On to Jekyll Island; But First:

When I last left you, I was heading to pick up the Admiral to take her to lunch at The Olde Pink House in Savannah. Sadly, the Savannah Belles Ferry was not running and we had to hire an Uber and take the long way around from Hutchinson Island. Judging from the

The Admiral--Enjoying Lunch

Judging from the smile on her face though, the Admiral had a good time dining in the historic home built in 1771 for James Habersham, Jr., a wealthy planter. The Georgian style building was constructed of red brick and then painted over with white paint. The brick over time bled through creating the pink color. The Admiral enjoyed shrimp and grits for lunch. I dined on flounder with apricot shallo sauce--a bit sweet for my taste. Oh, and who knew you had to turn flounder over to eat the other side? By the way, the Admiral decided to take my picture after I took her's. I include it here because I am very proud of my ten day beard. Some things still work pretty well even at 76 which I turned today.

Cap Sporting His Ten-Day Beard

Having consumed a bottle of wine between us at a long, leisurely lunch, the Admiral dragged me by the ear to the prohibition museum. Remember the 18th Amendment? In any event, the museum contained countless pieces of memorabilia from the era, both pro and con on the issue. I share two that caught my eye:

On Wednesday, we departed IGY Savannah Harbor at 08:00 (Zero Eight Hundred Hours). The temperature had again dropped below freezing making me glad I'd brought the shore water hose in the night before. Handling frozen lines to cast off is neither fun nor easy but we made our getaway nonetheless to start our 115 mile journey to Jekyll Harbor Marina. Wouldn't ya know it: When we needed it most exiting the marina, no depth sounder reading and shortly thereafter, a nastygram on the chartplotter saying no connection to the autopilot. Naturally, a containership was upbound just downstream of us and he asked to pass port to port putting us on the shallow side of the river. Despite the Admiral's worries, we had plenty of space and plenty of water. Once we had passed the behemoth, we shut down and restarted everything. Voila, a depth reading and the autopilot worked too. When in doubt, reboot!

One hundred and fifteen miles is not a long day for us on the outside but twisting and turning through the ICW, observing no wake zones, giving slow passes to fellow boaters, and taking care in shallow, narrow channels slows you down dramatically. We managed to average 15 knots amd made it in 7.5 hours through a mix of charging along at 25 and poking along at 7 or less. We had such a long day because Jekyll Island offers the first decent marina southbound from Savannah. Our travels took us almost exclusively through miles and miles and miles of undeveloped saltwater marshes with the occasional inlet and beach. They are glorious and offer a definite saltwater wilderness feel.

You Just Can't Capture Extensive Saltwater Marsh Beauty

They provide shelter, food, and play space to dolphins and a wide variety of birds, some of which we saw including crested mergansers, great egrets, little egrets, a bald eagle, great blue heron, a belted kingfrisher (always my favorite) and, of course, cormorants. The Admiral observed that we had not yet seen an osprey and opined that they must be further south. It turns out not that much further south because there is one spending his winter here at Jekyll Harbor Marina.

As we were crossing the Brunswick River estuary just before reaching Jekyll Island, we encountered a large car carrier headed to sea. I wasn't sure if we could cross in front of him and slowed to check. Turns out that we could and did. Looking back on him, we

were very glad that we made it comfortable\y across ahead of him. Misjudging that timing could have led to a very unhappy incident.

After docking, securing lines, switching to shore power, and hooking up to shore water, we took advantage of a free golf cart to circumnaviate the southern portion of the island. It offers beautiful parks, three golf courses, biking trails, and other amenities incluing water parks and a convention center. We might have traveled longer but were under the strictest of admonitions given by the very pleasant marina administrator to have it back no later that 16:30.

Our marina, tucked under the new bridge to Jekyll Island, offered us a pretty sunset view as we walked home from an early supper of fried oysters at Zachary's Riverhouse.

Jekyll Island's ICW Compliant Bridge to the Mainland

Our After Supper View Walking Back to the Boat