Day 63 - 7 February

Today we learned the eleventh commandment..."Honor thy red and green marks!" More on that later. Today was a cool and clear day with the wind from the west as Greg and Judy on My Destiny and Sarah and Joe on Windreka departed our facing slips at Brunswick Island Marina at 9AM. Our first stop was the fuel dock to top off for our trip to Florida.

After topping off our diesel tanks, we got underway at 10AM and headed south and across St Simons Sound. We left on a high tide to have enough water under our keels when we worked our way through the winding creeks and marshes of Georgia. But it wasn't enough. We set a new record for the trip by touching bottom TWICE today! It wasn't easy but we rose to the task. The charts showed the deep water on the wrong side of a pair of navigation buoys and so we ignored the standards...red right returning, green right going, etc...and our instincts. Sure enough the water got really thin and next thing we knew we bumped...not hard and not a major problem...but really annoying since we had to reverse engines and back off the low spot to realize we had done something really stupid. So, the eleventh Commandment is "Honor thy red and green marks." However, we know the Corps of Engineers is inadequately funded to keep the shoaling under control and maintain the so-called 12 foot controlling depth of the ICW properly dredged. Sorry, we don't have any photos of the excitement since we were having too much fun to document the event. There were no witnesses but the birds and fish around us and I don't think they'll be too helpful if anyone wanted to reconstruct the events.

The next-most exciting event today happened as we were sailing past the Kings Bay Submarine Base. We were approached by a fully armed US Coast Guard boat that approached us at high speed as we were motoring slowly by the Naval installation in the shipping channel. The polite and professional "Coasties" went out of their way to make certain they didn't scare us any more than your ordinary sailor and sailboat armed with cannons and other suitable weaponry might do to an unarmed recreational sailor. After they finished inquiring about our welfare and how well we were enjoying our sail, they asked us to keep to the outside of the shipping channel so the nuclear submarine they were escorting home to Kings Bay wouldn't be late! We thanked them for their dedication and service and promply moved out of the channel as the big black submarine slid past us. We sleep sounder knowing our Coast Guard, our Navy, and our military forces are keeping watch.

Toward the end of our days travels, we passed some watermen at work on the river on their boat. As we turned to follow the creek up to our anchorage, we passed some of the wild horses that inhabit Cumberland Island and we resolved to come back to visit the Cumberland Island wildlife preserve when the weather is a bit more pleasant. As this is being written a light rain is falling and the sound on the hull and the sound and motion of the water under the boat is relaxing...enough to remind us that we are very fortunate to be able to spend time on the water. Now if the darned anchor will only hold, everything will be fun and games!