Georgia On My Mind

Well, we hopped skipped and jumped our way from Cocco Village Marina, out of the ICW and back out into the Atlantic Ocean. I have to confess it was a real relief to get back out and sail, don’t get me wrong the ICW has a charm of its own, it’s particularly safe and when you’ve had enough you can just pull over and sleep, but you have to watch your depth, all the time, which is exhausting!

So we planned our first port of call just inside the St Johns River, past the huge Jacksonville naval base into the  great little marina at Mayport, run by a guy called Greg from the Morningstar group of marinas, not a great deal there, but a friendlier team you couldn’t wish for.

Something else we discovered, just in sight of the marina there was a plaque explaining that this was the spot where the first Huguenots landed in 1562, unfortunately they were slaughtered by the local spanish at the time, ironically this Huguenot landed in the same place some 457 years later and managed to escape unharmed by Spanish or locals!

Mayport Marina suited us for the overnight we needed to get up to Brunswick the next day as there wasnt another stop inbetween, so at around daybreak, at 6ish we ventured out of the St Johns River and back into the Atlantic once again, its was a bout a 60-mile run, weather was fine, decent litle breeze although not enough to maintain the 6-7 knots we needed to avoid the rain and thunderstorms Forcast for later that afternoon early evening. The trip up was fairly uneventful, although as we started to plot our final approach for the Saints Simons Sound two very large black storms started to converge on the estuary mouth, they danced back and forth grumbling away to one and other, but eventually decided to commence battle right over our heads as we ended the Sound. the banging and crashing was deafening and the skies just opened and deluged several tons of rain into the sea, making our visibility virtually disappear to the point where for at least 30-40 minutes we buoy hoped our way in thru the channel.

As soon as we passed under the huge Sidney Lanier Bridge the clouds parted, the sun came out and we coasted out of Florida and in the state of Georgia and into our berth at Brunswick Landing Marina.

 

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