Georgia On My Mind

Fernadina Beach–met up with the crew from Boundless, Pony & Blue Moose for dinner at the marina restaurant. Always fun to share stories from the journey and get to know our looper friends better. This is when the no-seeums joined our festivities—NOT!! Dinner became very uncomfortable as we were seated outside on the porch. These no-seeums are pesky pests in these areas…kind of like the biting flies in the UP of Michigan. Eventually the pests won the battle and we made a full retreat to our boats.

The next day, Tim & I biked 5 miles to Fort Clinch. Fort Clinch is a 19th century masonry coastal fortification, built as part of the seacoast defense by the United States. The fortified compound is pentagonal in shape, with both inner and outer walls, and consists of almost five million bricks. Read more about this fort–very interesting as it was built to protect the entrance to the St. Marys River and the Cumberland Sound.

We ate at the local marina restaurant again that late afternoon. Back to the boat to prepare for the next travel day.

Next day travel to the Cumberland Island anchorage–We anchored with Nagui (Boundless) and Joe & Jenny (Blue Wanderer). We arrived in good time and enjoyed an afternoon anchored near Cumberland Island. Tim & I took the dinghy to the island and walked for about an hour….apparently the plantation ruins were on the south end of the island. Later that afternoon, Blue Wander arrived at our anchorage. Dinner invites were issued by Blue Wander where we convened for supper (the 3 boats). There were 5 people on the 32ft Nordic Tug. We were glad that Nagui could meet our friends.

Our night on the hook was pleasant….I even slept most of the night (which is unusual while on the hook). The stars are so bright when the only lights are the anchor lights.

Boundless & Margin left early the next morning headed to Jekyll Island. The pictures Joe took of that morning with his drone describes the beauty we experienced of the sunrise.

Jeykll Island: We arrived at the marina very early as our anchorage was close by. This gave us the opportunity to check out the island right away. We walked to the Historic District–home/club to the rich and famous for 3 months of the year. This was a place for these influential/millionaires to get away from the winters. I’m going to read “Splendid Isolation–The Jekyll Island Millionaires’ Club” if I can find it.

We took advantage of the marina courtesy golf cart to check out the rest of the island–walked on the beach, got my feet wet in the ocean (many memories of the beach in Brazil), Driftwood Beach, and toured the small downtown.

Dinner that night was with fellow loopers (Pony, Kayak & Boundless) at the local BBQ place in the downtown area with ice cream for dessert.

The next day, Tim & I took the riding tour of the Heritage District. I am amazed at the vastness of our country and the history that we are learning. It is so interesting and intriguing. There is so much that I never knew even existed.

That evening we ate at the marina restaurant. I’m not a seafood lover, but attempting to change that. This night I tried Flounder–I actually liked it (doesn’t taste fishy). It’s hard to spend money on an entree not knowing if I’ll like it–fortunately it was very good. Score one for trying something new. Also, the homemade key lime pie was delicious!!

There was drama on the docks after supper–glad that we weren’t the drama (of a boat trying to dock in high winds). But it did draw a big crowd, of which we were part of. Glad to report that boat eventually was tied safely to the floating docks.

FYI: most of the harbor docks in this area of the US are floating as the tide here can range up to 9′. There are 2 high tides and 2 low tides roughly every 24 hours.

On to Sunbury–We arrived at Sunbury Crab Company after 7+ hrs of motoring. This involved motoring up a river for 5 miles to reach our destination. As you can see from the pictures, the walk to land took awhile. Sunbury has a naturally deep harbor and could have been a deep harbor port, but Savannah took that prize. But the town did have many things happen in the area during the revolutionary war.

We (Boundless & Margin) had dinner the the Crab Company (the only restaurant in town). Again the dilemma of choices at a seafood restaurant when seafood isn’t my favorite. So I tried their special, Mahi-mahi. It was delicious. Maybe there’s hope for me to become a seafood lover. Time will tell. Nagui had blue crab as an entree. Looked like a lot of hard work (hammering) to get a little protein. But he did say it was good.

The brightness of the moon and the stars is always a sight to behold. It is still intriguing to witness the moonlight over the river and hear the river sounds while on the boat.

Hell Gate–The next morning we were on our way to Savannah by 8am. One of the skinny(shallow) areas is known as Hell Gate. We put Nagui in the lead as his draft is much less than our boat. We traversed the area without any problem (it was still above low tide which helped).

Savannah (Thunderbolt Marina). We arrived safely and later had dinner with the crew of Pony (Kim & Ted) and Nagui (our buddy boat) at the local restaurant.

The next day we drove into Savannah to tour the Historic part of the city via the Old Town Trolley Company. It was good to get an overview of the area, but the riverfront/walkway was the best. So much going on in/near the river. Cruiseships, huge merchant ships passing thru downtown, people, stores, ferries and much more. Savannah has many park squares in this area that celebrate different people or events—so much history. Also the old houses have so much character–unlike many housing developments we see today. It was interesting to note that most of these houses are currently lived in by citizens of Savannah and not open to the public.

The second day at the marina we provisioned and enjoyed downtime at the marina. There was a captains meeting that night with 5 other boats. The biggest agenda was the upcoming weather predicted to hit in 2 days along the coast–lots of rain, wind and falling temps, a 30-60 knot gale blowing out in the Atlantic.

The next day we headed out at 7am sharp headed for Beaufort, South Carolina. We took a side trip up the Savanah River to see the city from the water. Then we said “Goodbye Georgia……”