GEORGIA ON MY MIND

I realized that while I’ve been trying to work on a Comprehensive 100 day blog post that I neglected to write about Georgia and northern Florida. Well, really Georgia was nothing special to write home about, other than meeting some new Catalina 42 friends, Michelle and Melvin Bellwood on Belle in Savannah,  an eventful pass through Kings’ Point, and our fun Thanksgiving Weekend in St. Mary’s with them. We also met some new cruising friends there. 

At Thunderbolt Marina in Savannah they deliver warm donuts to your boat in the morning. 

This push tug followed us through a very treacherous stretch called Hell Gate.  We kept saying if we got stuck maybe he’d push us through! But we got through just fine. We did see some shallow areas, but Obsession pushed herself through just fine. We never saw any depths lower than 8 feet. We had called Sea Tow earlier and asked for advice. Sea Tow Jimgave us expert advice. 

The night we anchored in Cattlepen Creek was quiet and peaceful. Just what we like. 

Another difficult passage we followed a C &C skippered by s licalnsailor. Same draft as us, and we both got through only seeing s 5.3 spot near the end. 

We spent another night in s peaceful Creek/Frederica River. 

We finally headed to St. Mary’s. The route takes you along the Cumberland Islands where most ICW sailors rave about the wildlife they see-horses along the beach, porpoises and dolphins playing st the bow of their boat, manatees lazing just below the surface, pelicans diving for fish. You get the idea? Well, we saw none of that-we saw a species not native to the area until very recent times. As we approached Kings’ Bay we saw A SEAWOLF SUBMARINE! and it delayed our arrival in St. Mary’s by an hour. 

St. Mary’s was a fun stop for a few days. We met up with new Catalina 42 friends, Melvin and Michelle on Belle, and met new cruising friends at the Cruisers Thanksgiving Potluck dinner at the Riverview Hotel. 

This was not the most hospitable anchorage, however. We fended off a Catalina 445 meandering around the harbor one afternoon, and, along with other several other boats had to up anchor and move. 

Belle, Melvin and Michelle leaving St. Mary’s at sunrise. 

We then took a short hop over to Fernandina Beach, FL and met up with MHS’69 high school classmates Brian and Diane Nunes.  For only the second time on this trip we had a delicious pizza and enjoyed an evening at the beach with them.

We could only stay one night in Fernandina, as all the docks (including the dinghy dock) were closing down to be demolished and replaced with new ones. This is scheduled to be a long term project. They may not even be open in the spring. We did get a chance to mark the beginning of the Christmas Season however. 

From there we continued south to Jacksonville, 

We had to navigate another shallow, shoaled over area where even the charts weren’t correct. Thanks to Bob423 we followed his tracks and passed through unscathed. Note that our track took us over what should be land according to the chart. 

Next stop-St. Augustine. Nights of Lights and a Cruisers Net night at Anne OMalleys. What a beautiful historical city. 

We will return. 

ThenMarineland, after an unsuccessful attempt to find safe passage to the anchorage in Matanzas Inlet I redeemed myself with perfect a docking against a strong current.  A walk on the beach, and a different sunset view. 

I forget that we are on the ICW-so Daytona is not the Daytona Beach you probably are thinking of. We anchored there, and got an early start to Titusville the next morning. 

We had lots of bridges to navigate and time. 

Titusville.-Finally! BOB423’s temporary home. We took a slip for one night, did laundry, grocery shopped, filled water and fuel tanks, and met a wonderful liveaboard couple. But the bestcwas yet to come-we watched a launch of a SpaceX Rocket delivering the Dragon Payloadvto the space shuttle. My pics aren’t great, but we saw it, we heard it, we felt it from our mooring just outside of Titusville. Earlier that day we watched the Funeral Service for George HWBush. What a way to say goodbye to 41.

Some scenes along the way. 

Our friends north of us near Cumberland Island survived a tornado. We saw lots of lightening, heard thunder, high winds and heavy rain, but escaped Mother Natures’s wrath. 

The trail of the Falcon Rocket as it rocketed into a beautifully clear blue sky. What a thrill for David and me.