Of Friends, Feral Hogs, Storm Fronts and Haint Paint

. . . TRAVELING THE COAST OF THE PEACH STATE

Looper friends, Hamp and Denise on Gracie, introduced us to the beautiful Georgia town of Darien. We left the Intercoastal Waterway, motoring seven miles up the Darien River to tie up to the city’s free dock (free power and water, too!). 

Hamp and Denise met us on the dock, later taking us on a tour of the town. They grilled Cornish game hens and treated us to a great evening. It seems we weren't the first to discover how gorgeous Darien is; when we sent our boat locator notice that evening, several friends told us how much they liked their trips there.  

We met Denise and Hamp at a Marathon get together for boaters doing the Loop. It was well publicized with 125 people showing up. It turns out we're the only two boats among all those people who are actually doing the Loop. The rest were there for the party!

Darien is very accommodating to boaters, offering three days of free docking. The trimaran at the end of the dock is Ra, a completely solar-powered boat doing the Loop (solarboatchronicles.com).

The town has a town circle with angel fountain, town square and small shops. 

Live oaks and Spanish moss make it feel like a well-kept park.

Man plans. God laughs.

Our plans were to leave early the next day, cross several sounds (or bays) and reach Savannah in two days. Because a front was moving through, we kept a close eye on weather, wind and tide forecasts. The winds increased steadily all morning the day we left Darien until they reached 25 with gusts of 35 mph. We decided to tuck into an anchorage that Denise found on her iPad charts – Crescent River, instead of risking the open-to-the-Atlantic Sapelo Sound crossing that day. It was a good decision.

The big front that went through brought high winds and waves lapping at the hulls of the boats non-stop for two days. Most boaters were holed up like we were, except for a few crazy souls. One trawler radioed another that he was seeing gusts of 50 mph on his anemometer that reads wind speed. A line of trees helped break the force of the winds in our anchorage, but they were still mighty strong.

Two days of strong winds were followed by two days of rain and lighter winds. We know that the rest of the eastern U.S. was having bad weather, too. It’s a little harder though when you are confined to a cabin. We figured that cabin fever originated from staying winters in log cabins. Maybe it really means the cabin of a boat.



How did we entertain ourselves? By watching feral hogs feed at low tide. At high tide, the land was under water.

A nearby dock in the Crescent River was almost under water during the height of the storm and height of the tide.

Escape from Crescent River

Our clothes were dirty, groceries and water low. After a full four days, the forecasts were good for a crossing of the sound. We gladly pulled anchor and left the Crescent River. Traveling across the Sapelo Sound was uneventful because we worked with Mother Nature instead of against her. After one more evening at anchor, this time in Cane Patch Creek, we reached Thunderbolt Marina slightly south of Savannah. Washing machines! Grocery stores! Water!

Morning at Thunderbolt Marina means finding a half dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts on your boat. It's not a really healthy breakfast, but it's okay to treat yourself now and then. Another marina provided us with a local paper and two blueberry or apple muffins. Those marinas are the exception rather than the rule. 

Hello/Goodbye -- Savannah in a Day

Once again we only had just a few hours to see an entire city. We didn't do justice to the beauty and history of Savannah, but at least we got an overview. It's worth spending much more time in than we were able to -- this trip. 

The one fact to know about Savannah after reading this post is that the Savannah College of Art and Design is a monstrously big school that is having a huge influence on the culture of the city, the stores that locate in Savannah, and naturally on the students that attend.

A Georgia peach of a tour guide -- Karen -- and our friend Denise stopped in front of the trolley that took us around Savannah.  

The home of antique dealer Jim Williams, who figured prominently in the Savannah-centered, non-fiction book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

The oldest house in Savannah is the Pirate House, circa 1734. The shutters and door are done in "haint paint," as were many ceilings. The Gullahs of the Low Country believed that spirits can't cross water and used blue paint as a symbol. Back then, the paint contained lime that we were told repels mosquitoes, a carrier of diseases. So in many ways, the haint paint did protect the Gullahs  from evil haints that could give them malaria and yellow fever.

The architecture in Savannah is incredible! For example, the Telfair Academy was a private home built by British architect William Jay. It was left to the city and was converted to an art museum. The statues are of Phidias, Raphael, Rubens, Michelangelo and Rembrandt.

At Thunderbolt Marina, we said we'd see each other soon. Hamp and Denise are staying another week, while we sailed out today to meet friends and former co-workers in Charleston. We hope our paths cross sooner rather than later, but we're certain that they will cross again.