On the Fourth of July 2006 Kay and I sailed through several hundred years of American history!

Early in the morning we departed a very peaceful river marina on the west side of St. Simon Island, sailed south for a few miles to stay off the shoals, then turned northeast, bound for Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Georgia was founded as one of the so called proprietary colonies by General George Oglethorpe in 1733 as an offshoot of South Carolina. General Oglethorpe unsuccessfully tried to enter the area by first invading St; Augustine. The Spanish held firm, and a few years later came into the new Georgia colony and created a bit of trouble for the new colonist..

The original design of the colony was to provide a frontier for England's more adventuresome "underclass" according to the Kings letters to Oglethorpe. If they could see Red fern Village as we saw it the other night, they would have known how sadly that aspect of the colony failed! Beautiful homes, and beautiful people everywhere you looked. St. Simon Is. was once home to cotton plantations, but now it?? s a playground for Georgia's maritime community, and of course all the college kids that can be mustered in one place. Georgia Bulldogs were everywhere present!

On the passage I was reading Thomas Paine's second most famous Revolutionary War pamphlet, "An American Crisis", written in the Winter of 1776. I am sure many Georgians read it as it was the second best selling book in revolutionary America after "Common Sense".

I have carried the opening of "Crisis" with me by heart since the first time I read it in a history class. Who can forget those words: "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country, the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, shall in this crisis, fade from the service of his country, but those who do not deserve the love and thanks of men and women��" Paine wrote these words with the clear thought of invigorating Washington's army after the very demoralizing rout and loss of New York to the Howe brothers, Admiral Sir Richard, and General Sir William, the two buddies of King George sent to bring the colonies back into the fold.

Stirring thoughts, as applicable today as then.

It was a perfect beginning to an American Birthday.

It took us about ten hours to raise Hilton Head. Entering the islands via Tybee Roads we were passed by a giant ore carrier as big as the Enterprise who was bound for Savanna. There is so much shoal water on the Georgia/South Carolina coast that you can't just point and go. This navigating adds a bit of time to each leg into and out of port.

We arrived at Harbor Town just as predicted at 1800. The GPS chart plotter is very accurate! Not to take anything away from Kay's navigation however. She has always loved maps, or charts as we call them at sea, and has really taken to the job of sea born navigation, just as she always has on land.

In any case the Harbor Town marina is uniquely shaped as a bowl surrounded by oaks, pines, and of curse condominiums. The dock master meets you in a Boston Whaler to guide you to your berth. The overnight price includes a nice bottle of wine. We were tied up abeam the village commons with our stern facing the sound for a perfect setting to view the evening's fireworks.

We decided not to fight the restaurant crowds so we fired up our gas grill and cooked up some really nice filets. Kay made a great salad and baked potato and we enjoyed a pretty traditional 4th of July picnic with a few thousand of our newest friends.

Afterwards we took a walk through the village finding a Dove Bar for desert, and replenishing our dwindling supply of Diet Coke. There was a very festive crowd. Live Music came from all directions. It was a fine place to be.

With nearly two hours to kill before the fireworks we turned on the telly and I couldn't believe it, Tora, Tora, Tora, was on. A classic. It was filmed in 1969 in Honolulu, Oahu while I was there on the Ticonderoga, which appears briefly in the film. Of course she wasn't there at the time, but her keel was laid about the same time as mine, and though I served in her some 25 years later, she saw some famous action in the Pacific in 1944-45.

Anyway, "Tora" contains one of my other favorite historical quotes. When Admiral Yamamoto, the Japanese Navy Commander it told that the American Aircraft Carriers escaped from Pearl Harbor he says: "We have awakened a sleeping giant, and filed it with a terrible resolve". He was correct, and dead within two years, shot down by Navy fighters while traveling in his command sea plane transport.

We watched the fireworks with all of our new South Carolina friends. Although founded in 1663 as another proprietary colony by King Charles, the area was actually the site of the first European establishment in the New World when a Party from Hispanola tried to settle here in 1526. They were driven off by Indians and the biggest mosquitoes you have ever seen .

South Carolina was well represented at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and in time became the eighth state to ratify the Constitution in 1788.

Back to "Crisis" and "Tora". Both quotes seemed to me to nail the American psyche. We are slow to anger, but we know what's right, and we know what to do about anyone or any country who does us wrong.

So what has happened since those days. Should not 9/11 once more awakened the "Sleeping Giant". Why are we muddling around, unfocused on the problem of dealing with those who seek to destroy us and our way of life with far more destructive weapons than those available to King George or Emperor Hirohito.

Sorry to bring you, dear reader, back to reality from our pleasant 4th of July picnic, but I thought about all of those things last night as I fitfully fell asleep. I don't have the answers. Don't pretend to. But I hope there is coming a generation that does, for the sake of my kids and grandkids, and the generation of Americans yet unborn. This New World is to valuable to squander for fear or lack of resolve to face a Medieval challenge.

Enough of deep thoughts! We are at sea and making great time towards that town named for the King that set it all in motion. Charleston is only 6 hours away! We will dine on our favorite Low Country Grits and Shrimp tonight! Tomorrow we will clean ship, secure it for a rest, and head back to Austin for some rest ourselves.