Brooke Smith
11/30/2011, At Anchor Herb River, GA

So we are watching the TV Christmas Tree Lighting Rockafella Center on NBC. Nice evening. We have now traveled 683miles since we left Deltaville, VA. The GPS says it's 667.31 miles to Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas. Of course we cannot go straight there so it's probably a couple hundred miles further.
It's nice here tonight. We fell short about 10 miles today from Isle of Good Hope Marina. We will get there early tomorrow and bus to Savannah.
We loved Port Royal SC, but it's nice to be away from those swift currents of 10' tidal swings.
Todays picture are 3 Egrets ( I think that's what they are )

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Brooke Smith
11/30/2011, Port Royal Marina

Seems I didn't finish day 27. But let me sum up as that the currents around this area are really strange and very strong. We plugged along and just pass Beaufort is the town of Port Royal, SC. Port Royal Landing Marina is a very nice Marina in a very nice development. We could move here. That's how nice this town and friendly everyone is. We needed to sign up for the courtesy car to explore a bit and of course my trip to a hardware store. The owner loaned me his personal truck as the courtesy truck was in use. Not only that, Art from the Grayco Hardware store almost insisted we use his extra car. We tried to take a walk yesterday and people keep trying to give us rides. Just a really nice area here. We ended up staying 3 nights as the winds and rain were pretty strong. We got our MTOA discount for two nights and the 3rd night was free. Great restaurant and ships store are here at Port Royal Landing Marina.
So, we got a few more things straightened out on the boat. I installed a 12volt power socket for our Engel Freezer. We had been running the freezer on 120 VAC since I had not had time to get the 12V wired before we left. (Technically the freezer runs on 12V. So, at anchor the inverter using 12V batteries was converting 12VDC to 120VAC and then the Engel Freezer was converting the 120VAC back to 12VDC to run the compressor. Not too efficient. I've got it correct now. ) Anyhow we are headed a little later after the current slows down for Isle Of Hope Marina about 50 miles from here. I don't know for sure if we will make it that far as I am going to try to time the tidal currents. It appears if I wait until 10-11AM to leave, we will buck the slowing tide and be able to ride it on the other side of the inlet. That is what the dockmaster says. It doesn't always work out. But these guys are locals so I'm taking their advice.
Yesterday we walked to Alvin Ord's for lunch for their salvation sandwich. YUM for sure. So, we have found Port Royal to be a very pleasant stop.
Time for coffee.
Picture is on of the 4 Christmas decorated boats.

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Brooke Smith
11/28/2011, Port Royal Marina

OK after having seemingly run UP RAPIDS, the Elliot cut, which really looked like something from a sci-fi movie with whirlpools and only being able to move forward a 2.5MPH,,, We decided to leave our anchorage after the tide switched in our favor very early this morning ~6:45AM. That was fine for a while. And, without any warning or prediction we lost the favorable current.

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Brooke Smith
11/26/2011, Charleston Harbor Marina

A good shot of the Ravenel bridge this morning.
PS nothing I post is touched up. No Photoshop etc. I do shoot manually and the best shots are straight from the Canon PowerShot S95. I do use the iPhone camera because it's handy. But it really is not a serious camera.

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Brooke Smith
11/26/2011, Stono River Anchorage

Artsy Picture of Lindsey at Dinner Vendue Inn

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Brooke Smith
11/26/2011, Charleston Harbor Marina

Black Friday - Lindsey, Jim, Susan and I took the trolley from the Marina to King St. Charleston's shopping mecca. After about three hours of looking in shops and at people from one end of the spectrum to the other, we slipped into a bar for some 'skinny' margueritas and 'house made' chips. Oops, forgot our frozen yogurt break at Mountain Yogurt. The Market in Charleston was fun, too. They had so many ladies weaving the sawgrass baskets! Beautiful, not cheap, bt a Charleston tradition. At 7, we arrived at the famous Vendue Inn for what turned out to be a delicious and romantic evening filled with great food and good, old friends! Trolley back to Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina was full of twinkling lights. Crossing the new span bridge from Charleston to Mount Pleasant was quite magical! What a way to end an awesome day full of memories made with friends! Thanks to Lindsey and Jim for coming over from Columbia to visit us for Thanksgiving! We couldn't quite convince them to hop aboard Liquid Therapy and travel south with us!
So, we left kind of late today and figured we'd get 18-20 miles. But, were we wrong. The tidal current through Ellliots Cut had us down to 2.6MPH, It was like gong upstream in rapids. SO, after climbing what seemed to me to be a stretch of water that should have a lock, we called it quits in the Stono River. We are going to get up early tomorrow to RIDE with the tide toward Savannah. We hope to pull in there Monday.
Watched the Tech. game and are turning in early for an early morning cruise.

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