So Much to Share! Brunswick. Cattlepen Creek, Savannah!

Wow! We are living the dream. There is so much to share since my last post three days ago. Buckle up! We left St. Marys on a dark, rainy Monday afternoon with timing to ensure that we'd hit some shallow places on a middle rising tide. We held our breath a few times and crept through some shallows. We draw 3' 9" and when the fathometer says 4', you kinda pucker up. We passed Naval Submarine Base King's Bay early in the trip. There were Navy patrol ships on guard and we speculated about what they knew about us--Katahdin's cruising history, ownership, our global entry status, who knows. We stared down their arms, kept a direct course, and soon were looking at them in the virtual rear view mirror.

Other than the sub base and despite the dreary afternoon, the scenery astounded us--miles and miles of grassy wetland punctuated with trees on the slightly higher spots and abundant varied bird life.

We arrived in Brunswick (GA) late afternoon and the evening treated us with a generous sunset from our slip in the marina at Brunswick Landing.

A much bigger treat, however, involved meeting up with our wonderful friends, Sandy Paige and Meg Arnold, who had arrived the evening before to ready svKennebec for their trip to the Bahamas. We enjoyed a convivial dinner with them at Tipsy McSway's--a bar/restaurant and about the only thing open on a Monday night. We compared notes about our nautical adventures, caught up on each others kids, and just loved being together. The next night (Tuesday) Sandy and Meg included us in an Outbound 46 pot luck supper with their friends Madeleine, Adrian, Patrick and Annie. All three Outbounds are exploring the world by sail and it was great fun listening to them share adventures and compare sailing and boat notes. The evening was humbling for us given their offshore, trans-oceanic travel and plans though they all acknowledged that coast wise cruising requires greater and more continuous focus and concentration. Ahh to be young.

Wednesday, we headed off mid-morning to an anchorage in Cattle Pen Creek. What a gorgeous cruise. Once we left Brunswick's environs, we saw no development at all--only miles and miles of grassy wetlands, open sounds, and occasional woods. Our wake created a trail of apparently somewhat stunned fish fry and flocks of laughing and ring-billed gulls followed close behind us diving and collecting the booty. We also got a good look at white pelicans fishing. Unlike their brown pelican cousins who dive into the water from an airborne vantage point to capture their prey, white pelicans swim, angle their heads, and gulp fish near the surface. The other usual suspects, kingfisher, great egret, little blue heron, great blue heron, bald eagles and cormorant all entertained us along the way as well. It is just so much fun watching them do their thing in their own environments!

We did encounter one small cruise ship--American Liberty--on its way from Charleston to Amelia Island. We stood to the side of a narrow channel in six feet of water as American Liberty, drawing seven feet, cruised down the middle with inches to spare between us. As shallow as some of the waters were, I don't know how he was able to wind his way down the ICW at near low tide without grounding but apparently he did.

We arrived at the Cattle Pen Creek anchorage and set both a bow and stern anchor. We are getting better at anchoring and the Admiral commended me on our teamwork. Go Cap!

The anchorage proved to be gorgeous with only wetland and a few trees around us as far as you could see. The pictures below don't do it justice but they do give you an idea.

The next day we somewhat reluctantly weighed anchor around 9:00 and headed back to civilization in Savannah although all but the last 7-8 miles of the day's cruise were more of the same delightful undeveloped coastal wetlands. We have seen some incredibly beautiful places on this trip. America truly is a beautiful country.

We arrived at Hinckley Yacht Services in Thunderbolt, GA, an outskirt of Savannah. We are somewhat upstream from the ocean just past one of the bridges that leads down to Talahi and Tybee Islands. Our neighbors just across the way are shrimp boats. At Hinckley Yacht Services, though not exclusively, our neighbors are Hinckleys in various sizes. In most of the marinas we've been in, we are (in my own, unbiased opinion) without question the most beautiful boat there and I very seldom have boat envy. Here at Hinckley, hmm??

Yesterday, we toured Savannah on foot--both by ourselves and as part of a guided food and history tour. What an historic city! Founded by the British in 1733 on the banks and steep bluff adjacent to the Savannah River, it is the oldest city in Georgia and served as the the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later as the State's first capital.

Savannah rightly attracts millions of tourists a year to its old port area along the river and it serves as a major port for container ships much larger than the one I captured here:

Cobblestone streets lead up the steep sides of the bluff lined with warehouses situated on the riverbank but, because of the bluff, offering ground level entries on up to four stories.

And, at the top of the bluff founded on long pilings sits the original Savannah Cotton Exchange established in 1887--a Wall Street like emporium where cotton was priced and traded before being shipped around the world.

Although Savannah's founders originally envisioned an egalitarian society with freedom for all and no slavery, economic pressures and competition with other southern states put an end to that and slaves became an integral part of the state's cotton and other industries. This occurred despite the fact that blacks, many from Haiti, played a key role in supporting the American Revolution in Georgia and, indeed, several of them went back to Haiti and secured its freedom from France--the second colony in the Americas to become independent.

And, of course, Savannah played an early and lead role in the civil rights movement of the last century.

Probably America's first "planned" city, James Oglethorpe designed 24 town squares in Savannah, each of which serves a ward with its own church, grocery store, hardware store, etc. Though these squares were originally treeless, many of them today host magnificent live oaks.

No story of Savannah would be complete without talking about Johnny Mercer who penned Moon River, Autumn Leaves, and 1400 other tunes and made a fortune at Capitol Records, the recording company for the Beatles and many others. Later in the afternoon, we visited Bonaventure Cemetary, adjacent to Hinckley Yacht Services, where Mercer and many others are buried. It was also featured in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Today, we took our bikes and went for a great ride along the south channel of the Savannah River, just west of Fort Pulaski which traded back and forth between the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War and is one of the southernmost locations of the Underground Railroad.

One more story: Spanish moss grows ubiquitously on the live oaks of Savannah (and other parts of the south. But, it is neither a moss nor Spanish. A bromeliad native to the southern US and central and south America, the British named it Spanish moss because they thought it looked like the beards of Spanish soldiers. Henry Ford owned numerous acres of land in this part of Georgia and built a winter mansion on the banks of the Ogeechee River. He had another brilliant idea and he had bushels of Spanish moss collected which he shipped to Detroit to be the stuffing in seats for the Model T ford. There was only one problem. Spanish moss provides a comfy home for chiggers. Soon, the proud new owners of Model T's were itching and scratching like nobody's business. Ford recalled the cars, replaced the seats, and that was the first automotive recall in American history!

Sadly, I have to report that the Bosun has had a rough week and has been in sick bay. For several days, he only sneezed and slept--obviously feeling terrible. Last night he finally ate some food and today he is taking a somewhat greater interest in life. We're watching his health carefully, keeping him warm and well watered, treating him with shrimp, and hoping for the best.