Fort George River, Florida

Our goal for today is simply to reach Florida -- we are perhaps 30 miles away from the border and , as beautiful as Georgia has been, we are ready to enter the "home stretch" for our trip home. The route is straightforward -- we cross Jekyll sound and take the Cumberland River which runs down the back of Cumberland Island, the largest and longest of all of Georgia's Sea Islands (17 miles long) -- the border is halfway across St. Mary's inlet at the bottom of that island.

Lighthouse on north end of Cumberland Island

Jekyll Sound has lots of shoaling in it, so much so that we were told by the locals to not respect a red marker near the entrance as things had "shoaled up quite a bit out there" -- there was enough depth behind the marker for us to slip by it, which is what we did -- always good to check local knowledge when you can.

About 2/3 of the way down the Cumberland River, it goes right by the home port of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic ballistic missile submarine fleet -- King's Bay. Needless to say, there was plenty of security around the area, keeping us away from the docks. The guidebook said that there are times when a patrol boat might "intercept you and direct you to come to a full stop well off the Intercoastal with bow pointed to shore until a naval vessel clears the area" -- -- even Norfolk didn't have that kind of warning -- extra precautions because of the nukes?

Military installations always have strange looking buildings

This is as close as we got; the sub's conning tower ins behind the patrol boat

Not sure what this is -- yet another strange "building" !

St. Mary's Inlet was busy but easily navigated -- we made it to Florida! -- "just" 300 miles to go :-)

We entered the Amelia River, which, unsurprisingly, separates Amelia Island, the first barrier island in Florida, from the mainland. Fernandina beach is the first big town in on the island and sadly, it is very industrial (ugly and smelly) for the first few miles along the Intercoastal. Eventually however, it turned residential and we started seeing one of the defining characteristics of Florida's Intercoastal, residential developments built-on on man-made canals.

 Scenes along the Way:

Pelicans& friends on the Point

Industrial Fernandina Beach (Amelia Island)

Coast guard practicing pursuit manoeuvres off Amelia Island

More Industrial yuck at the North end of Amelia

Residential Amelia -- a very long boardwalk connecting a house to its dock !

We had originally picked an anchorage a few miles from the border but as we approached it and more carefully read all of our guides, we decided to pass on it -- the guides differed on whether the anchorage had shoaled up and the more negative guide said that some boats had reported that the anchorage was "totally dry at low tide" -- didn't sound like our kind of place.

Unfortunately, the next available option, the Fort George River anchorage, was 15 miles away. The anchorage itself sounded lovely -- a state park with a well preserved Plantation on it; but, we'd be fighting current and getting in after 5, making this one of our longest and most tiring days.

We arrived at the entrance to the river around 5, but there was one more challenge is store for us. The guidebook suggested using two marks as a "range" to establish a path into the river that avoided shoaling at  its entrance -- when we tried it, the bottom came up very quickly and we rapidly found ourselves in very shallow water. After backtracking and re-probing the river a couple of times on different paths, I found the deep way in nothing like the suggested range -- the shoaling had clearly moved.

The anchorage itself was lovely with salt marsh on one side and an island with the Plantation on the other. We were to tired to swim or cook -- we ate light and called it a day -- but not before putting up our shields -- the guide said no-see-ums might be an issue and they were -- they drove us off the deck well before dusk was over.

Plantation house hiding behind the palm trees .....

.... and the salt marsh across the way