Hilton Head was an unplanned stop. Given how things went while here, it probably won’t be another stop again. Unless we are on a different dock or at a different marina. If you haven’t read how we ended up here you can catch up by reading that story here.

It’s not that that marina or staff at Skull Creek Marina were bad, quite the opposite. The staff and marina were top notch. I cannot say enough good things about how helpful and nice the staff was. Or how the marina itself was great despite still recovering from the storm damage of the previous season(s). My problem was more specific to our location on the docks. Our beam facing all of the fetch from the wide open area of Intracoastal immediately south of us.

Skull Creek Marina

In the previous post, I spoke of how we ended up here and that we had camped out on the fuel dock at 3 am after a horrible offshore passage. The plan was to talk to the marina when they opened the next morning and see if they had a spot for us to sit for a while and lick our wounds.

Fortunately, they did. Unfortunately, it was on a face dock with no protection from the south. We asked about moving to an open spot on an inside face dock but were told that those slips were assigned to long-term slip holders already. Who could at any moment, return to their spot. Given the weather that was taking over the area, I thought that to be a highly likely scenario. I wouldn’t want to be out in that mess either. Regardless, we said ok and decided to tough it out. The spot assigned to us was directly in front of a gorgeous Nordhavn 55 trawler and behind a rather worn monohull who was bouncing around as much if not more than us.

Ramblin Rose - Bow

It was that first night of bashing against the dock that I believe caused our next major issue. We were leaving that afternoon to run an errand and for some strange reason, I decided to check the dock lines at our bow. I was taken aback by what I saw instead. Our starboard forward hull window hanging out of the hull at a 45-degree angle. Held in place by what remained of a small bead of sealant at the bottom of the window. Earlier that morning we had discovered that the cabin sole in the starboard forward cabin was wet and quickly attributed it to more condensation as it was still cold outside, even for spring.

We took some white duct tape and taped the window back in place, hoping that would hold until we could assess the full extent of the damage. More importantly, determine the best way to repair it. Between the weather, our mainsail, jack lines, and now a rogue window, we were going to be here a while. I wrote another post specific to our window repair that you can read here.

Window

Taped Window

After a few discussions with Jaime and Behan from Totem, we were able to assess the extent of damage to our mainsail. It seems that the leech of our main had suffered UV damage. This tells me that the previous owners probably sailed more often than not (we knew this already). But they likely didn’t zip up the sail bag after each sail thus resulting in the UV damage along the leech. We knew that the main was probably on its way out based on our pre-purchase survey but I had high hopes of it lasting at least another season or two.

With Jaime’s advice, we opted for a repair of the leech using a few large swaths of adhesive backed Dacron and hoped for the best. Lasting at least until the end of the season. Then we could be stationary long enough to have him whip us up a new mainsail. I’ve been asked “What is the leech?” a few times since this happened so here is a visual for you.

Parts of the Sail

The window was another matter. I had never heard of the hull windows on Lagoons popping out as this one did. But after only a few seconds of searching the forums and other internet resources, I discovered it to be a somewhat common problem. Thanks, Lagoon!!! After a few conversations with other Lagoon owners who have either re-bedded the hull windows for one reason or another or had to replace them because they fell out completely (sometimes AT SEA!!!!), we decided that we needed to re-bed this broken window properly. More research led me to discover that Sika makes products specifically for bonding and sealing acrylic/polycarbonate/Perspex marine windows.

The problem was finding each of the components I needed. A cleaner, a primer, and the Sikaflex 295UV (one tube in black for the bonding, and one tube in white for the sealing). After a combination of orders from various places we were set to sit and wait until one, everything arrived, and two, we had a good day or two to get it all done. I have to give props to s/v Bonanza for their idea on hot gluing wood blocks to the hull to help hold the window in place while the Sikaflex cured. I’ll post more on that process in a maintenance post later.

Our spot on the dock had us right in front of a Nordhavn 55 named Ramblin Rose. Recalling some of our early posts, years and years ago, my original idea of living this lifestyle began with trawlers. The diesel prices at the time quickly changed my mind. I became quite fond of Nordhavns very early on and that fondness has never quite diminished. Being in such close proximity to one, especially the 55 which is one of my favorites, didn’t help. What’s more, the owners, Roger & Carol along with their dog Bear are the greatest.

Of course, when offered there was no way I was going to decline a tour of this awesome boat. Pro Tip: if you are already a Nordhavn fanboy, don’t take a tour of a Nordhavn. They are amazing beasts. Extremely well thought out boats, well designed, and robust and all the little bells and whistles a good passagemaker needs! I’ll save you all the gushing over this boat but I could go on all day  year long about it.

Since we were going to be in Hilton Head a while, we were super excited when the marina informed us that they had a loaner car we could use. We could sign it out and have it to run all over the island for two hours. Maybe a little more if no one else needed it. It was great when we needed to top up provisions or run to West Marine or Ace Hardware. Perfect for when we went to pick up a rental car to drive down and spend a day exploring Savannah, Fort Pulaski, and Tybee Island.

The day trip to Savannah was great. We had wonderful weather and our first stop that morning was out to Fort Pulaski. It was super windy so we were definitely glad we were on this field trip rather than out in the weather. We have been to plenty of these old forts, many of very similar design. Pulaski looks to be the best preserved of all of the ones we have visited. Fort Pulaski National Monument is actually located on an island between Savannah and Tybee called Cockspur Island.

Pulaski was constructed as part of the coastal fortification system following the War of 1812. Pulaski was completed in 1847 after 18 years of construction. To adequately support the structure, wooden pilings were sunk 70 feet into the mud. These were installed because of the sheer weight of the foundation and brick structure of the fort. The was designated a national monument in 1924 by Calvin Coolidge. It later became part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. It was also the filming location for the movie “The Conspirator” in 2009. Followed by the movie “Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies” in 2012. (We have yet to watch these but they’re on my list.)

Fort Pulaski Georgia

After Pulaski, we opted to head into Savannah rather than take a trip to Tybee Island. The s/v Giro crew was hungry so we began the search for pizza. We were told that you couldn’t visit Savannah without eating pizza at Vinnie VanGoGo’s. Combine that with the fact that you can freely walk around Savannah with open containers. So the whole City Market area is a pretty cool spot.

After pizza and before we started heading back to Hilton Head, we had to drive through the Bonaventure cemetery. The cemetery sits on 160 acres of the original 600 acre Bonaventure plantation. The cemetery has always been pretty historic. It most recently became famous following John Berendt’s 1994 novel “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. Then following Clint Eastwood’s 1997 movie based on Berendt’s book. Other than those two, the cemetery is also famous because of John Muir. Who, during his Thousand Mile Walk stayed in the cemetery, sleeping on graves, for six days and nights in 1867. Muir later wrote a chapter for his book detailing his Thousand Mile Walk called “Camping in the Tombs”.

We enjoyed Savannah and could easily find ourselves going back for another visit someday. It is one of the cities that we had originally planned on visiting. Back when we had our plan to bounce up the east coast visiting historic cities and places.

We had a weather window coming up so on April 8th we left Hilton Head aimed for Florida & The Bahamas!

So long Hilton Head