Savannah: A Food Adventure

Sorry it’s been so long. My available writing time got allocated to The Interview Doctor. Let me catch up you on where we are and what has been going on. I will insert pictures shortly. Pictures take forever to load. Sorry about that. First the words. 

When last we heard from our intrepid loopers we were setting anchor for the night in a quiet cove between Jekyll Island and Savannah on Friday May 17. For those following the geography or those who vacationed this way before, we on Walburg Creek off the ICW MM620 just north of Sapolo Sound. These are part of the Georgia Sounds, kind of like the Outer Banks of Georgia. Local folks are very proud of this area. Me. Not so much.

Here is what the guidebook says about Walburg Creek along St. Catherine’s Island:

The St. Catherine’s Islands Foundation owns it and limits visitation. Halfway down the route is the St. Catherine’s Island Foundation Survival Center for endangered species, operated in conjunction with the New York Zoological Society. The climate of St. Catherine’s Island is suitable for breeding colonies of rare and endangered animals like gazelle, parrots and Madagascar turtles.

Great. There is another part of the world with so much marsh, flatness, and winding rivers. And bugs. Flies, no-see-ums, and God knows what else. Great. Now I have to scratch Africa off my Bucket List.

I will not be sad to be out of the Georgia coast. It is boring, buggy, and really hot. I am covered with bug bites, insecticide, anti-itch cream, and suntan lotion. It is a deadly combination making evening showers mandatory and making the daytime not conducive to intimacy with another human.

The most exciting part of this portion of the trip is hearing Kermit and Darrell exchange funny comments on the radio. They really get into it. It is pretty funny. Darrell says he is a “Kermit enabler”. Absolutely true. The other guys are glad for relief from Kermit’s teasing. I just giggle!

The other fun thing is watching Dick on Sareanna in the lead go around a bend and appear to travel south right next to us while the rest of us behind him pass him traveling north. It winds that much.

The other fun thing is sharing inane tidbits like the one above about St. Catherine’s Island. That goes on all day over the radio. I picked up a new guidebook on my Kindle so I can participate in the inane tidbits.

Michael on One September has the best comments about shoaling. I don’t know where he gets it or how he knows it. But he will come over the radio and say, “Ok Kermit, now at Red 32 there is shoaling on the port side so stay a little more to the starboard at that marker.” So Kermit gets out his binoculars to pick out Red 32 so he can move away from the shoaling and avoid running aground. Mike is very handy that way.

Occasionally you hear, “Kermit, tell Ivan (the autopilot) to get back in the channel. Red is on the port side now.” That is a good one too. Handy and humorous at the same time! Several times we found ourselves on the wrong side of the channel because the red marker changes from port to starboard depending on where the ICW is located in conjunction to an inlet. We are often not paying attention. I can’t imagine what would happen if we traveled this alone. We would be one of those stranded boats we take pictures of all the time! I am grateful for good captains as traveling companions and for that little doo-hickey Ron gave us for the dashboard that allows us to switch the red and green reference points.

Savannah was next on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday May 18-20. Boy we like Savannah!! Savannah makes all the Georgia travel worthwhile. I highly recommend a vacation in Savannah if you haven’t done that before. It is so beautiful. There is something for everyone: art, history, beautiful gardens, people watching, and water. And we took advantage of it all!

We tried to stay at Thunderbolt Marina, a big marina closer to Savannah but they didn’t have room. We also tried to stay at the marina in downtown Savannah so we could walk wherever we wanted without relying on a car to get us to Savannah. Neither worked out. Thunderbolt did not have space for four boats. We are traveling with One September, Sareanna, and Why Knot so it is important to have everyone together. It is more fun that way too.  

After visiting Savannah and talking to Jim and Joy from Jim’s Joy who live in Savannah we are glad we did not try to stay downtown. The current is huge and the commercial traffic is constant. Savannah is a major shipping port so huge container ships pass all day and all night long. Ferries cross to the other side constantly creating more of a wake than the container ships, if you can imagine that.

So we all went to Isle of Hope Marina, a beautiful small marina located about 20 minutes from town in a scenic historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is just lovely. In 1732 King George II of England granted 500 acres to Noble Jones who came across just after Oglethorpe who founded Savannah. He expanded that holding. The big plantation Wormsloe is still owned by that family. We didn’t go there but we passed the entrance and could see the huge live oak corridor leading to the mansion.

Huge mansions sit next to lovely homes and little cottages. The streets are narrow and winding, some not paved. We ran across the first Franciscan retreat house in Georgia. Spanish moss hanging on huge oaks, magnolias and palm trees. And the smell! Honeysuckle, lilac, and roses perfume the air. The water glistened off the long docks built long to accommodate a 6 foot tide.

The marina is located on Bluff Drive. Soldiers marched on this street in the movie Glory. There is a great article about this community in Coastal Living Magazine.

I walked the streets several times a day with Rusty and sometimes with Judy. People are so nice. They wave at each other, ask us where we are from, say hello to Rusty. It is so pleasant. Kids ride bikes and play on the streets. It is just beautiful.

The marina is wonderful. It is small and very friendly. The fellow who owns it has a real positive view. The people who work for him actually run to accomplish their chores and they smile so you know they are happy. They enjoy working there and they want to give you a good experience. It was just an overall pleasant experience.

