We’re currently in St. Augustine, Florida. We’ll probably stay until the day after tomorrow, as some bad weather is supposed to pass through. I’m in the “boater’s lounge” at the municipal marina using the WiFi while the laundry does its thing. I’ve been surfing around looking at the devastation Sandy caused in New York and New Jersey. I hope Peter is okay – it looks like Staten Island took an awful beating from the storm.
A fellow live-aboard told us that riding Sandy out here in St. Augustine was not fun at all – there was serious storm surge in the harbour – the worst he’d ever seen. We’re very happy we were just exactly where we were when Sandy passed us by.
I’ve been meaning to tell you about our visit to Savannah, GA, but until now, we’ve had bad (or no) WiFi, and not a lot of data left on our internet do-dad.
Savannah, Georgia (18 to 20-Oct-2012)
I think I’m probably using this word too much, but Savannah is another beautiful Southern town. Like Beaufort, South Carolina, Savannah was not burned after the civil war, and much of the town is now a National Historic Landmark District. Incidentally, to many folks in the south, it wasn’t the Civil War, but rather The War of Northern Aggression.
Here are some pictures from our two nights here.
Savannah is a major US port, so there’s a lot of shipping traffic on the River. At all hours.
Here’s a view of where we were tied up at the Municipal Dock ($1.25/ft) on River Street.
We were the only boat on the dock, and there are many, many tourists on the waterfront, so Phill fielded a lot of questions from curious passers by. “Do you live on that boat?“. “Did you sail it all the way from Canada?“. “I heard that sleeping on a boat gives you arthritis” (no kidding, someone said that).
It’s such a great stop for boaters, but unless you pay up to stay at the Westin or Hyatt Regency marinas ($3/ft), there is no access to showers, so we took squatting cockpit showers from our solar bag (the squatting was necessary with all those curious passers by).
We finally shook all the tourists, and toured the town a bit ourselves.
Savannah was founded in 1733 by General James Ogelthorpe, and is apparently America’s first planned city. According to “The Oglethorpe Plan“, Savannah was laid out in a series of grids that allowed for wide, open streets with shady public parks (squares) that served as town meeting places and centers of business. Savannah had 24 original squares, and from what I understand, 22 are still in existence today.
It was fun to ride the bike around and every few blocks stop at another lovely park. I was gripped briefly by the OCD notion that I had to take a picture of every square we passed, then I got over it.
If you’re curious about how we double on the Dahon, here’s a video I took of our refection in a building’s windows.
We rode up to Forsyth Park, where we spent some time walking around…
We were told by a local guy that taking a walk on Jones Street is a Savannah must, so we did that next. It is a pretty street.
And some Savannah architecture that caught our eye.
We went for a see ‘n pee at the Hyatt Regency, and got a picture of the boat from a few floors up. You can just see the mast near the centre of the photo.
Phill has taken an interest in old American post offices, so we stopped into the Savannah P.O.
We went out the night of the 19th, but as usual, were asleep by 10.
We left on October 20th, happy we made the 14 mile (roundtrip) detour up the Savannah River.
Next time, I’ll tell you about Jekyll Island, where we spent the most time of any stop so far on this trip.