We have been working our way up the Georgia coast for about a week now and I have a love/hate relationship with Georgia. Why do I love thee, let me count the ways: first and foremost, it is very beautiful and interesting to explore. When we have been on the ICW it winds through low lands and is full of excellent bird life. Our trips to Cumberland and Jekyll islands were rich in natural beauty and very friendly to exploring on foot and by bike. We took a short excursion to Savannah and that too was great. I have wanted to see the squares since reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil a long time ago. The descriptions in the book were spot on (at least in my memory) and it is a beautiful city. We enjoyed a walking tour with Genteel and Bard (we would recommend them!) and learned a lot about the history of the city. I was particularly happy to learn about the prominent role that women have played in the preservation of the city and to see the birthplace of Juliet Low (I was both a girl scout and a scout leader). I have much less warm fuzzy feelings about Paula Wallace who is the founder and president of SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) which has a very strong presence in the city. SCAD is a “non-profit” college she founded about 40 years ago that seems more like a for profit entity run by a very clever businesswoman. Nonetheless, our taste of Savannah left us wanting to return and explore more one day.

Second reason, southern courtesy: There is lots of local boating activity on the Georgia ICW but unlike Florida, these boaters have been aware and/or respectful of their wakes which has made for a much more pleasant experience on Pathfinder. For those non-boaters, a wake is the wave that is created by a boat moving through the water and the size of the wake can be influenced by how fast the boat is going. Offshore has been similarly courteous and I have also enjoyed seeing the shrimping fleet out on the water (think Forrest Gump’s boat but bigger!).

Third reason, food. I love Georgia shrimp more than any other shrimp I have had before and I will be looking for it back home! Of course it has also been great to have ready access to American grocery stores again and their wealth of quality fresh produce (and of course cookies too 😊).

So, what’s not to love about Georgia…the pace of travel! Before you jump to conclusions, I realize that we are in this for the travel and adventure so slow is not all bad. The challenge for us now is we need to make progress towards home to fly to Sacramento to meet with our children on June 12. There is a saying that one of the most dangerous things to carry on a sailboat is a calendar, accordingly, we are not letting our timetable force us to make poor safety decisions. What makes it hard? Describing the Georgia ICW as winding is an understatement, it is very convoluted and there are lots of little inlets and islands to work around. This also means that the currents are all over the place, one moment it is with you and the next against you. Since we are trying to burn as little fuel as possible we would like to work with current. Add to all this shallow sections and huge tide swings- 8 feet in places and you get a sense of the challenges working up the Georgia ICW. So, why not make day jumps around the outside you may ask? Well, to get from an anchorage on the ICW to the ocean means using an inlet which are all crazy LONG and add 2-4 hours of travel to any trip up the coast. Since inlets are often shallow in spots and have shifty shoals they are best navigated at high or rising tides. Combine that with uncooperative weather and wind and you get a challenging area to move through! Turns out it was a tossup decision for time, we chose to do mostly outside jumps but Charlie did all inside and we were anchored together at the top of Georgia last night 😊.

I write this from Beaufort SC hoping that the worst of twisting, shallow ICW is behind us. We are hoping to make it to Charleston SC in the next few days and the ICW above that begins to get straighter so we should have easier travel. We are still hoping to do more outside work from Charleston to Cape Fear NC but that will depend on the wind and weather.