Savannah, GA

Today we traveled through St. Helena Sound out to the ocean.  The forecast was for 5-10 k winds out of the NW, building to 20-25 in the afternoon with scattered showers possible.  It sounded like the perfect day for a SW sail down to the Savannah River. We thought we could be in the river by the time the winds got narly.  Well, part of that was correct.  It was 5-7 k most of the day but out of the west.  About the time we thought we might pull the jib out, either the wind dropped to nothing or it was too close to sail.  So we motored and enjoyed the sun and the dolphins frequenting our path.  About 5 miles after we got into the river, the wind built, but on our nose, the clouds rolled in, and eventually the rain started.  Tom saw a 31 k gust.  We decided to forego the full trip to Savannah (15 miles from the mouth of the river) and instead ducked into the ICW and docked at Thunderbolt, just missing a gigantic container ship coming up behind us.  It had stopped raining and blowing by that time so we didn't have to get wet tying up at the dock.  Showers, laundry, and internet are such nice amenities.

Which leads me to a discussion of some of the new amenities on the boat that we are really loving since our last trip.  First off, our windscreen.  How sweet it is not to have wind and rain blowing in your eyes and ears and everywhere else while you are trying to negotiate an unfamiliar channel.  It has been very helpful on these chilly morning in keeping us from freezing to death with the wind chill too.

Next up:  the solar panels.  They have kept our batteries in fine shape while we've been away from the boat this summer and now are adding to our available power while anchored off the shore power.  Great addition and we want more.

And last but not least: the monitor Tom added at the helm seat.  It is connected to our laptop inside at the nav station so we can view and adjust our chart plotter right from the helm rather than to go inside to check the route, etc.  We love it.  He still needs to run the wires into a protected box so it will be more permanent but, for now, we just make do with a few inconvenient wires.