Savannah to Daytona Beach

We left Thunderbolt Marina late in the morning and moved just a few miles downstream to an anchorage near a Publix grocery store. You really rely on the various guidebooks you buy to give you this local knowledge. You also learn to appreciate an air-conditioned car - which we obviously weren't in! It was hot and steamy lugging two large boat bags full of groceries back to the dinghy dock ($10 to tie up!) and then row back to the boat. Thunderstorms threatened all around us so we elected to stay there for the night.

Off the next day through the Georgia lowlands. Miles and miles of twisting narrow channels through what is basically swampland.

Many of the channels are very narrow and you have to use range markers to keep in the middle. The idea is to line up the two signs as you proceed up the channel; we must have used 15-20 of these during the day. As you can see we didn't always get it right.

The other fun part of the swamp is the hordes of horse flies. So one of us steered and the other swatted flies. Here's one days crop from just the upper helm area.

We made about eighty miles and anchored across from the Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simon's Island. The Fort was constructed by Colonel Oglethorpe in 1736 to defend the town of Frederica from the nasty Spaniards who lived in St, Augustine. Not much left of it now.

 Hot night again so we started the generator to power the air conditioning; that lasted about an hour when we started to smell some fumes and the damn thing shut itself off. Great - more fun the bilge. But that will wait for another day.

Off early on Sunday, May 29th, back onto the ICW, through St. Simon's Sound, past the once ultra-elite Jekyll Island (owned by the Vanderbilts, Morgans, etc.), then Kings Bay (the USN nuclear sub base) and then Fernandina Beach - that's where the fun started. It's Memorial Day weekend and everyone with a boat is on the water, going as fast as they can and as close to us as possible just to see us rock and roll in their wakes. That went on for miles until we finally called it quits and anchored across from a public boat ramp. Here's part of the herd heading for the ramp.

The next day we crossed the St. John's river which leads to Jacksonville and then crossed Cumberland Sound with it's abandoned lighthouse.

And then through St. Augustine, founded in 1565 and the oldest established settlement in the US.

With it's Castillo de San Marcos fort built by the Spaniards.

And it's huge lighthouse which you can go into and climb up to the top.

Then a long afternoon run to Daytona Beach where we got a slip at the Halifax Harbor Marina. The next few days will be work days as we replace or repair both heads and figure out what went wrong with the generator.
We've gone almost 900 miles so far and figure we have another 400 to go.