April 24-26, 2024: Moving on to Palmetto Bay

**Fun fact: Today’s date is a palindrome: “a word, number, phrase or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards. There will be 11 of these in the month of April this year. Of note, the 19 letter Finnish word saippuakivikauppias (a soapstone vender) is the longest single-word palindrome in everyday use, while the 12-letter term tattarrattat (from James Joyce in Ulysses) is the longest in English”. (Wikipedia)

0637: Outside temp 54 degrees, Water 72.9 degrees, Humidity 92%, Dew point 52 degrees, Wind SW @ 5 mph, Cloud cover 6%, Power 64%, WOBSSRs done, Thru hull open.

0700: Engine started. Slight blip with RPMs, but belt is tight. Returned to normal quickly. 0710: Anchor came up easily once the manual bolt was tightened. Good to know.

We’ve seen many dolphins along the way. Fun to watch, but difficult to catch on camera. Getting a good push from behind, bringing our speed up to 9 mph. Wheeee!

At 0847 we started our turn toward Hell Gate, a 3/4 mile stretch of the ICW by green MM 91 with 3.7 feet of water below the keel at low tide. We timed it to arrive just after high tide and made it through with 9-12 feet under the keel. Below is an example of the information we gather from the Waterway Guide about shoaling and other “sticky wickets” along the ICW.

GA: Hell Gate, shoaling MM 601(Waterway Guide).

• Date Reported: Mar 30, 2024
• Reporter: Bob423 
• Source: User
• Description: UPDATE: 5.0 MLLW as of 3/30/2024 on the Bob423 trackThe 11/7/2022 USACE survey is shown.  Do not hug G89, pass by 80 ft off (see bottom photo).   

Once we were through Hell Gate I reheated our ham, egg and potato casserole for breakfast.

After a short nap we walked up to the Black Marlin Bayside Grill for some seafood from the early dining menu.

Grilled flounder and local shrimp

Bayside stuffed flounder

Caramel fudge brownie. Ate the ice cream and brought the rest home for tomorrow.

Milton met us on our dock on the way back and was not the least concerned by our presence.

Later Milton walked by Jack Robert on our dock.

He spent 5 minutes just staring at the water waiting for a fish to swim by. He finally got discouraged and left.

Thursday:

After a good night’s sleep we woke up to a beautiful day in Hilton Head, SC.

Three cheese Quiche with tater tots

Seafood strata with hash browns

Virgin Mary

Tropical Cobb salad with shrimp

Seafood chowder

Side salad

After our showers we walked up to the Palmetto Bay Sun Rise Cafe for breakfast and then returned home for a nap (I was suffering the after effects of an allergy pill to counteract the no see-ums). Later we walked back to the Black Marlin for lunch.

Braised short ribs

Low country pasta

We relaxed in the afternoon and then walked to the Carolina Crab Company for dinner. All in all it was a good day.