The Savannah River has carried commerce, contraband, and Confederate ironclads since James Oglethorpe anchored at Yamacraw Bluff in 1733. Today its tidal reach serves a quieter fleet: paddle-wheel riverboats that trace the same channel freighters once rode to the Atlantic. A Savannah boat ride departs from River Street's brick warehouses, structures built on ships' ballast stones in the 1850s, and threads beneath the Talmadge Memorial Bridge's twin cantilevers before reaching the harbor mouth where Fort Pulaski commands the marshland horizon. The river's brackish water draws Atlantic bottlenose dolphins upstream on flood tides. Naturalists aboard wildlife eco cruises identify individuals by dorsal notches and logging behavior — the mammals surface to breathe in predictable intervals, often trailing shrimp trawlers for easy prey. Passengers scan the cordgrass islands of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, where wood storks nest in flooded timber and alligators patrol interior sloughs. The estuary's salinity gradient supports oyster beds that filter fifty gallons of water per day per mollusk, a visible ecology lesson framed by container cranes and historic cotton warehouses. Sunset departures time their passage to catch the golden hour over Hutchinson Island and the distant spire of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The riverboat's calliope pipes — a steam-powered organ salvaged from 19th-century showboats — announce departures with ragtime refrains audible across Factor's Walk. Lunch cruises serve Lowcountry plates while narrators recount Union General Sherman's arrival in December 1864, when he telegrammed Lincoln to present Savannah as a Christmas gift. The harbor route passes beneath the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge, a 1991 cable-stayed span that replaced the original 1953 truss, and approaches the mouth where Fort Jackson's brick casemates still face the channel. Riverboat tours operate daily from 9 E River St, departing on fixed schedules throughout the operating window. Reservations secure deck placement on vessels that accommodate over two hundred passengers yet maintain sightlines from every rail. The experience scales from ninety-minute harbor loops to extended wildlife expeditions, each calibrated to tidal cycles and dolphin activity patterns documented by onboard naturalists.