Nov 13 and 14

We planned on travelling with our friends in the trawler for the next few days. They travel at about 10 miles per hour and we travel at about 8, so it meant some pretty early starts (6:15).

Leaving the Vernon River anchorage turned out to be more challenging than planned. It was a tiny bit misty when we upped the anchor but within 30 minutes it was a “pea souper”. The first 4 miles or so were OK since the river was fairly wide and using the autopilot to steer and the computer/GPS combination, we were able to easily stay in the middle of the channel. By slowing down, I hoped to be able to avoid anything stopped in the water in front of us. I noted that this fog did not stop the sport fishing boats from whizzing by.

Unfortunately, we then had to go through a narrow cut where the channel is only about 100 feet wide. The autopilot weaves too much to be of use in such a narrow channel. Except for the computer/GPS chartplotter, there were no visual clues as to whether we were in the channel or where it was. We slowed down to about 3.5 mph and weaved a lot. Again, had we been a deep draft sailboat, we would have gone aground several times. Fortunately, this cut was only about half a mile long.

When the fog did lift, around 8:30, it was like someone hit a light switch. It went from fog to clear within about 5 minutes.

We stopped the first night at Lanier Island in the middle of nowhere, but had a good dinner party. Joanne Marie made a wonderful stir-fry in Joannes words it was a grew-some dinner, going from a frying pan to filling a crock-pot.I had made appetizer of shrimp and made a delicious salad. To top it off Joanne had made a whiskey chocolate cake. Oh to have an oven.

The next morning saw us make a pre-dawn departure again. The water was incredibly still as may be seen by the reflection of the bridge.

The dawn was spectacular. The shot of the anchored ship is a reminder that we shared some of the waters (especially inlets) with some pretty large craft.

We arrived in St Mary’s just before noon. The St Mary’s River forms the border between Georgia and Florida. St Mary is on the Georgia side. We felt that we had achieved another milestone having hit the border and probably crossing over it back and forth as we went up the St Mary’s River.

The guy at the gas dock really did not want to bother to serve us, being much more interested in going to lunch. I found this unusual.

At St Mary’s, we were reunited with Wayne and Geraldine from Intuition who gave us a dingy tow into the town dock.

The town of St Mary’s is a very boater friendly, clean and pretty town. I gather that there is a major thanksgiving get together at that location. It is small, however, and there is just not a lot there. The harbour contains a number of wrecks. I am amazed that these appear not to have been salvaged. You would think that there would have been some good hardware on some of these after they sank.

Later that day, our friends, Bill and Judy, from Recess arrived. They had taken the outside route as their trawler draws 6 feet and much of the Georgia ICW would have been difficult for them to traverse. This meant a big get together and dinner party. Bev cooked her Stray Cat Pasta for all. They said it was wonderful guess it was the plates looked as tho Tuck and Teisha had cleaned them.

I think that Bill and Judy’s boat felt a little lonely during the dinner party because, at the change in the tides, it tried to visit. No damage was done, one of the dingies serving as a giant fender. What a fright tho, if Herb had not been outside admiring the moon, we definitely would have been rammed by the 80,000 lb trawler.