Moving, moving, moving.... SOUTH!

 Here is part of the crew at Kingsley Plantation on Amelia Island. This is now a park that teaches us about one of the many large plantations that grew cotton and other products using thousands of slaves. The buildings shown here are pretty much all the same size, 12 X 20, where families lived to provide labor for these incredibly wealthy landowners. The story of slavery is a very ugly one. There were many powerful people all over the nation that thrived on the system, especially in New York and Rhode Island, of all places. I, of the north remember being taught most of the shame was souther.

I'm chowing down at an oyster roast at our marina. You do learn how to open the little buggers, which is a lot easier when they are steamed than when they're raw. People down here are serious about their oysters. I prefer them fried, of course.

The big news on this blog is the addition of Charlie to the Adirondack family. We are just so excited to have him aboard that we're going to wait to see how he works out before we introduce him.

We left the marina on February 25 and motored down to a favorite anchorage called "Bull River," somewhere on the Intra Coastal Waterway in South Carolina. It's hard to tell where you are in these parts because the waterway isn't anywhere near any population centers for much of the time. If it weren't for our GPS system which tracks us exactly to an accuracy of six feet (really) we would be lost. I remember this anchorage because Bob Meyenburg and I got caught on a crab pot line last time we were through here. the water was cold, murky with a very fast current. I did not want to dive in to free it. Thankfully we had installed a line cutter at our last haulout and it did the job.

After another night in a nondescript spot called Herb River (and you can see where all these are by looking at our SPOT locations on this page) we pulled in to the Kilkenny River. This is a tiny little place in Georgia that has a fantastic restaurant called "107," noted for the marker on the ICW. People come all the way here from Savannah to eat and we can see why. There is a beautiful and calm place to anchor in the river just about the town, just make sure you slow down as you motor through town.

The weather is getting cooler. We tried out our electric motorcycle vest for the first time. Many boats like this have enclosed flybridges so you can drive from up top without wind and rain. Ours doesn't. The vests help. We woke to 31 one morning. But it was -20 in Minnesota.

We anchored right outside Cumberland Island and dinghied ashore for an eight mile hike on the wide Atlantic beach and viewed the remains of the Vanderbilt mansion. Wow, those folks had some real money. This area is right next to Kings Island, a huge submarine base. We went through here once and were halted by the coast guard because we looked threatening to the huge submarine that passed by. We kept our depth charges well hidden.

We stopped at Fernandina Beach and tied up to provision for Steve and Artis, our service auction guests. We also had a bit of rope work that needed to be done, that being to re-secure the anchor line to the chain. Someday we are going to learn this art, but to have it fail would be a disaster, so we barter the procedure with wine or cash. This time we found a local captain who slept until noon and showed up then at our jobsite with one open can of beer and a reaserve in the pocket. After three tries (and all the beer) it looks like he got the job done. We'll see if it comes loose!

So later on we walked a considerable distance to the grocery store, expecting to take a cab back with our provisions. Well, who did we meet at the grocery store? Our favorite captain, that's who, reprovisioning with beer, and a few vegetables, I should add, but just including the beer makes it more salty. He had arranged for a couple locals in an old broken down pickup to transport him back and forth to the store and extended their services to us, so we got a ride back to the marina, bouncing along in the back. We were the only ones without a beer can, but made it safe and sound.

This morning we are at Beach Marina in Jacksonville Beach. It's 55, warmer than it has been. It was 82 and gorgeous when we picked up Artis and Steve at Jacksonville, but colder now. And this brings up another great story. We were parked there at the free dock at Jim King Park waiting for them to show up from an expensive cab ride when Brown Alton showed up. He describes himself as a gretter and all-around doer of good deeds. He insisted upon driving them back from the airport and provided them with quite the cook's tour on lots of other stories.

Somehow my system here is going to let me post pictures again, so I might have even more next time.  Capt. Jeff