Isle of Hope Marina and Savannah

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 17 - April 17, 2017

We left our terrific anchorage on Walburg Creelk about 8:30 a.m.  We had made coffee and put it in the thermos the night before to save time, and I took Baxter to shore at first light. We had our toast and coffee, weighed anchor and headed out! It was an easy cruise to Isle of Hope Marina, which is right on the ICW in Savannah.

Isle of Hope Marina

We were tied up at Isle of Hope Marina around 1:00 p.m.  Kimberly promptly answered our VHF radio call and directed us where to go.  Andrew from the marina was on the dock to take our lines, help us pivot the boat, secure our lines, and get our shore power connected.  This marina does not have conventional slips but long floating docks, and all boats are side tied - different from what we are used to, but it seems to work great here. We went up to the office, where Kimberly registered us, gave us our key card, and reserved one of the the loaner cars for us for 3:00 p.m.  We also reserved the car for 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, since we were pretty sure we could not get everything done we needed to do in the two hours we had the car today! This is a great marina, and we highly recommend it. The staff is friendly and helpful, and the facilities are clean.

Today was about taking care of business! We looked up the addresses of the Verizon store to buy a Jetpack, the One Stop Wireless store to buy a "gently used iPhone," the T-Mobile store to get a new T-Mobile SIM card, and the West Marine store to get a male 30 amp to female 20 amp straight connector - we are now using 30 amp to 15 amp connectors on both ends of a heavy duty extension cord for shore power, as nothing on this boat requires 30 amp service anyway.

These stores were all on Abercorn Street, which it turns out is Savannah's "Main Street," and within a few blocks of each other. We actually passed a closer Verizon store, stopped in, and bought the Jetpack and a 5 GB per month data plan - we will use our T-Mobile iPhone Personal Hotspots when we have T-Mobile service, and the Jetpack when we don't. Saying T-Mobile is "sketchy" around here is being generous - too many places our T-Mobile iPhones say "No service." I got a great deal on a 32 GB iPhone 5C (same as the 5S but without fingerprint recognition, which I hated anyway), and the guy at the T-Mobile store plopped in a new SiM card, and I was back in the iPhone business! The 30 amp to 20 amp connector was outrageously priced at West Marine, as is everything. We call it "The Bank of West Marine, where you only make deposits"!

When we got back to the marina, we did our laundry and had a bite to eat. We were all in, so it was an early night!

DAY 18 - April 18, 2017

Old Town Trolley

We had the loaner car from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., since we needed a significant re-provisioning trip! There is a Kroger supermarket a couple of miles away from the marina, and we got up early enough to get the car promptly at 8:00 a.m. We hoped we would get our shopping done sooner, since today was our day to tour Savannah, and we did - we were back at the marina around 10:00 a.m.  It took a bit to put our groceries away, and then we needed to get to Savannah for the tour, since Patty had purchased Old Town Trolley tickets online. Old Town Trolley is like the Red Train in St. Augustine, in fact Old Town Trolley operates in St. Augustine as well. Both trolleys allow you to get on and off at designated stops as many times as you want to, and another trolley comes around each designated stop about every 15 minutes.  It has turned out to be a great way to sight-see a new city.

But first we had to get from the marina to downtown Savannah! Uber to the rescue! We took Uber both ways, for a measly $14 and change each way - no wonder the taxi companies hate Uber! Both ways it took the Uber driver less than 10 minutes to arrive to pick us up! We are big Uber fans now!

Oglethorpe's Plan for Savannah

In 1732 James Oglethorpe received a charter from King George II to found the new colony of Georgia between Florida and South Carolina. Oglethorpe and 113 other colonists arrived in 1733. Oglethorpe and William Bull laid out the plan for Savannah.

Statue of Haitian Soldiers in Revolutionary War

The plan was based on "wards," consisting of eight blocks, with a public square in the center. This pattern was originally established for four wards/squares, and by 1851 had grown to 24 wards/squares, all with the same repeating street pattern. Over time, two squares were "lost," so today there are 22 wards/squares. Each square now has a monument of some kind surrounded by a grassy commons. The monuments run the whole gamut of the history of Savannah.  One interesting one commemorates Haitian soldiers who fought against the British in the Revolutionary War. These soldiers later led the Haitian effort to break free from French colonial rule, and one of them became the first King of Haiti.

SCAD sign

The tour driver pointed out dozens or hundreds of houses and buildings, houses where this or that famous person lived or a movie was shot or something else happened. I did not take pictures of these because a picture of a house, even a nice old house, is just a picture of house, and the real interest is in
who lived there or what happened there. But Savannah is a model of historic preservation, and along with the Historic Savannah Foundation, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has been a major force in the preservation of historic Savannah.  SCAD owns and has renovated more than 70 major historic buildings in Savannah. So I took a picture of the SCAD sign so I would at least have some pictures!

Patty's Cucumber Cooler

We had lunch at City Market, a two block pedestrian mall much like St. George Street in St.Augustine. We chose the City Market Cafe. although there are many, many choices at City Market. Patty started out with a Cucumber Cooler, basically Pinot Grigio with cucumbers, lime and club soda.  I had a local Savannah wit beer, which was pretty good too. I had Creole Shrimp over Grits with Collard Greens and Patty had Crab Stuffed Mushrooms with Spinach and a side of Grits. Lunch was good, and we can recommend the City Market Cafe if you are ever in Savannah!

McDonalds Walk-up Window

After lunch we decided to head for River Street, but first I went over to the next block to McDonalds. This is not your average McDonalds, it is in the heart of the Historic District, and has no drive-though lanes. As far as anybody knows this is the only McDonalds in America with a walk-up window. The person at the walk-up window was kind enough to pose for a picture. Patty pooh-poohed mythought that this was unique and interesting, but I took the picture anyway! I thought is was kind of cool.  And it shows that corporate America does not dictate to a city how it will do business - nothing go torn down to build this McDonads, and there are no huge Golden Arches. Score one for historic preservation!

Ballast Rock Wall and Stairs

Factor's Walk

We caught the next trolley to River Street, which was interesting to me for two reasons. First, the street down to River Street is constructed of ballast rock, which are rocks that served as ballast on ships coming to Savannah, then the the ballast rock was unloaded to make room for the cotton bales or whatever else was getting shipped back to wherever the ship came from, and ended up being used to build these streets. Second, this is where the "factors," who were the cotton brokers, would survey the cotton going to the dock from a "Factor's Walk," a bridge between two buildings underneath which the loads of cotton would pass, so the factors could grade and price the cotton,  There are warning signs on the stairways made from the ballast rock, and the streets themselves test the suspension of the cars that drive over them!

Savannah is a very historic and interesting city, and we are glad we had a chance to see it! Tomorrow we move on to South Carolina, first to Beaufort, and then to Charleston! Stay tuned!