Hilton Head South Carolina to Brunswick Georgia

My last post to this blog was on election day.  Since then I have taken few photos and focused my attention elsewhere, feeling that a blog was a silly and frivolous pastime. Now I've done all I can for the moment in the wake of the election. I will remain as engaged as possible, but here I am traveling and it's time for me to take back some of the daily joy of my nomadic, pre-election life. The sun is shining, the water and sky are deep blue, the birds are singing. Onward.

Sooooooooo...

In Hilton Head, we saw more destruction from hurricane Matthew than further north.  One guy we spoke with had ridden out the hurricane on his boat at Skull Creek Marina and said he saw winds of 94 mph. He said the eye of the storm lasted 4 hours. Here's a boat thrown far up on the shore, its jib in tatters. Some marinas were completely destroyed in the storm.

This was the Super Moon, which I didn't quite get at its most extreme size as it rose over the horizon, but the colors were fabulous.

One of the modest little summer cottages along the ICW

In Georgia, the tides are quite extreme. Like 9 feet. So sometimes the markers by which you navigate are almost submerged like the one below, while other times they are very exposed or even sitting completely out of the water on a shoal or muddy bank.

In Georgia we anchored in marshes for several nights, there being no towns or other signs of community for miles and miles at a stretch.  Those tides I mentioned above also mean that huge volumes of water rush in and out of streams, creeks and rivers ever 6 hours as the tide turns in the opposite direction. The resulting currents are strong, especially in narrow channels. One morning I had to raise the anchor through a huge mess of marsh grass that had lodged around the anchor chain, pushed by the current (see below, looking down from the bow over the anchor chain gummed up with debris). Impossible. I ended up laboriously shoveling marsh grass off the pile bit by bit with a boat hook. Pretty back-breaking work from 'way up on the bow of the boat.

Because the ICW depths are so affected in Georgia by the high and low tides and strong currents, many boats stay in touch with each other on the radio so that those further ahead can relay information about very shallow water or very fast adverse currents back to other boats following them. Here's a more exposed marker with lots of birds on it. The background gives a good idea of what Georgia looks like day after day on the ICW.  Three horizontal stripes - blue sky, gold marsh, blue water. It's quite beautiful at sunrise and sunset.

Fishing boats. Not sure where.

We are now at Brunswick Landing Marina in Brunswick Georgia. We rented a car for a few days to run some errands and visit nearby places like St Simons Island. Below is the St Simons lighthouse.

It was a lovely sunny warm day when we visited St Simons. This is the porch of the house attached to the lighthouse.

A gazebo near the lighthouse...

This is Christ Church in St Simons, an Episcopal church founded in 1736 (if you are reading this in Europe, don't roll your eyes - this is very old in the US :-)). Unfortunately the sun had begun to disappear by the time we got there. Otherwise the light and shadows would have been really beautiful.

The church is surrounded by massive live oaks, holly and cedar and the grounds are very peaceful. There is a cemetery on three sides. Some tombstones had little American flags and one or two had Confederate flags (always a bit of a shock to me), including this flag planted at the crumbling remains of a mausoleum.

While St Simons has lots of cute little shops and restaurants in the village, for me the churches were the most striking thing about the community. I should have taken more photos of them. Here is another...

The remains of Fort Frederica are on St Simons Island, now preserved as a National Park. The Fort was built to protect the first small colony of Georgia from invasion by Spanish troops from Florida.

We will be at Brunswick Landing Marina for a huge 100+ person cruisers potluck Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday. We were here 2 years ago and it was really fun. This marina is quite amazing - it has a huge lounge for parties, free washers and dryers, free beer all the time, three-times-a-week happy hours with free wine, film nights, an extensive lending library and free bicycles. Some people seem to find it very hard to leave here!!

If you are in the US, I wish you and yours a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving.