Arriving at Jekyll Island

Before I write a word re trip, I want to say that I never tie a line around a cleat without thinking of Jimmie White, my friend and sailing mentor at Beaver Lake Sailing Club.   He once saw me zigging and zagging my line around a cleat and not knowing how and when to end it. "Here, twist the loop and put it on that end," he said, " so the two lines lie beside each other.  Doesn't that look nice?"   And every time I do it, I think, doesn't that look nice?  And feel great to take it off easily with one hand.  Jimmie, I think of you so often on this trip.  You and Sue know so much more than we do, but we're older so we got to go sooner.  I know you two will be out cruising early next year and will be much better at it than we are.

Now, back to the tour . . .

This is Tom admiring one of the many old buildings in Fernandina, Florida.   We came here expecting to spend a week or two to have some reupholstery and boat work done.   But somehow, after having breakfast, dinner and ice cream cones in the town and spending that first night out on the mooring ball by the marina, we knew we'd probably just be passing through.  It's a great little town, but it's getting warm for sleeping and we want to keep going north.   We may find a place to plug in for a month during the warmest months and get some of that work done then.

 

As usual, we take the trusty dinghy back and forth from the town to the boat.  We've been using the screening the owners supplied to keep off the sun and sometimes the rain.





When we first arrived there was a most glamorous brown boat out near the edge of the mooring field.    By evening, this is how it looked.   And the next day it looked like the boat below.

It turns out the boat is in shallow water and the owner visits it and stays on it when it's upright and leaves it alone when not!   Another way to live!

Here is one reason we decided not to stay very long.  By day we didn't think much of the paper mill along the shore to our right.   But by night it looked like an inferno and smelled a strange sort of stink weed in the pig pen smell if you remember that.   And it sounded like the wind was blowing all the time even when it wasn't.

 

 

On Sunday there was nothing we could do for the boat so we decided to dinghy ahead about 7 miles up to Cumberland Island in Georgia.   It can only be reached by (ferry)  boat and private boat.    We came prepared to swim and not much else so we trapsed around the

island through the forest paths.

 

 

 

 

 then across to the beach side.  

 

 

 There we walked along the beach and then swam awhile before before heading back toward inland side.

 

 



 I liked this because one guy is sitting down on the job! 

 

 

Haven't looked him up but know I'll be impressed that he's special when I do. 

 

We walked along a boardwalk back toward ferry dock.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

We saw wild turkey and the wild horses  (real wild!) that live here.

 

 

 

 

 

Toward the end of the walk we came across the ruins of a mansion that a Carnegie family member built. 

 

 

 

 

 

All that was fine, but a thunderstorm came up just at the time we were to leave.  We decided to go for it.  So there we were, Tom gunning our 15 hp motored dinghy through the choppy waves and me sitting on a life preserver trying to brace myself for shock of the boat falling off a wave.  It rained lightly.   It was exciting to say the least so we were glad to get back to Tumbleweed Too, grab our stuff and go get a hot shower.   Then dinner in town.

Monday we bit the bullet and bought another  battery for the anchor windlass (the battery that helps Tom put out and bring in the 125 feet of chain and the anchor).  He HAS brought it in by hand (over hand) a couple of times and it's not fun.  The couple who sold us the boat bought us a brand-new battery, but it never acted right and we've never been confident it would store energy and work when needed.   So today we bought another and felt confident enough to start off on the at-least-four-day trip through Georgia where there will little or no access to provisions or help.  

 

Tom says he will take over for this part of the blog.