We got up knowing that this would be our last day with 70+ degree temperatures for quite sometime. So we wanted to make sure that we made the most of it. Unfortunately, the forecast called for rain and thundershowers in the afternoon making us very wishy-washy on what to do.
Since Monday mornings are the usual day for the Camp Hosts to make a pancake breakfast, and since our cupboards had gotten pretty bare, we decided to make the early walk for pancakes, sausage, and juice.
While sitting by ourselves we met one of the host campers and another couple one table over. After chatting across tables for a moment or two, Lorraine & Bill moved over to our table.
I hope I get this at least somewhere close to right - I'm sure I'll leave out a lot. Lorraine & Bill are New York/New Jersey folks that lived in Beaufort, South Carolina for several years. Much like us, they had an epiphany about life and happiness. One day they bought a sailboat, and they lived on their boat for five years having a wonderful time. But Lorraine was feeling a call to help others, although she had no idea what that meant.
At one point they docked their boat for a while to have repairs done and Lorraine, a former teacher, began substituting in the South Carolina school system. Using her experience in business, as a teacher, and as a parent, she wrote a book called "The Total Teacher" and self-published it.
She has introduced her book and her program to school systems and it has taken off. The South Carolina Education Association has adopted her Total Teacher program and now she and Bill live in a Montana fifth wheel traveling around doing education presentations and coaching the Total Teacher program. They live in their RV full-time, even when they are back in South Carolina monitoring the Total Teacher Academy. You can check out the program at <a href="http://www.thetotalteacher.com/" target="_blank">thetotalteacher.com</a>.
We had such an interesting conversation about life, and letting things flow, and allowing an open heart to lead. We stayed and talked long after breakfast was over. Another enjoyable chance meeting.
Lorraine had to go make a call, and after we chatted about the virtues of our RV manufacturer, Keystone, in dealing with issues, Bill walked back to our rig to look at the Ford F450. He was in the trucking business and he wanted to see what we were towing with. We were very pleased to hear that we did very well in what we ordered - great news from an expert that is not a dealer. :) We parted ways for the day, but I just know there is some more great conversation to come with these fine folks before we leave here.
After Bill left, it was decision time. We knew we had to make a Wal-mart grocery run sometime, but we wanted to take advantage of the warmer temperatures first. It was overcast and a little windy, but we decided to take our SeaEagle and go canoeing around the Marsh off of nearby Dutton Island Preserve.
I checked the tides and noticed it was high tide about the time we left and it would be low tide around 5:00 - perfect. So we loaded up our dry bag with the camera, binoculars, GPS, and a snack and took off.
We are getting good at the set-up. Again only about 10 minutes to inflate and get the boat in the water. However, this time we were not launching from the bank but from a dock. We had to step into the boat with lots of deeper water below rather than slide into it in a foot of water. But we managed to do it easily as the canoe/kayak (I may have to start calling it a "canak" or a "kayoe") remained stable.
There was a fisherman on the dock, so I took the opportunity to ask him about the tide and which way it goes out. He said everything will flow back toward the main channel of the intracoastal waterway. Good to know. And duh, of course it does - I should have been able to figure that out. :) But the next thing he said as he skeptically looked at our inflatable was "You know there are lots of oysters out there." I was thinking "Huh?", but Linda was all over it since she remembered how the oysters stuck up like sharp rocks as the tide went out when we were at Timucuan Preserve yesterday.
Great. I had just been worried about sitting out in the middle of a the marsh with the water gone and no way to walk through the mud. Now I had to worry about oysters slashing our boat - even Linda had no contingency plan for that. But did that stop us? No way.
We paddled away from the dock and turned our GPS on so we could track our way back. It would be very easy to get lost in the marsh canals. The water was up pretty high into the grass so I felt pretty confident that we would avoid all oyster hazards as long as we did not stay out too long.
We slowly paddled along and tried to find water that was not affected so much by the stiff breeze. We floated through the marsh trying to get close to the egrets, herons, and mergansers for pictures. But they were much more skittish than we expected and with the breeze and current, it was hard to get good, close shots.
As we went under a road bridge, the water on the other side was pretty well blocked from the wind and we explored the marsh watching the mullet jump all around us. I told Linda that I could have paddled and explored for hours. I liked that she kept the camera at the ready while I slowly paddled and steered us through the grasses. It was too bad we hit a dead end, and had to reverse course.
So we went back under the bridge and paddled into the wind (it took both of us) so that it would help us on our return back to the dock. Every time we turned a corner, it seemed, we startled some type of waterfowl that flew too quickly for a photograph. Then the dark clouds started appearing, and we needed to head back. By that time, we had taken a canal that put is in the intracoastal waterway where the current and the wind was strongest. That was not exactly the plan, and we had to fight the current a bit as the tide was starting to go out. But at least we had the wind with us - we would be fine as long as a really big boat did not come along at warp speed and swamp us.
We made it back to the dock safely, and managed to climb out without falling into the black water (the two young fellas fishing there helped). We carried out the canoe, dried it off, deflated it, packed it up and we were ready to go.
Before the rains came, we decided to check out a little more of Dutton Island. We found a fishing pier that had intended to be a boat dock, and we quickly noted that the tide had dropped a good three feet since we had paddled by there earlier. On a little sign, we read that the owner of the island, Mr. Dutton, had put a bid in on the Queen Elizabeth II ship. He was going to re-sell the ship and keep a couple of the related passenger vessels to ferry people back and forth to his island. He got outbid, but the dock for his plan remains.
We left the island having paddled about 2.5 miles and done some exploring on foot. We felt good about using the best part of the day to its fullest. Then it was a rare fast food stop on the way home. Then Linda finalized the list of the the things we needed and we were off to Wally world. We should be good on groceries for the rest of the month.
The rain was coming hard by the time we returned home, so there was little to do but cozy up wait for the cold front to come through overnight. We had to get to bed early, since Linda is helping her sister Karen at school tomorrow. And so we did.
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