In the morning we have a flood tide to float us out of the Magic Kingdom. It’s even high enough to squirt us through a local shortcut and shave 10 miles off our last leg, saving roughly two hours. By late afternoon we will be docked in downtown Beaufort, SC, where Doug’s circumnavigation will pause until the summer hurricane season is over.
Up Calibogue Sound we go and out Skull Creek past Webb’s pier and condo, then out into Port Royal Sound. The tide has turned and carried us past Hilton Head, but that means it’s now rushing out of creeks, marshes, into two big rivers and out of Port Royal, headlong into a fresh breeze coming in off the Atlantic. Port Royal Inlet has a reputation for much unpleasantness with unwary boaters. In truth, we find the roughest passage of the past three weeks right here, coming down the home stretch.
We swing across the mouth with the ocean over our shoulder and make the turn to head up the Beaufort River. At the turn, I can just make out Fripp Island to the north where my parents still live, where I spent many summer days since elementary school.
At least we aren’t beating INTO the wind. With the main furled, the jib flying, and help from the motor against the current, if feels like we’re galloping along with a herd of horses. White caps are everywhere, waves rolling, but they’re going the same direction we are. A trawler we’ve seen before runs alongside us, snaps a photo and sends it to Doug, with another taken when they passed us back in Georgia.
We pass Parris Island, then the funky old seaport village of Port Royal, turn under the “new bridge”, and just like that we’re docked in Beaufort on the waterfront.
We have logistics to work out. I pull a few strings and arrange a rental car for a few days. With that we’ll be able to run errands. Doug has a lead on a place where he can leave Tidings on her trailer, until fall when he’ll come back and resume the trip. We need to find where this fellow is and negotiate the details.
In the morning, Doug has a plane to catch. I will drive him to the airport in Savannah. He’ll fly back to Tampa to pick up the truck and trailer, where he left them three months ago, and drive the rig back here. While he does that, I’ll have a day or two to visit with family.
When he gets back, we’ll haul the boat, transfer all the gear to the truck, and deliver the boat to the yard before we drive all day to get back north where home and family wait. We have a busy couple of days ahead.
The marina is in the heart of the Beaufort historic district, just a block off Bay Street. There’s time to stretch our legs and get a sandwich before we have to start sorting and packing gear.
We walk along the waterfront to get lunch outside in a cafe with a view of the river, then stroll back up Bay Street, bustling with tourists, shops, bookstores I know well, and pass the art gallery my mother started here decades ago. The old inn where my sister was married, streets where I rode bikes with my brother. It all feels familiar, like a second home.
As we’re packing up back on Tidings, my father and brother stop by to meet Doug and see the boat, the one they’ve been following on the web and in photos and messages for weeks. My dad has lots of questions, but every answer confirms further that this form of travel is not for him.
By late afternoon, we’re ready to start scouting by car. Turns out the place to keep the boat is out on St. Helena Island, on the way to my parents’ place. It’s at a crossroads called Frogmore, source of the famous “Frogmore Stew”, which is a Lowcountry seafood boil cooked up in a big pot with crabs, shrimp, sausage, onions, corn on the cob, and lots of spicy seasoning.
I give Doug the nickel tour on the way. We stop at the docks where iconic scenes of Forrest Gump were filmed, still a commercial seafood company lined with working shrimp boats.
Just past that, down at the end of a sand road on a creek, we find the man who will let us park Tidings for a few months. He’s a cheerful peg-legged pirate, a jack of all trades with 17 projects underway all scattered about, everything from outboard motor overhaul to commercial fishing gear, home appliances, and dock repairs. In fact, tied up in front of his house is a gleaming shrimp boat he just finished restoring, waiting for the new owner to arrive to pick her up.
By the time we finish up it’s near dinner time. Doug has been hearing all about the Lowcountry delicacy of shrimp and grits, and has a hankering to try it. A bit further out, and across a bridge onto Harbor Island, is a little local seafood diner I know called Johnson’s Creek Tavern. And indeed they have shrimp and grits, a sort of gumbo in a rich roux served over a bed of grits. Pairs well with cold beer. Ask and ye shall receive.
We spend one last night on the boat. Late that night I stalk a Black Crowned Night Heron, and realize he’s the source of those big muddy footprints I’ve been finding on docks the whole way from Daytona.
In the morning we grab a huge breakfast just off Bay Street at Blackstone’s Café. Some of Doug’s college friends are passing through and meet us there. Then I drive Doug to the airport, and on the way back make a quick detour into downtown Savannah.
I lived here in the historic district, on Gaston Street, when I was young and broke and fresh out of college. The house where I lived is looking great now, all fixed up. Back then it was painted hot pink and looked like a Victorian wedding cake. It had no phone – I had walk across one of the squares to a liquor store and use a pay phone outside; but it had a balcony, and on Sunday mornings I could lie in bed and hear church bells ringing all over the city.
What a time that was. One day I’ll write a book about all the wild things I encountered living in this place.