An early start today -the alarm clock rattled itself onto the floor and William bought me a steaming cup of tea at 6.30 am in anticipation of a departure by 9am.

It had been a relaxing stop here at Lee Shore Marina for the past week. Our old friend Joe Kovacs and his boat Seabreeze are on the same dock and we caught up with his news over many coffee mornings. He had welcomed us in a few mornings earlier presenting us with a bottle of champagne, cherry turnovers and fresh fruit for breakfast!! What a surprise!

Good friends Gill & Tony Perry, who live on Wilmington Island, treated us to a fun night at the Savannah Theatre where we enjoyed a high energy music, dance and comedy show - a little bit country, a liitle bit rock'n'roll plus some Broadway.

To cap it all the marina is only a few yards from a large supermarket which made final top-up provisioning easy.

Time to leave and Tony came to help cast off our lines from the dock. It was a chilly morning but soon the sun cranked up the temperature by a few degrees. We had the tide with us for most of the way which gave Alexia a real boost reaching 8 knots at one time. Over the next seven hours, we covered just short of 40 miles and sailed in good winds for five of those seven. From time to time we passed other boats but it was not a busy day on the water.

The wind, at times gusting 28K, had a real winter's edge to it but the shrimp boats were out in force including this guy in my picture who is being mobbed by a screeching swoop of hungry seagulls. I always think these shrimpers look very ladylike with their outstretched arms holding up their net skirts!