JFK Jr, Nuclear Subs, We're Gonna Die Here, Safe Harbor

There's not much to see on the coast of Geogia, it's mostly marsh and very shallow passages at low tide.  Luckily, we missed the bottom despite a few spots at low tide where the depth finder was consistently saying less than 4 ft.  Our draft is 3.5 ft.  There were a few areas of interest though.  Just north of Fernandina Beach, across the St Mary's River is Georgia and Cumberland Island.  Two points of interest on Cumberland are: 1. JFK Jr had his very secrect wedding here, where you can only get to by boat, usually by ferry from Fernandina Beach.  Denise knew all the details to make it interesting.  2.  There are wild horses on Cumberland and many times they are close enough to see.  The pictures I took don't really show them, but trust me, we saw at least 5 of them.

Another area of interest were the security warnings we were reading on the charts and the caution that we could be delayed by up to an hour if there was a nuclear submarine coming into port.  There is a sub base at King's Bay, which is accessible via the St Mary's River inlet.  I might have tried to get a closer look, but the security boat cruising the entrance and the 5 Coast Guard boats at the dock were sufficent deterent.

We continued to cruise the marsh lands of coastal Georgia, all the while looking at the charts and reading the guides looking for a good ancorage for the night.  I thought the one I first picked would be quiet and be interesting, as it has historical significance.

On one side was Fort Frederica, a national monument where the British defended the north from the Spanish in Florida.  On the other and up and down the ICW, nasty people were lurking, ready to capture and kill us.  Denise wanted me to get pictures so everyone would know where we died.  Of course that didn't happen, but only because we moved 3 miles up the ICW and anchored off shore of several very nice looking homes on St Simons Island, which Money magazine recently reported as the best place to retire in the country.  If only they knew of the dangers lurking nearby.

After surviving the night in the marsh lands, we motored up to Thunderbolt Marina, very near to Savannah, GA, which we thought would be a good place to plug in, get some air conditioning and do a little sight seeing in historical Savannah, which we did today.  We took the city bus to downtown Savannah, had lunch and then did the touristy Old Savannah Trolley Tour.  It was interesting and we learned alot about the city and its history.  Savannah is a major US shipping port and there is plenty of activity on the Savannah River, which also serves as the state boundry with South Carolina to the north.

On the way back from downtown on the city bus, we encountered the first rain drops since we left Madeira Beach on April 6.  It was pretty light rain by the time we got to our stop, about 6 blocks from the marina, which would have been fine, until a passing car went through a puddle and pretty well drenched Denise and got me a little too.  We shouldn't complain, I hear it has been snowing recently at home, while we have been showered in sunshine.

These birds only followed us looking for fish we might churn up, unlike the buzzards that moved in on Geo and me on the way back from the Bahamas.

By popular demand, the next couple of posts will be from Denise, who may have a different slant on things than me.