N 32° 25.149 W 080° 39.475

Friday morning we moved from the Beaufort City Marina to Lady’s Island Marina, which is just on the other side of the highway bridge – a 15 minute journey for us.

Friday was a provisioning day. Early in the morning we borrowed a courtesy car from the marina & drove to a local grocery store to stock up on fresh food, bottled water & many other necessities. We could only have the car for an hour so it was a “speed shopping” expedition.

Chris & I divided the grocery list in half, grabbed a couple of shopping carts & scooted up & down the aisles. 45 minutes later – mission accomplished!

We loaded the groceries onto the boat & headed for the other marina so we could tie up there by noon.

My buddy George picked us up at 1:00pm in his car & the shopping continued. West Marine, Lowes, Wal Mart , a local hardware store, a butcher shop & finally Publix….. whew, that was a marathon! There’s hardly any room left on the boat!

Back to the boat to drop off all the stuff we acquired & then off to George’s house for dinner.

About 3 years ago George & his wife Sandy built a new home just a few miles away from the marina we were docked at.

While en route to his house George gave us a “windshield” tour of Beaufort & area. He called it a windshield tour because it was too hot to get out of the air conditioned car to walk around. No argument from the passengers on that strategy.

All the older streets are lined with huge oak trees with lots of Spanish Moss hanging down from their branches.

George & Sandy’s home is in a golf course community. Not far from their home are several fresh water ponds that the golf courses use for drainage & for irrigating the fairways & greens. The pond in the photo above was a popular spot for birds to hang out. Another pond a few hundred yards away had 2 alligators sunning on the banks. Each one was about 6 feet long. George told me that there are gators as big as 11-12 feet in the ponds. No swimming there for sure!

George & Sandy cooked us a fantastic steak dinner supported by beautiful air conditioning, G&Ts, wine & great conversation.

It was wonderful to catch up with George & to finally meet Sandy – I’ve only known & worked with George for about 14 years! We also got to meet Sandy’s dad, Ken who is 99 years young!

George & I collaborated on a lot of projects over the years & had a lot of fun while doing it. That’s the way it should be.

We are now both retired & wondering why we didn’t do this 20 years sooner. I think that it might have had something to do with needing a steady income until the nest egg was big enough. 😉

I’ve often told people that I don’t miss the work but I do miss spending time & working with people like George.

It was great visiting with George & Sandy but now it’s time to continue our journey north. Next stop – Charleston!

Cheers everyone!