmed in this area.

Here are a few pictures from Saturday.

On the shrimp boat:

The swing bridge we'll pass through when leaving, different than the draw bridges and high vertical bridges we are used to seeing:

Sky divers and aerobatic planes:

This sky diver attempted a water landing onto a small floating raft:

And didn't quite make it!!!! But, a really nice try.

A couple of shots looking out at the anchorage:

A really pretty area.

As some of you know, I also lost my phone of the way back in the dinghy to Tumbleweed. After a pretty extensive search, I have determined it may have fallen out of my pocket into the deep blue sea. I'll let you know when I have another one.

We'll be headed on north from here either later today or tomorrow. We'll do a short run up the ICW, then go outside for about a 20 mile sail into Charleston Harbor. Since we drove up to Charleston from Savannah for a day, we probably won't spend any time there. We've decided to pretty much "dead head" on up to Oriental, NC (about 350 miles) where we plan to spend 3 - 4 weeks just hanging out and enjoying living in a marina where we'll have all of the amenities we could want.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend and a great week ahead!!

We robbed a bank, settled our account with Hinckleys and got the hell out of Savannah at 12 noon today. It's great to be underway again. We crossed the Savannah without incident or even seeing a commercial ship. Now, we're about to cruise by Hilton Head Island. We should be in Beaufort, SC tomorrow and plan to spend a couple of days seeing that town.

Took the boat out for a shake down cruise. Found a couple of, small things that need to be taken care of by Hinckley's before we leave. If all goes well, they will be done first thing tomorrow and we'll be on our way before noon. We plan to go about 41 miles to Beaufort, SC and hang for a couple of days. Then we'll start on toward our first real destination of Oriental, NC and spend about a month. We plan to spend some time there doing some day sailing on the "outside" so we begin to feel more confident when we start back south in the winter. When we do start back south, we hope to be able to spend more time outside and avoid all the issues along the ICW.

We got the dingy motor back this afternoon and also took it out for a sea trail. All seems to be well with it too.

More as we start north

Well, the final hookup of the rudder was completed this afternoon as well as the final items on our list of things to be repaired while here in Savannah. Now, when they return our cushions which they had to redo and our dinghy motor gets back from the repair shop, we should be good to go. Hopefully, we'll be able to begin north again on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.

I completed the installation of the new Echo Charger and windlass switches this afternoon and it seems that the battery is now receiving a full charge.

Nancy spent the day cleaning the barnacles and beard from the bottom of the dingy and it now looks pretty darn good.

While changing the fuel filters today, it was discovered that our rear main seal in the engine was leaking a little. The mechanic here suggested that to save money we do the same with it as we are with the transmission leak - just keep an eye on the levels and fill as necessary.

It has really been unbelievable the problems we have had with this boat. Obviously, we made a huge mistake in buying the boat without having a survey done. Although, I'm not sure how many of these problems would have been found by a surveyor. There is no need in our looking back nor second guessing our decision to buy. We just need to look to the future, hope most of the serious problems have been taken care of and try to enjoy the rest of this adventure.

Leaving Savannah after 6 weeks will seem strange but IO am certainly looking forward to heading north again.

I just saw an earlier post saying the we got into the Hinckley's shipyard on June 14. That means we're starting our 6th week tomorrow!!! Thankfully, the new rudder is in place. They have to complete hooking the steering up tomorrow, then the exhaust pipe and a couple of minor things we want to have them complete. I have a new Echo Charger ordered and due here next Tuesday, so we're here until at least next Wednesday. Then, hopefully, we'll start out again and not have any more problems or delays. This 6 week delay may have cost us any chance of getting all the way north to Maine this summer. We may just decide to stop and hang out somewhere along the way where we can enjoy the marina life and get out to do a little day sailing. Yet to be seen.

Nancy arrived this afternoon and I'm really happy to have her home!! She did learn this evening that her brother will have surgery on his back tomorrow for something, unrelated to his cancer, that is keeping him from being able to walk.  She had learned before she left that he also has a heart condition that will make any surgery risky. Unfortunately, when she left, he hadn't scheduled any surgery or she would have stayed around for a few more days. Phil is a tough guy though and they feel he'll come though the surgery just fine.

Notice anything different????

Nancy is returning home (to the boat) this morning. Just learned her connection from Houston has been delayed an hour. I'm really looking forward to her being back.

While she was gone, after my return from FL, I installed our new (used) kitchen sink and picked up our reupholstered salon cushions. Nancy picked out the fabric, with my approval of course, and I think they really look very nice. We had a 5" foam placed in the bottoms and they really look comfortable.

The sinks aren't really gold, that's just the light reflecting and a bad photographer.

Yesterday was another miserable, hot and humid day here in Savannah. Although our rudder has been here since Monday, they seem to find more pressing issues to work on than it. They seem to feel they need to take care of all their Hinckley Yacht customers before than can get to our lowly Tumbleweed Two.

I also managed to find time yesterday to re-patch the dinghy, since it was still leaking. I sent the outboard off for a carburetor rebuild while in FL and hope to have it back soon.

I learned yesterday, that after all this time, it may be our Echo Charger causing problems with the windlass battery. The marina services electrician came on board and deduced it to be the problem. I had described the problem we are having to a technician at the charger manufacturing company once before and was told, "no, the charger is good - you have a battery problem". I called them again yesterday, got a different tech, told him the same story. He said. "Absolutely, the charger is bad". Customer service today makes me wonder how many companies stay in business!!

Well, hopefully, before too long, I'll be able to start reporting on our northerly progress again.

I spent a long weekend in Florida visiting family and celebrating my niece's 40th birthday, while Nancy was in Arkansas. I returned yesterday evening late and learned this morning that both our rudder and exhaust pipe are here. The bad news is I'm being told it will still be a couple of days before they can get to the rudder. This is a little upsetting since, once the rudder is back on, they can return us to the water where a sailboat belongs. But, it's been so long now, what's a couple of more days!!!!

I learned even better news last night when  talking with Nancy. It seems her brother may not be in as bad a shape as originally thought and the doctors are telling family that they should be able to treat his cancer and eventually he will be walking again.

Another great note of good news is that Nancy has rescheduled her flight home (back to the boat) from July 27 to July 18. I'm looking forward to her return as I have really missed her company.

Well, a little more progress was made on the boat today. She got her first coat of bottom paint. She'll get one more tomorrow, then when the rudder arrives, they will put a couple of coat on it, slap it on and we should be back in the water. The pictures below are of the first coat and the blue taped area shows but if gives you an idea of what she'll look like. I also re-added an earlier picture for comparison.

If I haven't already mentioned it, we were told yesterday our rudder should be here Friday or Monday. Then we can go back in the water and our A/C should keep things nice and cool. Soon after, the exhaust pipe should be here and once that's on and a couple of minor things are taken care of, we should be headed north again.

Several days ago, I mentioned that I had sanded the boat's wood and Nancy was in the process of refinishing it. Her efforts really paid off and the wood does look nice.

Unfortunately, Nancy learned that one of her brothers has cancer and is in the hospital undergoing extreme chemo treatments so she flew back to Arkansas this afternoon to see if she can be of help to his wife and family while he's in the hospital. I'll be bach'in it for a few days but I must say, I'm already looking forward to her return. It seems that we have been a team fighting the problems with this "demon boat" and I believe we drew strength to continue on from each other. I'm sure our time apart will do us good and when she gets back, the boat should be ready and we should be ready to finish this trip. Then, we'll have to decide if we want to continue sailing or come up with another adventure to pursue.