Here is an example of what the people on this island are like. The day we arrived a group of people was setting up a wedding in the little pavilion at the top of the ramp to the docks. They put up ribbons, netting, and lights, set up tables with table clothes. All the stuff you need. Bug spray. You know, the essentials. That evening when we came back from the marina the party was in full force. About 50 or 75 people having fun, hanging out in the parking lot and around the pavilion, listening to music and having a few beers. The next morning it was all gone. Every scrap of paper was cleaned up, all the lights were gone, the chairs stacked neatly in the corner, and the tables were gone. The floors were swept. Gone. Like it never happened. And we never heard a word. Not a peep. Can you imagine that happening in your marina? Especially the “not a peep” part. These folks are just nice people.

Darrell and Lisa from Why Knot couldn’t join us in Savannah. They had boat stuff to do. Kermit and I took the piece-of-crap-but-free courtesy car to pick up our package at Thunderbolt while the others got ready for Savannah. We never made it to Thunderbolt. The tires were just about flat and there was almost no gas in the vehicle. And the piece of crap car had a piece of dog crap in it. So it was literally a piece-of-crap car!! We cleaned up the car and went back to the marina to pick up the other Mike, Judy, Dick, and Deanna to explore Savannah.

We started out with a trolley tour. I am a new convert to trolley tours. We learned so much in two hours. We passed through every one of the 22 squares, some more than once, and heard stories about the interesting and influencial folks who lived there.

Evidently General James Oglethorpe got off the boat in 1733 with a plan for a town built on a bluff (like 40 feet above sea level – big bluff) with 24 squares with houses and community services built around the squares. The squares also make it easier to defend the town and ensure the town won’t completely burn down in case of fire. When Sherman came through at the end of the Civil War, he did not burn the town down so the original squares and homes remain.

We saw the home where Jim Williams lived when he murdered that young prostitute as documents in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. We saw the first synagogue and early churches including the church where John Wesley preached when he founded the Methodist Church.

Funny story about Telfair Museums. Mary Telfair lived in the 1800s. She inherited a huge fortune and lots of lands in and around Savannah. She was really smart, really well educated, and not a big fan of men. When she died she left her fortune to establish a hospital in which men were not allowed. In fact, newborn boys could not be treated in that hospital after 3 days old. She established the art museum with her personal collection and had only women on the board. Interesting lady!

We learned another story about another prominent woman in Savannah whose husband died early on, leaving her an attractive young widow. During the Revolution, George Washington found her fascinating and found reasons to visit Savannah where he always stayed at her plantation.

Sunday morning Jim and Joy from Jim’s Joy came to Isle of Hope to take us to breakfast at a local place they recommended. OMG. The food here is so good. Driftwood Inn. The best part was catching up with old friends we haven’t traveled with for a while. I can’t wait till we all get together in Charleston for a few weeks of travel in the Chesapeake!

When we returned from Savannah on Saturday night, Darrell greeted us with word that he was having significant electrical problems and had to call the repair man from Jekyll Island to work on his generator and electrical system again. I don’t understand exactly what is wrong but it is still serious. So they couldn’t join us for Sunday’s wandering in Savannah either. They did join us for dinner on Sunday night at The Olde Pink House. Pink stucco gives this historic mansion its name. Built in 1789 for James Habersham Jr., a founding family member heavy into cotton.

The place is haunted!! Evidently Jim hung himself in the basement in 1799 and his ghost still wanders the place. We were told that if a gentleman in colonial clothing asks how your meal was, just stay calm but it probably isn’t a waiter. We had cocktails in the basement, now a tavern, just to check out the ambiance. I say a ghost could live down there. It is dark and romantic, lit mostly by candlelight and a big fireplace at each end. We were told sometimes the ghost is in the ladies room in the basement so all five of us headed to the loo to check it out. No ghost sightings. But we did see a video of the ghost caught on security cameras. Look up, “The Olde Pink House Ghost! Caught on our security camera!” It is pretty convincing.

This restaurant is famous for a regional dish, scored fish. The chef makes big slits in both sides of a flounder then sautés it till the skin is crispy. It is presented headless on a big flat plate. You eat the meat off one side then flip the fish over and eat the other side till all you have left is a skeleton. We went there anticipating this dish. The waitress said no flounder tonight and the whole room groaned. So she walked away, checked with the chef and came back to announce that the chef found 9 flounder lying around. Darrell said it was a case of manufactured scarcity and I think he was right. I don’t care though because it was delicious. So were the adorable little cornbread muffins and the biscuits that simply melted. We walked back to the cars completely stuffed.

On Monday, Dick and Deanna moved on down the road to visit friends near Bluffton and Jim and joy went back to their boat docked in Bluffton. Darrell and Lisa are still stuck in Isle of Hope waiting for repairs to their generator.

Mike, Judy, Kermit and I took a walking food tour in Savannah on Monday. More food. All we do is eat. This was a tasting of 5 restaurants and 2 interesting stores – salt and honey. Who would have guessed you could have a store built around such everyday items but you can and it was fascinating. I don’t even like honey and I loved this. Must begin dieting soon, like maybe October.

We stopped in but didn’t eat at the industrial complex that is called Paula Deen. She is everywhere. The Lady and Sons is her base located in a complex of buildings covering an entire square block. It smelled ok but we had other plans for our calories. While we were in the store a lady who looked important announced that there was a newlywed in the store. She wanted to pay them tribute with the same song she sang to Paula and Michael when they got married. (Everyone knows who Paula Deen and her husband Michael are, right? If not, look it up and get with it!) So she burst into a wonderful a capella rendition of “At Last”. Glorious and unexpected, just like everything else about this trip. 

Next: Hilton Head and Beaufort SC