We had a scary evening with storms hitting us around 2200... extreme lightning, winds to 40 knots and heavy rain for about an hour... during this we had an alert pop up on phones for tornado warnings... it was quite a light show... Anchor held strong. Around 2300 the light show stopped, and the winds dropped to around 20 knots with light rain.

Woke at 0630 and prepared SAILS to depart... underway at 0730... destination planned... anchorage just south of Charleston, SC near Elliott’s cut.

We have plans to meet family in the Myrtle Beach area on Friday night... we also want to fuel up at Waca Wache Marina on the Waccamaw River... maybe combine the visit with the fuel stop... checking our distance from Waca Wache we needed to go further today that Elliott’s Cut... we had favorable current, so we reached Elliott’s Cut and kept going...

Problem was once you cross Charleston Harbor there are not any options for anchoring until you get past Palm Island... That extended our cruise day past sunset... I hate running the ICW in the dark... once past Palm Island we stopped at the first viable anchorage we came to... Dewees Island... we have been to this anchorage before and is easy to get into and plenty of width to swing.

We arrived and dropped the anchor at 2100. Our position for the night is N32°49.967’, W079°43.682'. We traveled today for 13.5 hours covering 96.0 nautical miles averaging 7.1 knots.

Shortly after anchoring we hear a boat horn just off the side of SAILS... 5 blasts and he had us lit up light it was daylight with every light he had on the boat... he yelled to us and asked if we planned to anchor here for the night.... I responded that we were... he said we needed to move as we were in the path, he takes to get to the Dewees Island Ferry Docks... I asked if he had a problem getting around me it’s a very wide waterway... he was not happy with my answer and yelled that he would be passing by us a few more times and there would be boar wake and it would not be safe... I told him we were not moving and the boat wake would not disturb us... it was a “no wake” zone... he did not like my answer and moved away... only to turn around blast his horn 5 times... all lights on us and he increased his speed just enough to create the largest wake he could... he was being a total jerk... then he turned around and came past us again doing the same thing... he went beyond jerk status to a total ASSHOLE. About an hour passed and he was back doing the same thing as he passed us going to the ferry dock and again on his return trip... I wondered if this was going to happen all night long... found the ferry website and the schedule... last trip is at 2230... so this would be the last time he would be harassing us tonight.... But the ferry runs start again at 0600 in the morning...

I was up at 0600 prepared to meet Mr. Ferry Captain in the daylight... ferry arrived at about 0620 and it passed by at idle speed... captain and everyone onboard waving... evidently not the same captain as we had overnight...

We left Duplin River this morning at 0730 in the fog… not bad had 3/4-mile visibility… winds were less than 5 knots… would have been nice to have been a sunny day but we knew it was going to be gloomy… the fog was a surprise… fog slowly disappeared and by 1000 was pretty much non-existent.

AIS showed we had one of the same boats we trailed yesterday just ahead of us a couple of miles and a new one we had not seen before “Eye of the Storm”…. Don’t think I would have named my boat that, but it was a nice boat… 49 ft Krogan Whaleback… the Krogan stopped at noon just north of Kilkenny Creek in Buckhead Creek… the other boat “Vignette” stopped at a marina in Thunderbolt… they were out on the dock waving to us as we passed them… Had a few boats pass us that we had seen the day before passing us… not sure how they run so fast and end up passing us each day…

Another weather system forecast to hit us tonight around 2000 per radar forecast… looks lie a nasty system… there is a tornado watch issued till 2300.

We arrived at the Hilton Head area at approximately 1715… we had decided to anchor in Bull Creek just north of Dufuskie Island… At approximately 1730 we were secure at anchor in 15 feet of water with lots of chain out for the weather we are supposed to get tonight. Our position for the night is N32°09.579’, W080°51.089'. We traveled today for 10.0 hours covering 73.6 nautical miles averaging 7.4 knots.

Alarm went off at 0630... needed to get a little fuel this morning at Fernandina Harbour Marina before we continue north... there fuel dock opens at 0800 so not a big rush to get underway as we were only 1000 yards off the fuel dock on the mooring ball.

Dropped the mooring line at 0745 and idled over to the fuel dock and tied up... There was a dock guy there opening the fuel dock office up... few minutes after 0800 he handed me the fuel nozzle... put approximately 100 gallons in each tank.... Should have started with the tank away from the dock so I could of seen the pump... got exactly 100 gallons in the starboard tank as I could see the pump and stop at 100 gallons... I asked the dock guy to watch the pump for me on the port tank for 100 gallons... it seemed like it was taking a long time to reach 100 gallons and I had not heard any status reports from the dock guy... I stopped and walked over to where I could see the pump.... 107 gallons... so we put 207 gallons in total instead of 200 as I had planned... 7 gallons more was no big deal but at $5.949 per gallon it’s $40 more... We only wanted the 200 to get us to the Carolinas where fuel is not $6 per gallon... still a few places less than $4.00 per gallon... that’s a big difference in cost when you’re filling up SAILS.

Finished fueling and away from the dock at 0830 and headed north on the ICW... we would be in Georgia today... had plans to go to Walburg Creek today and anchor but there was a strong weather system coming across the area and we would need good protection from it... decided to go as far as the Duplin River and anchor... good protection from all directions.

Today was very windy... winds all day were SSE 20 to 25 knots with gusts to over 30 knots... St. Andrews sound was a little lumpy with 2 to 4 foot seas as we crossed it... the ICW and other areas had a moderate chop... back and forth with current in our favor and against us but overall felt like it was more in our favor.

The weather system was not supposed to hit us until around 2000 but we started getting a few bands of rain from it around 1600... during the rain bands the winds almost stopped... less than 10 knots... once the rain stopped winds were back to over 25 knots... CRAZY!

We arrived at the Duplin River at approximately 1630 and at 1645 we were secure at anchor in 15 feet of water. Our position for the night is N31°25.485’, W081°17.714'. We traveled today for 8.5 hours covering 59.0 nautical miles averaging 6.95 knots.