Up at 5:15 a.m.- hauled anchor at first light about 6:15. Our destination today is the North River off Sapelo Island. We left with a rising tide which made the skinny water in Jekyll Creek passable. It took us 4 hrs. to gat to that point. It takes some of the anxiety away when you are registering 9 to 10 feet under the keel and in many places we saw 11 to 25.

Halfway up Cumberland Island we started getting striped horse flies (I downloaded an insect identifier app to find out what type they were) lighting on the canvas and swarming around. At first there were a few and then several. Fortunately they aren’t biting, they’re just annoying (very annoying).

It’s 1:30 as I’m writing this and it’s becoming more overcast with rain forecast for later this afternoon. We have approx. 9 miles to go which should put us at anchor no later than 3:30. I’ll continue this then.

Well we were just informed by John and Linda that these striped horse flies are also known as green heads. These flies are prolific in the low country and that’s where we are. They are so annoying! I finally closed up the boat and ended up killing 7 inside. As we were going up the Little Mud River at low tide we registered zero more than once on our depth sounder. I kept calling out the depths so Tom could concentrate on following the magenta line (supposedly the route to follow). John was ahead of us and was giving us instructions as to where to be as well - it was very, very stressful! We were about two miles from our anchorage in the North River and these last two miles were a real bear. We finally saw Red marker 182 and turned. By this time it was pouring rain and we could hardly see in front of us. I had put the side curtain down on the port side which was where the wind was coming from and grabbed our raincoats. John anchored and then we did. It was so good to be settled and turn off the engine.

It’s rained on and off the last couple of hours and is supposed to rain tomorrow as well. We’ll have to wait and see. The good thing about the rain is it cleared the green heads away, thank you and it has cooled it down.

Tom cooked the pork chops on the grill and it had stopped raining so we ate outside on the back deck. The temp. is cooling down which will make it great sleeping. The rain began again and is supposed to continue throughout the night and into tomorrow as well.

We have another long day ahead of us. We made reservations at Savannah Bend marina which is approx. 62 miles from where we are which means it will be at least a 12 hr. Day. I better post this now and get to bed. Maybe with the rain, the green heads won’t show up.

Traveled 54 nm in 9.4 hrs.