Savannah

Replica of an old stern wheeler in a yard for repairs

Originally, we were going to anchor off of St.Catherine's Island for a couple of days.  We have never been there and it is supposed to have great beaches that are accessible only by boat.  But since our outboard motor wasn't working, we would not be able to get to the beach.  Therefore, we changed our plans and decided to head to Savannah.

Even though we kept Elixir in the Savannah area for a year after we bought her there, we never made it to the downtown docks.  So it had been on my bucket list from the beginning.  Now was the time to check it off the list!

The USS Lexington is now a floating musuem in Charleston

There are several docks in the downtown Savannah area, but we chose to stay at the River Street Market docks.  They are a little further from the dock used by the water taxis that cross back and forth over the river taking tourists to and from their various waterfront hotels.  If you get too close to them, your boat will constantly be rocked by their wake.  Savannah is a busy waterfront city, with large ships coming and going at all hours.  Large tug boats run up and down the river to assist the ships.  Various pleasure boats run at full speed without regard to your boat being tied to the dock.  And as I already said, the ever-present water taxis.  So anytime you dock there, you
get rocked all day!

View of the River Street Market from Elixir

But on the up-side, you step off your boat and immediately you are in downtown Savannah!  River Street runs along the river and is packed with tourist type shops, as well as numerous restaurants, tucked in the old cotton warehouses and shops of the 19th century.  But we initially by-passed this area and walked the steep stairs to get to the upper level of the newer Savannah.  It was lunchtime and when in Savannah, we always want to eat at our favorite restaurant there, Your Pie.  We enjoy Your Pie because we each get an individual size pizza made exactly how we want it.  You walk along a buffet of toppings and tell the person what to put on your pizza.  Its delicious!

One of the old stairs down to River Street

After lunch we walked back to River Street to check out the shops.  You can spend hours going in and out of these shops.

After awhile, we decided to rest our feet and hopped on one of the tour trolleys for a guided tour of Savannah.  It lasted about an hour and a half and was very informative.  We learned about the history of Savannah and some of its more important residents.

The cotton gin was invented here, which although it revolutionized the production of cotton, it had the unintended side affect of increasing and prolonging slavery, which ultimately led to the Civil War.

Pirates House Restaurant

We also saw the Pirates House Restaurant, which is the oldest building in the state of Georgia.  Apparently, it was quite a nefarious pub in its day.  Sailors would go there for a drink or two or more and end up getting hit over the head and kidnapped onto a ship sailing for ports unknown!  The locals all knew to avoid the place.  We were told it is now a must eat at restaurant!

Trolley tour

We would have liked to stay a second night in Savannah, but the docks are unreasonably expensive.  They are comparable in price to high end places like Miami.  Because of the price, you rarely see more than one or two transient boats at any time on all the docks combined in downtown Savannah!  The night we were there we were one of two.  You could probably fit 20 boats on those docks.  I think it is bad business for the private docks like we were on, but I think it is a "shame on Savannah" moment for the dock owned by the city.  They should be encouraging the tourist industry, not chasing them away with high priced docking.

Elixir all alone on the River Street Market Dock

But the prices are what they are and so we just spent one night to have the experience and then moved on.  Hopefully some day they will wise up and lower the price to attract more boaters.

Ships pass by this close around the clock!

In the meantime, we did thoroughly enjoy our visit to Savannah.

And as a final farewell, the Fort James Jackson which guards the entrance to Savannah, and is the oldest brick fort in Georgia, fired a cannon as we passed on our way out.....or maybe they were saying "and don't come back!"  hmmm

Sunset in Savannah

The fort that fired on us!