CHAPTER ELEVEN: GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS

CHAPTER ELEVEN: GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS

We did it! We cruised out of Florida today, after being in that state since early May. Hurray! Nothing against Florida or their two faced Governor or their “Master of Make Believe” Senator (his parents were NOT fugitives of the Cuban Revolution; they came to Florida several years before Castro), but we are Soooo happy to be in Georgia. Despite the heat factor of 105 today in Jekyll Island, Georgia is such a welcome relief. We had to leave Florida before July 15 according to the boat’s insurance company, and we can’t return until November 1. This is to make sure we don’t jeopardize Slow Motion by having her in Florida during the tropical storm season. Oh, you heard about Debby, the tropical storm that sank our neighbor’s ship a few nights ago? Shhh, don’t tell the insurance company, or they’ll ban us from Florida for an even longer period. Crying real crocodile tears over that prospect. Seriously, we want to spend time in the Keys, and some of the marinas in North Florida were inviting and worth another visit (NOT Melbourne). But right now Georgia is on our minds.

The Jekyll Island marina offers a courtesy car and courtesy bicycles to get around on the island. There are 20 miles of bike trails. There are a lot of restored mansions, built by the Astors, Rockefellers and other .001 percenters, I mean really rich people, not hoi polloi like Romney. And there are wildlife parks too. Jekyll Island has a lot to offer. I would like to return here when the heat factor is well below 100. Did I mention that the marina has a swimming pool too? I don’t know how we’re going to fit all the activities we want to do into three hours tomorrow morning, but we’ll see what we can do. Early afternoon, we’re heading to the source of Brunswick stew, none other than Brunswick, Georgia. Oh yes, a hearty pork stew, when you’re drowning in your own perspiration and toweling off every 2 minutes. Doesn’t that sound yummy? I’ll be looking for some not so famous Brunswick ice cream, or just a simple Brunswick popsicle will do.

The traveling today was a bit hairy in the ICW. It only took four hours to go 32 miles from Fernandina Beach to Jekyll Island. But at times the channel was very narrow and not well marked, and we found ourselves in depths of 4 feet for a few short periods. Can you spell “run aground”? At other times, as we crossed large sounds and inlets leading directly to the Atlantic Ocean, we fought currents and we had few navigational signs to direct us across these waters. Fortunately, for part of the time, there was a boat a mile or two in front of us, and as long as she didn’t run aground, we were able to follow her path. We came very close to the Atlantic Ocean at St. Andrew Sound today, the closest a boat on the ICW comes until Norfolk, Virginia. We passed our second nuclear power plant, so we know that Florida has at least two, one in St. Lucie and one near Amelia Island. We also passed a well-protected naval base for nuclear submarines, which had a degaussing apparatus. That’s my new word for the day. Ask Art what it means. There were the usual few jerks that roar past you at breakneck speed, causing your boat to rock in their wake. They most likely have the same driving patterns on land. And there were a few courteous boat pilots, who announced their intentions to pass portside or starboard side. There was a smattering of fishermen, shrimp boaters mostly.

Bird life now includes a few pink flamingoes, some more egrets and pelicans, and the occasional heron or heron-like bird. The porpoises love to play with our boat, rearing out of the water just in front of us or just to the side of us. No manatee sightings. They must get a better retirement deal in Florida.

Industrial life perked up at Fernandina Beach, which has two huge paper mills, one at each end of town, both spewing out waste products, but our guidebook assures us that with the “help” of the EPA, the “waste products” are not nearly so plentiful or so toxic. So everything is “green” in the world of paper making, apparently. That doesn’t explain the huge pipes going from the plants into the ICW waterways, but it’s probably just “gray water” or water from the highest quality of recyclable paper. At any rate, two working paper plants mean jobs, and they’re hard to come by in Florida and elsewhere – so keep making those reams of paper!

Art and I went “out” to dinner – yes, our second time in three nights. There’s a restaurant, Sea Jay’s, at the marina that offered crab chowder. It was so thick with crab, there was hardly room for the chowder. And buttery, omigod. As someone who has not gone completely “native”, I ordered a hamburger. I’m holding out for the Chesapeake Bay butcher paper tables and the stacks of crabs that come all hot and spicy to those tables – and keep coming and coming and coming.

A word about air conditioning. We have air conditioning on the boat. I hate air conditioning. I love air conditioning today, but will probably hate it again in the future. It is Art’s lifeline. There have been a few minor disagreements over air conditioning, when, where, and how much. But today, as I said, I love, love, love air conditioning. Maybe that love/hate line is really close after all. Or maybe the heat has changed the molecules in my brain. Whatever it is, it’s great to be in sync with the Admiral on this seminal issue.

About disagreements in general, you can’t have as many on water as you have on land. There is clearly a hierarchy based on who has the most knowledge about boating. I am at best an apprentice and Art is, well, an Admiral. This can be very frustrating to a wordsmith trained to argue, as well as a feminist who insists on equality in all phases of my life. A certain measure of inequality appears inevitable, when only one of two persons has the knowledge and training necessary to make the key decisions. While I was fully capable of making the argument to the Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, I am not yet able to make assessments about what speed to run the boat engines to save fuel, what maneuvers to make to dock Slow Motion, what lines to use first to tie up the boat at the dock – just about any decision which protects our safety and the safety of the boat. The Admiral will always of a huge edge in the maritime knowledge and experience department. But I’m working to close the gap at least a little bit. Wish me luck.