02-26-10 Beaufort SC – Right Whales

[Rick] The Beaufort SC marina is located on the front street of the city, making access to restaurants and shops very easy. Keep in mind that there is a built-in tourist economy in Beaufort since there is a graduation of 300 Marines from Parris Island every Saturday. Starting Wednesday of each week, parents and friends of graduates flock to town to see the graduation. Then, next week, it happens all again. So, the city is very friendly to tourists. There are bus, walking, and carriage ride tours of the city. Tomorrow, we will be taking one of the tours. We were here in 2003 and took the tour. We remember Beaufort as an old, well maintained, happening town. One of the nicest things is the huge waterfront park, complete with benches, monuments, and walking opportunities. The park is adjacent to the marina.

One of the interesting things here is the tide difference. All along this stretch of the waterway, the tide has a 5-7 feet difference from high to low. This means that all the docks are floating docks. Here are a couple of pictures to show the tide difference. It is a struggle to get up the ramp at low tide, especially for Beamer.

High Tide

Low Tide

We have overheard some radio chatter from the Coast Guard regarding the Right Whales. The breeding ground for these endangered whales is a stretch about 150 miles in length just out into the ocean from Beaufort south to St Augustine. We have even heard helicopter pilots, hovering over a pod of whales, talking to boats and warning them to stay at least 500 yards away from the whales.

We continue to receive emails and notes from people following us on the trip. (We call these folks virtual crew.) Today, we received an email from the Volek family. They lived in Sneads Ferry when we left and have since moved to Beaufort, SC. They let us know that they are available go give us a ride if we need one. We hope that they will visit us before we leave. We really like to receive notes and we are constantly amazed at the number of people following us on this great adventure. Our website has over 9,000 hits, which is mindboggling to us.