Day 298, Wednesday April 16th
Well we got through last night. By 2:00 a.m. the winds had dropped a bit and
the currents were fighting the wind versus teaming up with the wind to raise
our anchor. Julie was on anchor watch
till 2 am to make sure our swing was clear of the mud flats. She finally came to bed once the gusting
subsided a bit.
We slept until 6:30 to listen to the Chris Parker show which
was grim for the short term. Julie went
back to sleep though to try to catch up on her beauty rest. Chris indicated that the weather was not
favourable for sailing until next Monday so we have about 5 days to keep
ourselves entertained. Even to motor up
the ditch the winds will be on our nose so not a pleasant trip.
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| On our way to Cumberland Island Georgia |
The winds in the morning are not too high so we decide we
will dinghy into town at slack tide around 11:00 to try to get laundry done,
buy a few things we need (fresh shrimp straight off the boats), and post some
blogs. Unfortunately the winds picked up
to the point we were concerned about leaving the boat unattended so our field
trip was cancelled. Even taking the
dinghy to town we would be soaked as we are about 2 nautical miles away.
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| Julie in the neat forest |
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| Ranger station |
After some more discussion and thinking we decide we don’t
want to stay here. If we can’t visit
Fernandina Beach we might as well be on our way. We want to visit Cumberland Island, Georgia
that is just 7 miles away so we up anchor and head north. Cumberland Island is a state park which we
have been told is a must see. Its
biggest draw is a herd of wild horses.
At first we make good speed but about 3 miles into the trip we have wind
and current on the nose and our speed ranges from 2-4 knots an hour. Even Julie can run that fast! (Ross our son used to comment he could run
faster than the sailboat, which of course he could even when we were going our
max speed).
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| Peter and Julie |
Finally we make it to Cumberland Island, so we say our
good-byes to Florida. It is only about
12 degrees and cloudy so we are chilled to the bone once we have dropped our
anchor. It took us a bit over 2 hours to
go 7 miles. We stay with the ship for an
hour, to let the boat settle in and the current to change so it is lined up
with the wind and then head to shore on a quick look see. This is a much better anchorage as the land
to the east has protection from land and trees as opposed to the marsh we had
been parked in.
Cumberland Island is a national park with a rich
history. On shore there are wild horses,
alligators and various other normal animals.
Peter from Sarah G, has joined us and he is an archeologist so it is fun
to explore the shore with him as he recognizes lots of stuff we would normally
overlook. We found pottery from the
natives that inhabited the area from 2000 BC to 950 BC, so kind of neat. We only spend a couple hours on shore as we
will do a more thorough visit tomorrow.
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| Dawson, Lynn, Ian, Julie and host Hamilton |
We head back to the boats for “current change”, so that we
are aboard when the water shifts from an ebb to a flood tide. The tides are about 7 feet here and it
effects the way we sit at anchor. We
need to be careful not to bash into the neighbouring boats. All seems good, so we buzz over and pick up
Lynn and Ian from Windward as we have been invited over to the Sarah G. Sarah G is an 80 some foot schooner owned by
Hamilton Carter of Dingwall, Nova Scotia.
We were supposed to visit with him and Peter last night but the high
winds had prevented it so tonight he is hosting “sundowners”.
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| Sarah G |
We have a great visit, with Peter and Ham, along with
Windward, but we don’t overextend our visit as the winds are staying high and
we need to get back to our boats to monitor the anchors. This anchor watch stuff is becoming annoying,
along with the cold. We should have
stayed in the Bahamas another 2 weeks at least.
Oh well!
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
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