Getting Buggy in Georgia

I had opportunity to leave the boat by two ways early this morning either by bugs carrying me off or being scared enough to fall!  We have traveled over 5,600 miles and not once been bothered by biting insects...until this morning! They came by hordes, sandflies, as I was washing down the anchor. This was a slow job this morning due to the thick mud. 

At my post with anchor retrieval, I was being eaten up and I could not leave the anchor to grab some bug-off spray. I asked the Captain to do it but doubted he heard me from the bridge where he was standing by to move the boat if need be to loosen the anchor....we are now pretty adept at hand signals.  So just as I was concentrating on a stubborn amount of mud clinging to the chain he walked up behind me.  At that moment another critter bit into me and I slapped the back of my neck with my free hand. The Captain interpreted that to mean “Here... Spray me HERE!” Well, a second later he did and I jumped and was so startled I nearly tripped.....

As we came close to an inlet today we saw this cute little light house.  And notice the displaced channel marker buoy on shore!!!  

Beautiful blue water beyond the inlet.

We didn't go out in the big water yesterday due to seas at 4 feet (4 ft waves) AND they would have been abeam...rolling us from side to side...the worse way to move on the water.  And today we saw very few inlets that didn't have shoaling making it hard to know where to put the boat without local knowledge.

This is the Sydney-Lanier Bridge at Brunswick, GA.

As you look in the distance the water looks blue.

But then straight down you can see how muddy it really is today.

We hardly saw anyone else along the way on this Sunday. Usually on the weekends the waterway is filled with boats.  Perhaps they were waiting on the tide to rise?  The tide was low...running out the inlets behind us and slowing us down by several knots.  We did pass this catamaran .

We thought this boat might be aground until we saw his anchor chain.  He was anchored very close to the channel but probably just waiting on the tide to rise.  

This was the majority of our view today, just acres and acres of grassy marshes.

Here you can see how low the tide is and again today we had to slow down and watch the depth gauge as it got lower and lower!

This marker is suppose to be IN the water! Tide was out...

These are the beautiful white Florida pelicans. You can only see the black marks on their wings when they are flying or getting ready to fly.

We saw this every time we passed an inlet....the BLUE ocean water rushing in to meet the muddy ICW.

A sail boat we passed...motoring as usual and not a sail in sight.

We are docked at Kilkenny Creek Marina...an old rickety floating dock but so glad to be here.  A sailboat came in after us and said they had tried to anchor and could not...current is very strong here.

Walter is getting out our electrical cords to hook us up. We have acquired quite a beard on the front of the boat from this muddy trip.

Tomorrow we hoped to be at Thunderbolt (Savannah, GA) as we work our way up the East coast toward home.