Days 277 through 282:

Well, here we are in beautiful and shallow Georgia. We would like to bump outside for this coast, but by the time you go out these inlets for 5-8 miles and turn North only to come back that many miles, it really adds a lot of distance onto the day. So, we're staying inside in the ICW and playing the tides over the many shallow and undredged areas for the next 134 miles.

We head across the St. Mary's Inlet entrance and up past the sub base at King's Bay (no subs present) around Cumberland Island and across St. Andrews Sound to Jekyll Harbor Marina. We get the marina loaner car and drive to the magnificent Victorian gem, the Jekyll Island Club.

A subtropical climate with complete seclusion, Jekyll Island was the perfect site for a winter club of the ultra-rich and famous. In the 1880's the Rockefellers, Astors, Goodyears, Morgans, Vanderbilts and Pulitzers, among others, built "cottages" (manions to us) where they could ride out the northern winter with their social equals. Each estate was huge, but to promote social interaction none included kitchens. Members were expected to dine together at the clubhouse, where a staff from Delmonico's in NYC prepared the meals. To put Delmonico's into perspective, the restaurant had a 100-page menu listed 370 dishes in both French and English!

By WWII the membership of the Jekyll Island Club represented 1/6th of the world's wealth. But in 1942 when a German U-boat torpedoed a tanker in St. Simonds Sound just north of Jekyll Island, the govt, thought that the island was far too tempting a target and the Coast Guard evacuated everyone. Today the Club is a popular (and pricey) vacation destination, with the clubhouse having been converted into an inn. The resort has 33 of its original Victorian "cottages" and out buildings remaining. Fortunately, state law dictates that no more that 35% of Jekyll Island will ever be developed.

There is a small cruise ship here on the marina dock with a 6'6" draft that cruises up and down the ICW. Steve talks to one of the officers about all these shallow spots and the strategies they use to get around (or over) them. Mostly they play the tides. This is exactly what we are going to do, but unlike on our way down, this week the tide is low right in the middle of our travel day, which will make for short days and prolong our time here. Luck of the draw.

Jekyll Island to Golden Isles Marina, Lanier Island was the next routine day of powering after waiting for high tide in the Brunswick River and out across St. Simonds Sound. The visibility leaving Jekyll is bad due to the raging forest fires in Georgia and Florida--like a medium fog.

Today we have a fair current on the tortuously winding ICW. After passing through many turns and switchbacks, we enter the South Altamaha River and go upstream a few miles to the very quiet and rural Two Way Fish Camp, Darien, Georgia. (This is no Darien, CT, where we grew up!) There's lots of current in this very pretty river, but it's wide and deep and a great place to stay before tackling the many shallow areas ahead of us.

The next day is another of lining up ranges and watching our depths as we cross Altamaha and Doboy Sounds to our anchorage in New Teakettle Creek. This anchorage is in the middle of a vast salt marsh in a relatively deep (15') creek with a fair amount of current sweeping in and out. We spend a very peaceful night at anchor (for a change) in this remote but beautiful place. Passed through the worst of the shallow places today--the Little Mud River in particular.

Day Five now (it took us two days with fair tides to do this coast in the Fall) and we hit Creighton Narrows near high tide and proceed with no problems up Sapelo Sound, past the Wahoo River where we stayed on our way South. Then up through Johnson Creek to St. Catherines Sound to the Kilkenny Creek Marina a mile or so off the waterway. We see at least 60 to 80 small powerboats being hauled onto their trailers here at this marina this Sunday afternoon. This is the way people get out on the water here. This is also real Georgia fishing and beer-drinking country.

More shallow stuff the next day, the Florida Passage and Hell Gate in particular, on our way to one of our favorite places, Isle of Hope, GA, just south of Savannah. I get an Enterprise car and we head into Savannah to see the many beautiful parks now with Spring color. We have my Mother's Day dinner on the kids at the 1790, the same spot where we had Thanksgiving dinner on the way South.

The next day we get some help from the tide as we shoot by Thunderbolt Marine on our way to the Savannah River. We pass the famous Bonaventure Cemetery right next to the ICW (featured in the movie "Midnight In The Valley Of Good And Evil"), and we can see the beautiful Victorian burial statues, gardens of azaleas and camellias and live oaks hung with Spanish moss. This cemetery is the burial ground for Savannah society.

Speaking of live oaks, the state tree of Georgia, they have massive trunks and broad branches hung with moss and can live for hundreds of years. Live Oaks stay green all year and were also an important timber tree. In the early 1800's huge shipments of Live Oak timbers were shipped north, some slated for Boston to construct a new ship named the USS Constitution. We all know that American shipwrights used the oak to their naval advantage, as the British cannonballs were reputed to have bounced off the sides of "Old Ironsides"!

We power across the Savannah River and over through shallow Fields Cut out to Daufuskie Island. We are DONE with Georgia....YAY!

Georgia Pictures in the Georgia Coast Album.